Self-Sacrifice and the Trolley Problem
Philosophical Psychology:1-11 (forthcoming)
| Abstract | Judith Jarvis Thomson has recently proposed a new argument for the thesis that killing the one in the Trolley Problem is not permissible. Her argument relies on the introduction of a new scenario in which the bystander may also sacrifice herself to save the five. Thomson argues that those not willing to sacrifice themselves if they could may not kill the one to save the five. Bryce Huebner and Marc Hauser have recently put Thomson’s argument to the empirical test by asking people what they should do in the new trilemma case in which they may also sacrifice themselves. They found that the majority judge that they should either kill the one or sacrifice themselves; Huebner and Hauser argue that those numbers speak against Thomson’s argument. But Thomson’s argument was about the dialectical effect of the new trilemma on the traditional dilemma, rather than about the trilemma itself. Here I present the results of a study in which I asked subjects first what they should do in the trilemma and then what they should do in the traditional Trolley Problem. I found that, if asked first about the trilemma, subjects then have the intuition that killing the one in the traditional Bystander at the Switch is not permissible – exactly what Thomson’s argument had predicted. | |||||||||
| Keywords | double effect trolley problem self-sacrifice experimental philosophy | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
  |
| External links |
|
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMarc D. Hauser & Bryce Huebner (2011). Moral Judgments About Altruistic Self-Sacrifice: When Philosophical and Folk Intuitions Clash. Philosophical Psychology 24 (1):73-94.
Alec Walen & David Wasserman (2012). Agents, Impartiality, and the Priority of Claims Over Duties: Diagnosing Why Thomson Still Gets the Trolley Problem Wrong by Appeal to the “Mechanics of Claims”. Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (4):545-571.
Chris Heathwood (2011). Preferentism and Self-Sacrifice. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1):18-38.
Judith Jarvis Thomson (1976). Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem. The Monist 59 (2):204-217.
Anton Tupa (2009). Killing, Letting Die, and the Morality of Abortion. Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (1):1-26.
Ezio Di Nucci (2013). Double Effect and Terror Bombing. In T. Spitzley, M. Hoeltje & W. Spohn (eds.), GAP.8 Proceedings. GAP.
Alessandro Lanteri, Chiara Chelini & Salvatore Rizzello (2008). An Experimental Investigation of Emotions and Reasoning in the Trolley Problem. Journal of Business Ethics 83 (4):789 - 804.
B. C. Postow (1989). Thomson and the Trolley Problem. Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (4):529-537.
I. Dalferth (2010). Self-Sacrifice. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68 (1):77-94.
Michael Gorr (1990). Thomson and the Trolley Problem. Philosophical Studies 59 (1):91 - 100.
K. D. (2003). Nietzsche and the Eternal Return of Sacrifice. Research in Phenomenology 33 (1):167-185.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-02-01Total downloads126 ( #3,794 of 549,093 )Recent downloads (6 months)31 ( #1,404 of 549,093 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
