Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-21T17:29:45.623Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Cross-cultural responses to trolley problems and their implications for moral philosophy or

How I learned to stop worrying and love (constructivist) relativism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2023

Hallvard Lillehammer
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Get access

Summary

There has been widespread consensus amongst professional philosophers on responses to initial variants of the Trolley Problem. However, those philosophers have all been from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. There is a growing literature that investigates whether judgments differ across cultures. If judgments differ, the implications for moral philosophy depend on whether this represents genuine moral disagreement and what are its causes. I survey the literature on cross-cultural variation in moral judgments in trolley problems. There is not much evidence and it is mixed. The higher acceptability of acting in Bystander compared to Footbridge is relatively consistent across cultures (small-scale societies may be an exception, but there is limited evidence); however, the level of acceptability of acting in the individual scenarios differs across cultures, especially in Footbridge. This preliminary inspection suggests that it is plausible that cross-cultural differences in judgments exist. Assessing their causes, they seem likely to be genuine moral disagreements, which result from differences in culture and institutions. This raises issues for the metaphysics and epistemology of moral judgments. If we are not to be skeptics about the existence of moral facts or the possibility of knowing them, then we may need to endorse a form of constructivist relativism.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Trolley Problem , pp. 182 - 210
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×