The Trolley Problem Mysteries

This collection of lectures and commentaries is less friendly to lay readers than is suggested by Kamm’s (Bioethical Prescriptions) assertion that the book’s questions are “analogous to those asked by detectives in mystery cases.” This volume begins with two lectures Kamm, a Harvard philosophy professor, gave at Berkeley in 2013, exploring the dilemma posed by the so-called trolley problem, in which an onlooker is faced with the possibility of a trolley striking and killing five people unless it is diverted to another track, where it will only kill one person. The questions it raises, which have broad relevance for the contemporary world, including the ethics of collateral damage from drone strikes, are complex and fascinating—is there a real difference between killing someone and letting that person die? How does the trolley problem differ from the situation of a doctor who could save five lives by taking another’s life and harvesting that person’s organs? But few nonacademics will find this accessible—even the diagrams that illuminate the variations on the trolley problem are overly complex and relegated to an appendix. (Dec.)