DEVISED BY PHILIPPA FOOT in 1967, the Trolley Problem is a thought experiment in moral philosophy. A runaway trolley car is heading towards a group of five people; if you pull a lever, you can change its course so it moves onto a different section of track where it kills only one person. Do you pull the lever?
The problem highlights the difference between utilitarianism – the greatest good for the greatest number of people – and deontology, which holds you responsible for the act of killing one person (even though inaction would have killed more). There’s no solution, just differences of opinion.
Most of us would concede that it’s better to divert the trolley, to minimise the number of deaths.
Here’s a different way of looking at it. You’re in a queue for a slip road off a motorway, and someone races past the queue and tries to barge in at the top. Do you let them? The utilitarian would say no, as it would mean inconveniencing a large number of people. But look at it this way: each person in the queue would be delayed by just a couple of seconds. The person who’s barging in would save several minutes. Isn’t it worth a couple of seconds of all those people’s time in order to provide a significant benefit to one individual?
