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The Trolley Problem Mysteries The Berkeley Tanner Lectures The Tanner Lectures on Human Values were established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner; they are pre sented annually at nine universities in the United States and England. The University of California, Berkeley became a permanent host of annual Tanner Lectures in the academic year 2000-2001. This work is the ninth in a series of books based on the Berkeley Tanner Lectures. The volume includes a revised version of the lectures that F. M. Kamm presented at Berkeley in March of 2013, together with the responses of the three invited commentators on that occasion-Judith Jarvis Thomson, Thomas Hurka, and Shelly Kagan-and a final rejoinder by Professor Kamm. The volume is edited by Eric Rakowski, who also contributes an introduction. The Berkeley Tanner Lecture Series was established in the belief that these distinguished lectures, together with the lively debates stimulated by their presentation in Berkeley, deserve to be made available to a wider audience. Additional volumes are in preparation. MARTIN JAY R. JAY WALLACE Series Editors Volumes Published in the Series JosEPH RAZ, The Practice of Value Edited by R. JAY WALLACE With Christine M. Korsgard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams FRANK KERMODE, Pleasure and Change: The Aesthetics of Canon Edited by RoBERT ALTER With Geoffrey Hartman, John Guillory, and Carey Perloff SEYLA BENHABIB, Another Cosmopolitanism Edited by RoBERT PosT With Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig, and Will Kymlicka AxEL HoNNETH, Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea Edited by MARTIN JAY With Judith Butler, Raymond Guess, and Jonathan Lear ALLAN GIBBARD, Reconciling Our Aims Edited by BARRY STROUD With Michael Bratman, John Broome, and F.M. Kamm DEREK PARFIT, On What Matters: Volumes l& 2 Edited by SAMUEL SCHEFFLER With T.M. Scanlon, Susan Wolf, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman JEREMY WALDRON, Dignity, Rank, and Rights Edited by MEIR DAN-COHEN With Wai Chee Dimock, Don Herzog, and Michael Rosen SAMUEL SCHEFFLER, Death and the Afterlife Edited by NIKO KoLODNY With Susan Wolf, Harry G. Frankfurt, and Seana Valentine Shiffrin The Trolley Problem Mysteries F. M. KAMM With Commentaries by JUDITH JARVIS THOMSON THOMAS HURKA SHELLY KAGAN Edited and Introduced by ERIC RAKOWSKI OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OxforUdn iversPirteysi ssa d epartmoeftn htUe n iversoift y OxforIdtf. u rthtehreUsn iversity'so foe bxjceecltliienvnr ece es earch, scholarasnhdei dpu,c atbiyop nu bliswhoirnlgd wide. OxfordN ewY ork AucklanCda pTeo wn Dare sS alaamH ongK ong Karachi KualLau mpurM adridM elbournMee xicCoi tyN airobi NewD elhiS hanghaTia ipei Toronto Witho ffiicne s Argentina AuBsrtarziiClah ileC zecRhe publFirca ncGer eece GuatemalHau ngaryI talJya panP olanPdo rtugSailn gapore SoutKho reaS witzerlTahnadi laTnudr keyU krainVei etnam Oxforidsa r egistterraedde moafrO kx ford University Press int hUeK andc ertain cootuhnetrr ies. Publisihnte hdUe n itSetda toefAs m eribcya OxforUdn iverPsrietsys 198M adisAovne nueN,e wY orkN,Y 10016 © The Regents of the University of California 2016 "ThTer ollPeryo blMeyms teribeyFs .M" .K ammw asd elivearsae T da nner Lecture onH umanV aluaetst hUen iversofiC tayl ifoBrenrikae,l Meayr,c 2h0 13P.r intweidt h thpee rmissoifto hnTe a nneLre ctuorneH su manV alues, ac orporaUtniiovne,r sofiU ttya hS,a lLta kCei ty. Alrli ghrtess ervNeodp .a rotft hipsu blicamtaiybo enr eproduscteodr,ie nd ar etriseyvsatle omrt, r ansmiitnta endyf, o romr b ya nym eansw,i thotuhtpe r ior permissiinwo rni tionfOg x forUdn iversityo raP sre exspsr,e ssly pbeyrl maiwbt,yt ed licenosrue n,d etre rmasg reweidt thh aep proprrieaptreo ducrtiigohontr sg anization. Inquircioensc ernrienpgr oducotuitosnit dhese c opoeft haeb ovseh oubleds enttot he RighDtesp artment, OxfordP rUensaisttv, he aerd sdirteaysb so ve. Youm ustn otc ircutlhaitwseo rik na nyo thefro rm andy oum usitm posteh issa meco nditoinao nny a cquirer. LibraorfCy o ngreCsast aloging-in-PDuabtlai cation Kamm,F .M .( FranMcyersn a) Thet rolley probleIm F .mMyK.sa tmemr;wi ietsch o mmentabryiJ eusd iJtahr vis ThomsoTnh,o maHsu rkSah,e lly K;ea dgiatnae nddi ntrodbucyEe rdi Rca kowski. pagecsm .