Description
By (author) Edmonds, David
Short /annotation:
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 the ethical dilemma posed by the trolley problem. In the process, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the history of moral philosophy.
:
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.
Table of contents:
List of Figures xi Prologue xiii Acknowledgments xv Part 1 Philosophy and the Trolley Chapter 1 Churchill”s Dilemma 3 Chapter 2 Spur of the Moment 8 Chapter 3 The Founding Mothers 13 Chapter 4 The Seventh Son of Count Landulf 26 Chapter 5 Fat Man, Loop, and Lazy Susan 35 Chapter 6 Ticking Clocks and the Sage of Konigsberg 44 Chapter 7 Paving the Road to Hell 57 Chapter 8 Morals by Numbers 69 Part 2 Experiments and the Trolley Chapter 9 Out of the Armchair 87 Chapter 10 It Just Feels Wrong 94 Chapter 11 Dudley”s Choice and the Moral Instinct 108 Part 3 Mind and Brain and the Trolley Chapter 12 The Irrational Animal 127 Chapter 13 Wrestling with Neurons 135 Chapter 14 Bionic Trolley 153 Part 4 The Trolley and Its Critics Chapter 15 A Streetcar Named Backfire 169 Chapter 16 The Terminal 175 Appendix Ten Trolleys: A Rerun 183 Notes 193 Bibliography 205 Index 213
Review quote:
Honorable Mention for the 2015 PROSE Award in Philosophy, Association of American Publishers One of Choice”s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 “A lucid account of a famous thought experiment in moral philosophy.”–Editors” Choice, New York Times Book Review “[J]aunty, lucid and concise… In Would You Kill the Fat Man? David Edmonds … a seasoned philosopher, tells the story … with wit and panache.”–Sarah Bakewell, New York Times Book Review “[E]legant, lucid, and frequently funny… Edmonds has written an entertaining, clear-headed, and fair-minded book.”–Cass R. Sunstein, New York Review of Books “[E]legantly written … Edmonds”s book is especially valuable for the way in which it embeds his introduction to the trolley problem in a story of the social reality that produced it.”–Hallvard Lillehammer, Times Literary Supplement “David Edmonds”s vastly more ambitious Would You Kill the Fat Man? has the cartoons–and just about everything else you could want in a thoughtful popular treatment of [the trolley problem]. A marvel of economy and learning worn lightly, Mr. Edmonds”s book ranges pleasurably back to Aquinas and forward into the future of robots, who will of course need an ethics just as much as people do. Perhaps best of all, Mr. Edmonds recognizes that the origins of ”trolleyology” are at least as interesting as the many philosop
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.