A Review and Systematization of the Trolley Problem

The trolley problem, first described by Foot (1967) and Thomson (The Monist, 59, 204–217, 1976), is one of the most famous and influential thought experiments in deontological ethics. The general story is that a runaway trolley is threatening the lives of five people. Doing nothing will result in the death of those persons, but acting in order to save those persons would unavoidably result in the death of another, sixth person. It appears that, depending on the situation, we have different moral judgments about the permissibility of action. We will review and systematize all the proposals in the literature of the past 35 years that have attempted to grasp our moral intuitions in a simple deontological principle. In particular, seventeen proposals will be classified: six algorithmic, seven psychological, and four other invalid accounts. This review and classification sheds light on some subtle differences and clarify a few issues.     

When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today

Books reviewed: Cox, Harvey, When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today
Reviewed by Derek R. Nelson
Graduate Theological Union     

The New Trolley Problem: Driverless Cars and Deontological Distinctions

Discussion of the ethics of driverless cars has often focused on supposed real-life versions of the famous trolley problem. In these cases, a driverless car is in a position where crashing is unavoidable and all possible crashes risk harm: for example, it can either continue on its current path and crash into five pedestrians or swerve and crash into one pedestrian. There are significant disanalogies between the human versions of the trolley problem and situations faced by driverless cars which affect the application and moral significance of key deontological distinctions, such as the distinction between doing and allowing harm. The application and moral significance of the doing/allowing distinction in the context of the behaviour of driverless cars depend on (a) our conception of the behaviour of driverless cars; (b) the forms of driverless cars that are developed and used; (c) the background expectations of programmers/manufacturers/owners of driverless cars and the conditions of being able to put those cars on the roads. These are as yet unsettled – and may even be undetermined. Nonetheless, trolley problems may still be useful in thinking about the ethics of driverless cars.     

Crash Algorithms for Autonomous Cars: How the Trolley Problem Can Move Us Beyond Harm Minimisation

The prospective introduction of autonomous cars into public traffic raises the question of how such systems should behave when an accident is inevitable. Due to concerns with self-interest and liberal legitimacy that have become paramount in the emerging debate, a contractarian framework seems to provide a particularly attractive means of approaching this problem. We examine one such attempt, which derives a harm minimisation rule from the assumptions of rational self-interest and ignorance of one’s position in a future accident. We contend, however, that both contractarian approaches and harm minimisation standards are flawed, due to a failure to account for the fundamental difference between those ‘involved’ and ‘uninvolved’ in an impending crash. Drawing from classical works on the trolley problem, we show how this notion can be substantiated by reference to either the distinction between negative and positive rights, or to differences in people’s claims. By supplementing harm minimisation with corresponding constraints, we can develop crash algorithms for autonomous cars which are both ethically adequate and promise to overcome certain significant practical barriers to implementation.     

When Freud headed for the East: Aspects of a Chinese translation of his works

Working on the basis of a resumé of the Chinese translations to date of individual works by Sigmund Freud and critiques of these as secondary translations from the English, the particular difficulties of translating into a non‐Indo‐European language with an isolating and analytical writing system are presented. By way of introduction, reference is made to English and French‐language contributions to the issues of translation.     

When Laddering and the Downward Arrow Can Be Used as Adjuncts to Inference Chaining in REBT Assessment

This paper looks at the ways in which laddering in Personal Construct Therapy and the downward arrow in Cognitive Therapy can be used as adjunctive techniques to inference chaining in locating a client's critical A or emotional core. We describe their use through a number of case examples and annotations. We conclude that these two methods require skilled use if they are to be successfully integrated into inference chaining and are offered as part of REBT's interest in theoretically consistent eclecticism. The use of inference chaining in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), the downward arrow in Cognitive Therapy (CT) and laddering in Personal Construct Therapy (PCT) are techniques which aim to help therapists and clients gain rapid insight into the latters' core beliefs and values about themselves, others and the world. This article will show how each technique reveals underlying beliefs and then, from the REBT viewpoint, in what circumstances laddering or the downward arrow might be used as an adjunct to inference chaining in the assessment stage of therapy.     