- (ThBee rkeTlaenyn elre ctures) Includes index. ISBN9 78-0-19-024(7h1a5r-d7c: oa vlekr. paper) 1.C onsequent(iEatlhiiscm2s .D) i lemma3..D ecismiaokni ng-Moral ande thiacsaple ct4s.R. e sponstiyb.iI l.Ti itle. B)1500.C6230K1356 171'.5-dc23 2015000999 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printientd h eU nitSetda toefAs m erica ona cid-pfarpeeer For Barbara Herman, Judith Thomson, and Philippa Foot (in memoriam) With gratitude and respect. Contents Contributors ix Introduction 1 ERIC RAKOWSKI THE TROLLEY PROBLEM MYSTERIES F. M. KAMM Lecture I: Who Turned the Trolley? 11 Lecture II: How Was the Trolley Turned? 57 Diagrams 103 COMMENTS Kamm on the Trolley Problems 113 JUDITH JARVIS THOMSON Trolleys and Permissible Harm 135 THOMAS BURKA Solving the Trolley Problem SHELLY KAGAN viii CONTENTS · REPLIES TO COMMENTATORS The Trolley Problem Mysteries on Trial: Defending the Trolley Problem, A Type of Solution to It, and a Method of Ethics 169 F. M. KAMM Index of Names 255 Contributors THOMAS HURKA is Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto. He previously served as professor of philosophy at the University of Calgary and as a visiting fellow at Oxford. He is a member of the Canadian and American Philosophical Associations and an editorial board member of Ethics. Hurka's work centers on moral and political philosophy, with emphases on normative ethical theory and perfectionist moral theories. He has written on issues of punishment, population, nationalism, friendship, and war. Hurka's many contributions include two works on perfectionist moral theory: Perfectionism (Oxford University Press, 1993) and Virtue, Vice, and Value (Oxford University Press, 2001). He is also the author of The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters (Oxford University Press, 2010) and British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing (Oxford University Press, 2015). SHELLY KAGAN is Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Kagan taught at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Kagan's work focuses on moral philosophy, and more specifically on normative ethics. He has published widely, on topics including well-being, desert, mortality, and Kantianism. However, the main focus of his research has been consequentialism and its contrast with deontological moral theories. Kagan is the author of numerous influential works including The Limits of Morality (Oxford University Press, 1989), which offers a defense of consequentialism, Normative Ethics (Westview, 1997), Death (Yale University Press, 2012), and The Geometry of Desert (Oxford University Press, 2012). X • CONTRIBUTORS F.M. KAMM is Lucius Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, and Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. Kamm's work focuses on normative ethical theory and applied ethics. She is the author of Creation and Abortion (1992), Morality, Mortality, vols. 1 and 2 (1993, 1996), Intricate Ethics (2007), Ethics for Enemies: Terror, Torture, and War (2011), The Moral Target: Aiming at Right Conduct in War and Other Conflicts (2012), and Bioethical Prescriptions (2013), all from Oxford University Press. She serves on the editorial board of Philosophy Public Affairs, among other journals, and on & the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Edmond J. Safra Ethics Center. She has held Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ERIC RAKOWSKI is Halbach Professor of Trust Estates Law at & the University of California at Berkeley. His philosophical work is concerned primarily with questions of distributive justice, deciding whom to aid when not all can be helped, and biomedical ethical problems. He is the author of Equal Justice (Oxford University Press, 1991). JumTH JARVIS THOMSON is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at MIT. She has held visiting appointments at the Australian National University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California at Berkeley, and Yale Law School. Thomson is widely recognized for her work in metaphysics, the theory of action, causation, and ethics, where her writing on moral rights has earned special attention. Her books include Acts and Other Events (Cornell University Press, 1977), Rights, Restitution, and Risk (Harvard University Press, 1986), The Realm of Rights (Harvard University Press, 1990), Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (with Gilbert Harman) (Wiley-Blackwell, 1996), Goodness and Advice (Princeton University Press, 2003), and Normativity (Open