Posted: Aug 24, 2017 8:30 am
zoon wrote:The argument which Joshua Green is making, and which I agree with, is that moral thinking is an evolved aspect of human social behaviour (in his words, from here, "I (along with many others) believe that morality is a suite of psychological devices that allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation.") Like other biological functions, it evolved to work well enough, rather than to be perfect.
Sounds pretty good to me.
I think one of the problems when investigating this issue empirically is that, as someone else has already said, respondents (to trolley problems) will almost inevitably bring their own personal responses into play. For example, just saying the person on the platform (who could be pushed) is a man, or is fat, etc, will likely have some influence, and that's just one example.
I think that researchers can and should try to provide as neutral a level playing-field as possible, and I would not say their efforts are not worthwhile, but I think (as with other thought experiments generally) that we don't always take the hypotheticals fully on board.