Review by Choice Review
This is a witty and informative discussion of the trolley problem in philosophical ethics by Oxford University researcher Edmonds (coauthor, with John Eidinow, of Wittgenstein's Poker, 2001). Roughly, the trolley problem is a thought experiment. The basic form of the problem involves a runaway train heading toward five innocents who have been tied to the track. Someone could save them by flipping a switch that will turn the train onto another track, but a person is tied to that track, too. The question then becomes, what is the moral or ethical thing to do? Edmonds tracks the development of the trolley problem from its first formulation through current psychology and cognitive science. Through a highly informed yet not technical discussion, readers get an excellent introduction to some main lines of 20th-century moral philosophy. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. B. T. Harding Texas Woman's University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Two books center on an enduring thought experiment and the moral considerations it raises. WOULD YOU KILL THE FAT MAN? The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong By David Edmonds Illustrated. 220 pp. Princeton University Press. $19.95. THE TROLLEY PROBLEM; OR, WOULD YOU THROW THE FAT GUY OFF THE BRIDGE? A Philosophical Conundrum By Thomas Cathcart Illustrated. 132 pp. Workman Publishing. $14.95. you are walking near a trolley-car track when you notice five people tied to it in a row. The next instant, you see a trolley hurtling toward them, out of control. A signal lever is within your reach; if you pull it, you can divert the runaway trolley down a side track, saving the five - but killing another person, who is tied to that spur. What do you do? Most people say they would pull the lever: Better that one person should die instead of five. Now, a different scenario. You are on a footbridge overlooking the track, where five people are tied down and the trolley is rushing toward them. There is no spur this time, but near you on the bridge is a chubby man. If you heave him over the side, he will fall on the track and his bulk will stop the trolley. He will die in the process. What do you do? (We presume your own body is too svelte to stop the trolley, should you be considering noble self-sacrifice.) In numerical terms, the two situations are identical. A strict utilitarian, concerned only with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, would see no difference: In each case, one person dies to save five. Yet people seem to feel differently about the "Fat Man" case. The thought of seizing a random bystander, ignoring his screams, wrestling him to the railing and tumbling him over is too much. Surveys suggest that up to 90 percent of us would throw the lever in "Spur," while a similar percentage think the Fat Man should not be thrown off the bridge. Yet, if asked, people find it hard to give logical reasons for this choice. Assaulting the Fat Man just feels wrong; our instincts cry out against it. Nothing intrigues philosophers more than a phenomenon that seems simultaneously self-evident and inexplicable. Thus, ever since the moral philosopher Philippa Foot set out Spur as a thought experiment in 1967, a whole enterprise of "trolleyology" has unfolded, with trolleyologists generating ever more fiendish variants. (Fat Man was developed by the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson, in 1985.) Some find it frivolous: One philosopher is quoted as snapping, "I just don't do trolleys." But it really matters what we do in such situations, sometimes on a vast scale. In 1944, new German V-l rockets started pounding the southern suburbs of London, though they were clearly aimed at more central areas. The British not only let the Germans think the rockets were on target, but used double agents to feed them information suggesting they should adjust their aim even farther south. The government deliberately placed southern suburbanites in danger, but one scientific adviser, whose own family lived in South London, estimated that some 10,000 lives were saved as a result. A still more momentous decision occurred the following year when America dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the argument that a quick end to the war would save lives - and by macabre coincidence, the Nagasaki bomb was nicknamed Fat Man. Similar calculations are being made right now. One has only to think of collateral damage in military strikes, or of the justifications offered for torturing terrorism suspects. At their best, such reasonings are valid; at their worst, they are a writhing nest of weasels. No wonder trolleyology now forms part of the philosophy course undertaken by cadets at West Point No wonder too that after several decades maturing in university philosophy departments, trolleyology has burst into the public eye with two books coming out at once. Both are jaunty, lucid and concise. Both explore an array of philosophical sources, from Aristotle and Aquinas to Bentham, Kant and Nietzsche. In "The Trolley Problem," Thomas Cathcart, a co-author of "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar ..." and other works, imagines a real-life trolley case on trial in the "Court of Public Opinion," a clever but slightly cumbersome device. In "Would You Kill the Fat Man?" David Edmonds, also a seasoned philosophy writer, tells the story more plainly, yet with wit and panache. Both books deal with difficult questions of reason and instinct, as well as with moral philosophy's scope and methods. Trolleyology has attracted the interest of practitioners of "x-phi," or experimental philosophy, who distinguish themselves from the "armchair" philosophers of old (that much-maligned piece of furniture), by borrowing empirical tools from sociology and psychology to find out what makes people tick. They stop short of laying out sections of trolley track under bridges, but they do use such resources as Harvard University's online Moral Sense Test, where some 200,000 volunteers have tried out their moral intuitions on a range of situations. One experiment at Michigan State University even used a virtualreality simulation. The results of such studies have been fascinating, showing, for example, that women are less likely than men to sacrifice the Fat Man, or even to flip the lever in Spur. Other investigations reveal that people are more likely to approve the killing of the Fat Man if they have just seen a comedy clip as opposed to "a tedious documentary about a Spanish village." The contingent nature of our ethical responses in general emerges from other research. We are more generous toward a stranger if we have just found a dime; a judge's decision to grant parole depends on how long it has been since he or she had lunch. Are these the "deep-rooted moral instincts" on which we are willing to found decisions that may affect tens or hundreds of thousands of fellow humans? Apparently our instincts only feel deep; in fact, they are fickle and easily manipulated. This malleability can be good or bad. Cathcart reminds us that many white people 150 years ago would have considered it instinctively obvious that black people were different and slavery was justifiable. Even a decade ago, many found it