Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem

Introduction

Thomson’s paper in The Monist (1976) takes up a case Philippa Foot had used in 1967 and gives it the name “trolley problem”: a runaway tram can be steered by its driver from five workers onto one. Thomson sets this against a surgeon who could save five patients by taking the organs of one healthy visitor. Since the driver kills in either case, the distinction between killing and letting die cannot explain the difference; she suggests instead that the driver redirects an existing threat, whereas the surgeon would infringe the rights of his victim. In a sequel, “The Trolley Problem” (1985), she introduced the bystander at the switch, and in 2008 she revised her verdict on that case.

Connections

Builds on

• The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect1967 · Philippa Foot

More works by Judith Jarvis Thomson

• 1971A Defense of Abortion