David Edmonds on Trolley Problems

Philosophy Bites

Nigel Warburton

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2013

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is it ever morally acceptable to kill one person to save many? Most people agree that in some extreme circumstances this, though psychologically difficult, can be the right action to take. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, Nigel Warburton interviews David Edmonds (co-creator of the Philosophy Bites podcast) about the life and death thought experiments known as Trolley Problems. David Edmonds book about Trolley Problems Would You Kill the Fat Man? will be published in Autumn 2013 by Princeton University Press.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.
0:07.0	If you enjoy Philosophy Bites please support us.
0:10.0	We are currently unfunded and all donations would be gratefully received.
0:14.0	For details go to W.W. philosophy bites.com.
0:18.0	Is it ever acceptable to take one life to save five?
0:22.0	To discuss this topic we have an unusual guest who's written about this.
0:26.4	You may recognize his voice.
0:28.0	David Edmonds, welcome to Philosophy Bites.
0:30.7	Good to be here, I've heard great things about the show. The topic we're going to focus on is the trolley problem.
0:36.0	Could you just begin by outlining what the trolley problem is?
0:39.0	Well in fact there are lots of trolley problems. In fact they've been given a name trolleyology these
0:44.5	are all thought experiments and the first and most basic one is you imagine that a
0:49.6	train is running out of control we talk about trolleys but in fact it's easier to talk about trains the train is running out of control. We talk about trolleys but in fact it's easier to talk about trains. The train is running out of control. It's going down the track. The brakes have failed and on the track ahead of the train five people are tied. They're going to be killed unless something is done.
1:05.1	You're standing by the side of the train, you can turn a lever which will turn the train
1:09.4	down a sidetrack. Unfortunately, on that sidetrack, one person is tied to the track. The question is,
1:16.2	should you turn the lever and turn the train onto the sidetrack to kill one person to save the five?
1:21.5	What's interesting about that problem is that if you ask
1:25.2	people what they should do, pretty much everybody thinks you should turn the train and
1:29.8	kill the one to save the five. So that's a straightforward case difficult because you'd have to act quickly.
1:35.7	You might feel psychologically traumatized by it, but you would be doing the right thing.
1:40.8	Most people think if you flick the lever, the train's diverted, it kills one person instead of five you sacrifice
1:46.1	one to save five that's right now there's another trolley problem known as the
	...

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