self-evident that gay people should not marry or have family lives. (A few still feel this, but now they have to argue their case rather than taking it for granted.) In both cases, rational moral arguments altered assumptions previously taken to be "just the way things are." This is one reason moral philosophers need not worry about being out of a job yet. A cool utilitarian calculus has its place, and so do our subrational instinctive juices. If either were missing, we would make some truly terrible choices. Yet there is also still room for that quaint seated figure, thinking through the principles and working out a kind of pragmatic yet justifiable wisdom. An armchair is also a useful place for reading books like these. With all this help, then perhaps when the trolley comes rattling around the corner, and with a half-second to decide, you might just do the right thing. Whatever that may be. Our instincts only feel deep; in fact, they are fickle and easily manipulated. SARAH BAKEWELL is the author, most recently, of "How to Live; Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer," winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 24, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
First off, we should explain that the title isn't referring to any random fat man. The man whose life is in your hands is the subject of an iconic philosophical conundrum often referred to as the trolley problem. In essence, you're asked whether you would save several lives if it meant sacrificing the life of one man. (You are standing on a footbridge over a train track. Five men are tied to the tracks below, and a train is approaching. If you push the fat man standing beside you onto the tracks, the train will hit him, and the five men will be saved.) It's an interesting moral and philosophical question, and Edmonds, a philosophy professor, turns it into a fascinating book. Edmonds uses the problem of the fat man as a jumping-off point for a fairly wide-ranging exploration of morality and ethics, and he asks us to consider carefully how we would respond. It's a big subject packed into a relatively small book, and we leave the volume with perhaps more questions than answers, but isn't that the point here to make us find our own answers?--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Edmonds (coauthor of Wittgenstein's Poker), a senior research associate at Oxford's Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, offers an accessible, humorous examination of how people approach complex ethical dilemmas. The "trolley problem," originally designed by philosopher Philippa Foot, is a scenario in which, to save five people from an oncoming trolley, one must sacrifice another person. In the majority of these philosophical puzzles, the titular fat man must die at your hands (by being pushed off the bridge) to save several lives. This experiment tests people's ethical decision making and interpretations of the results generally fall into two broad camps. Utilitarianism, conceived by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, suggests that choices should be made based on how much pleasure they produce and pain they avoid. For that reason, "it was always better to save more than fewer lives," Edmonds notes. The other, deontology, made famous by Immanuel Kant, argues that people should never use others as a "means to an end." Most people, according to Edmonds, are deontologists; they find it difficult to kill another human being even if it would save five. Here, Edmonds includes similar real-world situations, such as the 1894 Pullman strike, and a "ticking clock" German kidnapping case. Written for general readers, the book captures the complexities underpinning difficult decisions. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Suppose we can save several lives by diverting a runaway trolley with five people in its path so it kills only one man (the fat man), or suppose that six men can survive in a lifeboat by eating a seventh. Most people, according to Edmonds's (senior research associate, Oxford's Uehiro Ctr. for Practical Ethics; BBC World Service; coauthor, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten--Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers) reports/surveys, "save as many lives as possible." But if we can only stop the trolley by throwing a nearby fat man off a bridge, many people say "no." ("Fat Man" was the name of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki "to save lives.") The book explains that in some cases "intentions" matter; our primary intention is not to kill the man on whom we turn the trolley, but the fat man is different, as are the lifeboat cannibals. Edmonds traces these puzzles through the work of British philosophers Philippa Foot (1920-2010), Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001), and others, in a witty and thought-provoking tale. The author wouldn't kill the fat man, but he doesn't offer further remarks. While there are no solid answers, real-life cases have led us to prevention through social planning-safer trolley lines and better search and rescue. VERDICT A good read, necessarily ending in numbing thoughts.-Leslie Armour, Dominican Univ. Coll., Ottawa (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An investigation into how we make moral decisions. A trolley is hurtling down a track on which five people are tied to the rails. You are standing on a footbridge beside a fat man, a stranger to you. If you push him onto the tracks, he'll stop the trolley. Of course, he would die; but you would have saved five people. Do you kill the fat man? This thought problem, invented by philosopher Philippa Foot, is central to Edmonds' (co-author: Philosophy Bites Back, 2013, etc.) sprightly history of moral philosophy. The author is a master at distilling the work of some difficult writers, most importantly Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, whose opposing views are still being debated. Kant believed in certain moral absolutes--murder is wrong, for example--that should never be breached. Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, believed that moral actions are those that cause the greatest good, ensuring pleasure and well-being to the most people. Presenting contemporary perspectives, Edmonds turns to philosophers such as John Rawls, Bernard Williams, and utilitarian Peter Singer; behavioral economists, such as Daniel Kahneman; psychologists, such as Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene; and neuroscientists, such as Antonio Damasio. How, these thinkers ask, do we distinguish "between negative and positive duties, between doing and allowing (killing and letting die), and between acting and omitting?" Moral decisions raise big questions: Do we, for example, have free will? Are we more charitable if we have just had a positive experience, such as a delicious lunch? Are we programmed genetically to act morally? Are we guided as much, or more, by intuition--a gut feeling--as by rational thinking? And finally, "do philosophers have any special authority over--any unique insight into--what's right and what's wrong?" As Edmonds amply and lucidly shows in this cogent book, moral questions have no easy answers.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
