Would You Kill the Fat Man?: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong

ISBN-13: 9780691165639 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 240 str.

David Edmonds

Opis

A runaway train is racing toward five men who are tied to the track. Unless the train is stopped, it will inevitably kill all five men. You are standing on a footbridge looking down on the unfolding disaster. However, a fat man, a stranger, is standing next to you: if you push him off the bridge, he will topple onto the line and, although he will die, his chunky body will stop the train, saving five lives. Would you kill the fat man?
The question may seem bizarre. But it's one variation of a puzzle that has baffled moral philosophers for almost half a century and that more recently has come to preoccupy neuroscientists, psychologists, and other thinkers as well. In this book, David Edmonds, coauthor of the best-selling Wittgenstein's Poker, tells the riveting story of why and how philosophers have struggled with this ethical dilemma, sometimes called the trolley problem. In the process, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the history of moral philosophy. Most people feel it's wrong to kill the fat man. But why? After all, in taking one life you could save five. As Edmonds shows, answering the question is far more complex--and important--than it first appears. In fact, how we answer it tells us a great deal about right and wrong.

Recenzje

"Elegant, lucid, and frequently funny. . . . Edmonds has written an entertaining, clear-headed, and fair-minded book." - Cass R. Sunstein, New York Review of Books

O autorze

David Edmonds ist Mitbegründer der populären podcast-Serie "Philosophy Bites", Senior Research Associate am Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics der Universität Oxford und erhielt viele Preise und Auszeichnungen für seine BBC-Sendungen über populäre philosophische Themen.