In Defense of the Trolley Method

Abstract

Guy Crain alleges three shortcomings of the trolley method of moral philosophy: (1) trolley cases fail to model real-world decision-making; (2) trolley cases tend to foreground high-stakes decisions, which makes them a poor tool for analyzing the ethical decisions most people routinely face; and (3) trolley cases tend to present their agents as anonymous blanks, which invites readers to fill in the blanks in problematic ways. In reply, we argue that Crain mischaracterizes the trolley method by neglecting a key feature of trolley cases: they have the goal of shaping specific audience beliefs in specific ways. The shortcomings Crain alleges are not shortcomings of trolley cases deployed in standard belief-shaping ways.