Ethics Thought Experiments: The Trolley Problem and Beyond

Studying ethics is incredibly fun, and it also develops critical thinking and logical reasoning skills.  But most importantly, studying ethics helps people develop their own moral codes.

Every one of us has to make ethical choices throughout our lives.  There is an ethical dimension to every aspect of life, whether it is our relationships with friends and family, our academic lives, or our jobs.  We have to make choices about what actions to take; we have to decide what is right and what is wrong.  The goal of this course is to give you tools to use when you are faced with these kinds of decisions.  

This is a discussion class--there will not be any lectures.  We will use thought experiments, or hypothetical ethical dilemmas, to focus our discussions on various questions and ideas in ethics.  We will also see how thought experiments relate to very real, concrete situations.  

How much we cover in each class period depends in part on student interest and where our conversations take us.  But here is a list of the topics we will discuss, with each unit taking one or two class periods.  

Unit One:  When you are faced with an ethical decision, the first thing you need to do is figure out whether there is a clear right and wrong in this situation, which isn't always obvious.  We will talk about four different questions you can ask to help you figure this out, and we will apply those questions to three realistic situations students might encounter in their daily lives.  

Unit Two:  A true ethical dilemma involves a right versus right situation, rather than right versus wrong.  For instance, you may have to choose between keeping a promise and telling the truth.  It is ethical to keep a promise, and it is ethical to tell the truth, but sometimes you cannot do both.  Right v. right dilemmas often fit into certain patterns.  We will discuss a new set of scenarios, involving hard decisions that have to be made by an employee of a company doing something illegal, a high school basketball coach, and a high school student.  

Unit Three:  We will discuss the famous Trolley Problem, which involves a runaway train hurtling towards five people who will surely die if it hits them, but if someone pulls a lever the train will be diverted and only one person will die.  Philosophers use extreme examples like this in order to test the strengths, weaknesses, and limits, of various ideas in ethics.  We will talk about this from all angles, including changing up the facts.  Then we will talk about how this scenario relates to real-world ethical issues that are coming up in how self-driving cars should be programmed. 

Unit Four:  We will discuss two very important, and very different, approaches to ethics:  Utilitarianism, and the rule-based approach of the philosopher Immanuel Kant.  The thought experiments that illustrate these philosophies and demonstrate their differences involve two survivors of a shipwreck, and two shopkeepers who both decide not to cheat their customers, but for different reasons.

Unit Five:  A thought experiment about a bank error in your favor will lead to a discussion of rationalizations.  All human beings are very good at rationalizing, so recognizing rationalizations is an important life skill.

Unit Six:  A thought experiment about a pig who wants to be eaten will help us with a discussion of ethics and animals.  Are there limits on what human beings can ethically do to other animals, and if so, what are they?

Unit Seven:  A thought experiment about whether a person who can't afford life-saving medicine should steal it from a pharmacy will help us explore the cooperative approach to ethics.