trolley problem

This note last modified October 24, 2024

#todo

A famous ethical problem. A trolley is heading towards 5 people who are, for some reason, tied to the trolley tracks. You can pull a lever to cause the trolley to go off track, hitting one person instead. Do you do it?

list of variations

moral machine
- an MIT project of crowdsourced philosophy aiming to understand the trolley problem through the lens of AI vehicles
modify moral dilemmas
- A good way to really hit home with moral dilemmas is to modify them slightly to mess with whatever implicit moral theory someone is using to solve them. Aka mess with a utilitarian by turning the trolley problem into the fat man problem
looped trolley problem
- Ostensibly the DDE can explain the difference between the trolley problem and the fat man problem since you don’t intend to kill with the trolley problem.
ethical thinking
- For example, you can tell people what the right or wrong answer is in the trolley problem, or you can help them break down the various factors and let them come to their own conclusion.
Would You Kill The Fat Man-Edmonds
- Brings up an interesting variation of the trolley problem, the Churchill problem
Who am I - professionally
- These interests arose from a course I taught in undergraduate where I used games like The Stanley Parable, The Talos Principle, and The Witness to teach philosophy. Why read about the trolley problem, when you can instead play through it yourself?
SPUR
- Another name for the original trolley problem
Churchill problem
- A variation of the trolley problem:
Challenges to Moral Engagement-Svelch
- Further discusses intuitionism as the decider between the trolley problem and fat man problem