Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T19:05:40.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Trolley dilemmas from the philosopher’s armchair to the psychologist’s lab

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2023

Hallvard Lillehammer
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Get access

Summary

Trolley dilemmas were first developed by moral philosophers engaged in reflection on the ethics of permissible harm. But they have since become central to psychological research into morality. One reason why psychologists have paid so much attention to trolley dilemmas is that they see them as a key way to investigating the contrast between deontological and utilitarian approaches to ethics. This framing, however, departs from the original philosophical purpose of trolley dilemmas, and can lead psychological research astray. In this chapter, we question the assumption that trolley dilemmas can shed general light about the psychological bases of utilitarian decision-making. Some lay responses to trolley dilemmas that psychologists routinely classify as "utilitarian" in fact have little meaningful relation to what philosophers mean by this term. Even when what underlies lay responses to trolley dilemmas partly echoes aspects of a utilitarian approach to ethics, this doesn’t generalize to other moral domains, and tells us little about the psychological roots of other aspects of utilitarianism. Properly used, trolley dilemmas have a useful role to play in psychological research. But once we get clear about what we can, and cannot, learn from them, the current centrality of the trolley paradigm in moral psychology will seem overblown.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Trolley Problem , pp. 134 - 157
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×