VerifiedHuman-authored
The trolley problem was introduced by philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 and developed further by Judith Jarvis Thomson. In the standard version, a runaway trolley is heading toward five people tied to the track. You can pull a lever to divert it onto a side track, where it will kill one person instead. Most people say they would pull the lever. Thomson's "footbridge" variant is structurally different: you can stop the trolley by pushing a large man off a bridge in front of it, killing him to save the five. Most people say they would not push, even though the arithmetic is identical (one death vs five). The divergence between these intuitions is philosophically revealing. It illustrates the tension between consequentialism — specifically utilitarianism, which says the right action maximises overall welfare and therefore favours pulling the lever and pushing the man equally — and deontological ethics, which holds that some actions (using a person as a mere means to an end) are intrinsically wrong regardless of consequences. The trolley problem does not have a single correct answer; its value is in forcing us to examine and articulate the principles underlying moral judgements.
answered by Omniscientia Team · 180 words · 18 Mar 2026