The “Trolley Problem” (and its predecessor the “Lifeboat Problem”) are philosophic remnants of the medieval view of this world as a doomed place where humans are fated to suffer. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the founding of the pursuit-of-happiness United States put a dent in the ancient fatalism, but it’s hard to stamp out thousands of years of doom-and-gloom thinking.
The “Trolley Problem” (and its predecessor the “Lifeboat Problem”) are philosophic remnants of the medieval view of this world as a doomed place where humans are fated to suffer. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the founding of the pursuit-of-happiness United States put a dent in the ancient fatalism, but it’s hard to stamp out thousands of years of doom-and-gloom thinking.