When scientific knowledge becomes scientific discovery: the disappearance of classical conditioning before Pavlov

In the nineteenth century, scientific materials in experimental physiology changed dramatically. In this context, phenomena that had been widely accepted were lost, sometimes to be reintroduced later as "discoveries." I describe the loss of the phenomenon of classical conditioning, later rediscovered by Ivan Pavlov. In 1896, Austrian physiologist Alois Kreidl demonstrated experimentally that animals anticipate the occurrence of food that is cued by a variety of stimuli. Kreidl stated, moreover, that the fact that animals can be called to food had been widely known to science since the 1830s. I describe Kreidl's work and discuss several factors that may have led to the disappearance of conditioning prior to its rediscovery by Pavlov.     

A Different Trolley Problem: The Limits of Environmental Justice and the Promise of Complex Moral Assessments for Transportation Infrastructure

Transportation infrastructure tremendously affects the quality of life for urban residents, influences public and mental health, and shapes social relations. Historically, the topic is rich with social and political controversy and the resultant transit systems in the United States cause problems for minority residents and issues for the public. Environmental justice frameworks provide a means to identify and address harms that affect marginalized groups, but environmental justice has limits that cannot account for the mainstream population. To account for this condition, I employ a complex moral assessment measure that provides a way to talk about harms that affect the public.     

犹太哲学:一种命定的宗教哲学--评《现代犹太哲学》

如果有人说西方哲学里有一种“基督教哲学” ,那么没人会感到惊讶 ,但是 ,如果说有一种“犹太哲学” ,那么许多人即使不感到惊讶 ,也会觉得很陌生。当《现代犹太哲学》 (傅有德等著 ,人民出版社 ,1 999,1 2 )一书摆在笔者面前时 ,我多少就有这种感觉。犹太民族贡献给西方世界乃至全人类的最伟大财富是以《圣经·旧约》为核心的一神教信仰。作为一种文明看 ,这种一神教信仰与古希腊文明的不同就在于 ,前者强调的是在践行神圣律法这种活生生的信仰实践中去领会上帝存在的真实性 ,去追寻和接受生活与世界的真实意义 ,而后者则要求在思想中 ,在…     

Invention and convention: Jewish and Christian critique of the Jewish fixed calendar

The institution of the Jewish fixed calendar has provoked muchcontroversial discussion not only among Jewish, but also Christian scholars. The significant contributions to the subject by two of the great sixteenth-century polymaths, the Jew Azariah de' Rossi and the Christian Sebastian Münster, pinpoint the delicate nature of calendrical investigation. Münster's frequent use of one particular piyyut (a religious poem) to undermine the basis of the Jewish fixed calendar is intended to defend the contradictory calendrical data in the Gospels. De' Rossi implicitly attacks Muenster for his recourse to this unhistorical text. Yet de' Rossi himself is intent on proving that the Jewish fixed calendar is a late post-talmudic convention, an iconoclastic approach which was not welcome in certain rabbinic circles. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

论犹太教崇拜手段——祈祷

以无形言辞的祈祷代替有形物质的献祭,被认为是古代犹太教的伟大创举之一.祈祷是宗教抽象化的一种重要表现,也是犹太教崇拜的一种手段.了解和认识犹太教中的祈祷及其作用,对于我们把握犹太教是十分重要的.本文以此为出发点,展开对犹太教崇拜手段--祈祷的论述.     

Biology and the Jewish question after the revolution: one Soviet approach to the productivization of Jewish labor

In the 1920s a group of health professionals and biologists in the Soviet Union embraced the nascent eugenics movement in order to justify the promotion of physical labor among Jews. Eugenics offered a scientific approach to solving the “Jewish question” through the productivization of Soviet Jewry. Drawing upon the work of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, this group linked the settlement of Jews on the land to the belief that the physiognomy of Jews engaged in physical labor would be genetically passed on to their offspring. The goal was to overcome the perceived debilitating psychological and physical traits of shtetl Jewry by mobilizing Soviet Jewry for the building of socialism. By the late 1920s, however, eugenics fell victim to the Kremlin’s materialist conception of human society that emphasized social engineering and voluntarism and excluded biological influences on the transformation of Soviet society.