Table Of ContentThe 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
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JEREMY WALDRON, Dignity, Rank, and Rights
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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
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For Barbara Herman, Judith Thomson, and
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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
