BBC
A History of Ideas: The Trolley Problem
Harry Shearer on the Trolley Problem
Is it right to intervene and sacrifice one person to save five? In this animation of a classic thought problem, we find that the answer is fraught with difficulty. Is the end result of saving five people for the life of one the only consideration? Or is how the end is achieved just as important?
Want to hear more on this topic?
Here’s the whole episode from A History of Ideas – Neuropsychologist Paul Broks on Morality and the Brain.
In this action packed animation, lives are saved and expensive shoes ruined to answer the question: Is there an important difference between someone drowning in front of you and someone dying in a far off land?
Is it right to tell a lie in order to save your friend from an axe wielding, homicidal maniac? Emmanuel Kant said ‘No’.
Is it right to intervene and sacrifice one person to save five? In this animation of a classic thought problem, we find that the answer is fraught with difficulty.
Are you ready for a brush with Hume’s Guillotine? This animation looks at the problem of trying to reason from facts about the way the world is to judgements about values based on those facts.