Free Would You Kill the Fat Man by David Edmonds Page A

initial intuition about the repugnance of sibling sex should be disregarded, and that it shouldn’t, on reflection, cause us to amend or weaken Mill’s principle.
    We are in a position of reflective equilibrium, said Rawls, when our set of beliefs about principles and our beliefs about individual cases have achieved a sort of coherence.
    Reflective equilibrium is not the only model for how to handle intuitions, but it is the dominant one. 1 However, in recent times, the reliability of our intuitions has come under sustained assault from two directions. One prong of the attack is specific to trolley-like scenarios. Since they’re so stylized, goes thecharge, we cannot peel them off from the pages of a philosophy publication and transplant them onto a real case. The other prong is more general: that recent research in the social sciences has unearthed just how unstable and irrational our intuitions are across a whole spectrum of domains.
    Tractors and Tumbles
     
    To the specific allegation first. It is true that while the ingenuity of some of the trolley creations is admirable, they do lend themselves to satire. Take one of the splendid constructions from a doyenne of trolleyology, Frances Kamm, author of Intricate Ethics —the title considerably downplays the convolutions within.
    As usual, a runaway trolley is heading toward five innocents. This is really not their day. Not only are they tied to the track, not only are they about to be flattened by the trolley, but there is another independent threat—rampaging in their direction is an out-of-control tractor. To redirect the trolley would be pointless if the five will in any case be hit by the tractor. But ….!!
    There’s a glimmer of hope for our ill-fated five. If you turn the trolley away from them, “it will gently hit and push (without hurting) one person into the path of the tractor. His being hit by the tractor stops the vehicle but also kills him.” 2
    Now, this is clever. It has elements of Spur and elements of Fat Man. Turning the trolley away from the five looks permissible, even though one man would die—this parallels Spur. However, there would be no point turning the trolley if this man’s corpse did not double as a buffer to halt the tractor—for otherwise the five would still be doomed. This mirrors Fat Man.

     
    Figure 8 . Tractor Man. The runaway trolley is heading toward five innocents. The trolley is not the only thing they’re threatened by. They are also about to be flattened by another, independent, threat. Rampaging in their direction is an out-of-control tractor. To redirect the trolley would be pointless if the five were in any case to be hit by the tractor. But if you turn the trolley away from them, it will gently hit and push, without hurting, another person into the path of the tractor. His being hit by the tractor would stop that vehicle but also kill him. Should you redirect the trolley?
     
    But do you have a strong intuition about what should be done? No? Professor Kamm does. She is sure that it would be wrong to turn the trolley.
    Or, instead, take Tumble Case.
    This time you can’t redirect the trolley but you can move the five. Unfortunately, the five will tumble down a mountain and their body weight will kill an innocent person below. Is it permissible to move the five? You’re not sure? Professor Kamm says that it is. A few pages farther on there’s the Trolley Tool Case. The trolley is heading toward a useful tool—one that could save many lives. You can redirect the trolley to kill one person. Should you do this? Confused? The answer (her answer) is that you should not.

     
    Figure 9 . The Tumble Case. The runaway trolley is heading toward five people. You cannot redirect the trolley, but you can move the five. But if you did that, the five would tumble down a mountain and, although they themselves would be unharmed, their body weight would kill an innocent person below. Should you move the five?
     
    But why should