From Kevin Buckley
The “trolley experiment” seems flawed as a way of investigating choices (18 February, p 10). Subjects are told to make a real-world-based moral choice – but one based on black-and-white rules and outcomes stated by the experimenter: so if they throw a switch to change the path of the trolley, one person will be run over and die, and five will live.
But these are not experiments about the probability of trolleys killing people; they ask for judgements based on experience in the real world. Here, if you switch tracks there are many possible outcomes, including a person jumping out of the way.
In the alternative scenario of pushing someone off a bridge onto the track, it is most likely they will die or be badly injured. But the train will not necessarily stop, and most people won’t be pushed off without a fight, which causes a delay. They may hang on, or fall away from the tracks.
What is actually tested is the experimenter’s ability to persuade subjects to suspend true moral judgement and play along.
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From Roger Haines
This kind of experiment assumes omniscience on the part of the dilemma-setter. In the world there is no such omniscience and no certainty of outcomes. So it is not surprising that we feel an obligation to follow rules which give optimal outcomes in typical cases – reserving the right to abandon them in sufficiently exceptional circumstances.
London, UK
Woodcote, Berkshire, UK
