Would You Kill the Fat Man? : The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong / David Edmonds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edmonds, David, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thought experiments.

Ethics.

Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965--Miscellanea.

Churchill, Winston.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (239 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A runaway train is racing toward five men who are tied to the track. Unless the train is stopped, it will inevitably kill all five men. You are standing on a footbridge looking down on the unfolding disaster. However, a fat man, a stranger, is standing next to you: if you push him off the bridge, he will topple onto the line and, although he will die, his chunky body will stop the train, saving five lives. Would you kill the fat man? The question may seem bizarre. But it's one variation of a puzzle that has baffled moral philosophers for almost half a century and that more recently has come to preoccupy neuroscientists, psychologists, and other thinkers as well. In this book, David Edmonds, coauthor of the best-selling Wittgenstein's Poker, tells the riveting story of why and how philosophers have struggled with this ethical dilemma, sometimes called the trolley problem. In the process, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the history of moral philosophy. Most people feel it's wrong to kill the fat man. But why? After all, in taking one life you could save five. As Edmonds shows, answering the question is far more complex--and important--than it first appears. In fact, how we answer it tells us a great deal about right and wrong.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures

Prologue

Acknowledgments

Part 1. Philosophy and the Trolley

Chapter 1. Churchill's Dilemma

Chapter 2. Spur of the Moment

Chapter 3. The Founding Mothers

Chapter 4. The Seventh Son of Count Landulf

Chapter 5. Fat Man, Loop, and Lazy Susan

Chapter 6. Ticking Clocks and the Sage of Königsberg

Chapter 7. Paving the Road to Hell

Chapter 8. Morals by Numbers

Part 2. Experiments and the Trolley

Chapter 9. Out of the Armchair

Chapter 10. It Just Feels Wrong

Chapter 11. Dudley's Choice and the Moral Instinct

Part 3. Mind and Brain and the Trolley

Chapter 12. The Irrational Animal

Chapter 13. Wrestling with Neurons

Chapter 14. Bionic Trolley

Part 4. The Trolley and Its Critics

Chapter 15. A Streetcar Named Backfire

Chapter 16 The Terminal

Appendix: Ten Trolleys: A Rerun

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-212) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Nov 2019)

ISBN:

9780691165639

0691165637

9781400848386

1400848385

OCLC:

858652958