Happy #trolleyday!
Today's the birthday of Philippa Foot, the mother of one of the best known ethical dilemmas of our time: the 'trolley problem'.
Read more here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_p….
The original trolley problem:
A brakeless trolley nears.
If you don't act, 5 people will die.
If you change its track by pulling the lever, only 1 will die.
What will you do?
#trolleyday #trolleyproblem
A variation of the trolley problem:
A brakeless trolley nears.
If you don't act, 5 people will die.
If you push a fat man from an overpass, he will die while stopping and saving the 5 on the trolley track.
What will you do?
#trolleyday #trolleyproblem
The minimalist trolley problem:
Trolley nears.
5 will die.
Pull lever: 1 dies.
What now?
#trolleyday #trolleyproblem
The trolley problem fallacy:
Perceiving the world as a collection of pullable levers.
#trolleyday #trolleyproblem
"Pulling the lever is murder."
- Your deontologist friend
#trolleyday #deontology #trolleyproblem
"I don't like #trolleyday at all."
- Big man on overpass
Beware of utilitarians near trolley overpasses today!
#trolleyday
Never miss Philippa Foot's birthday (#trolleyday) again:
order the 2019 @EthicsInBricks calendar here:
tinyurl.com/ethics77
To celebrate #trolleyday 2018, Lisa pulled all levers she saw on her path home.
The dilemmas related to autonomous cars resemble moral choices from the trolley problem.
Should the brakeless autonomous car throw itself in the ravine, or should it kill Jeremy Bentham?
#trolleyday
A variation of the trolley problem:
5 people die if they don't receive a different vital organ.
1 healthy person enters with all 5 vital organs functioning.
Is it better to save the 5 by killing the 1?
#trolleyday
If there are no passengers, the trolley from the original problem does not leave.
To what extent are passengers in the original trolley responsible for the fate of the people on the trolley track?
#trolleyday
"Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else; they haunt us"
- Susan Sontag (commenting on pictures shared with hashtag #trolleyday)
My final #trolleyday tweet:
Some have argued that the trolley problem is too "armchair-ish": too unrealistic & too amusing (see researchgate.net/publication/26…).
Should we replace the trolley problem in ethics education with another dilemma? Or do you have alternative suggestions?
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.