Michael Munger on How Adam Smith Solved the Trolley Problem

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

In the original version of a now classic thought experiment, five people are about to be killed by a runaway trolley. Would you divert the trolley knowing that your choice will kill a single innocent bystander? Listen as Michael Munger of Duke University argues that Adam Smith gave an answer to this challenge a few hundred years before it was proposed by the philosopher Philippa Foot and brought vividly to life in the miniseries, The Good Place. Along the way, Munger and EconTalk's Russ Roberts discuss effective altruism, the moral claims of Peter Singer, what the trolley problem really tells us, if anything, and how our moral choices differ according to context.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics
0:07.0	and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:13.0	Institution.
0:14.0	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.6	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:29.8	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.8	Today is August 28, 2023, and my guest is Michael Munger of Duke University.
0:43.3	He hosts the podcast, The Answer Is Transaction Costs.
0:47.4	This is Mike's 46th appearance on econ talk.
0:51.2	He was last year in June of 2023, talking about obedience to the unenforceable.
0:57.2	Michael, welcome back to econ talk.
0:59.2	Thanks, Russ.
1:01.2	Our topic for today is an essay you wrote on the trolley problem in Adam Smith.
1:05.2	I want to add, we're probably going to get into some serious themes related to death.
1:11.2	Parents may wish to screen this episode before sharing it with children.
1:15.2	Let's start with the trolley problem.
1:17.2	The ages ago, back in 2015, we did an episode with Joshua Greene, Harvard University,
1:22.2	that spent some time on this philosophical hypothetical.
1:26.2	What is the trolley problem?
	...

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