scholarly journals Five William Shakespeares Versus One Santa Claus; Self-Sacrifice and The Trolley Problem in the Series “The Good Place”

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 366
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Television Series ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Moral Attitude ◽  
Good Place ◽  
Santa Claus ◽  
Four Seasons

The television series The Good Place (2016–2020), created by Michael Schur revolves around four humans who—after their deaths—end up in what they believe to be heaven: the “Good Place”. In reality, however, they are in a very sophisticated torture place, built and directed by demons from the “Bad Place”. During the four seasons of the series, the four humans discover the true nature of their predicament and try to reach to “real” Good Place, through—among other means—improving their moral attitude, e.g., becoming a better person by taking ethical lessons provided by one of the four, who is an actual professor of moral philosophy. During these lessons, the four discuss many ethical and philosophical notions, ideas and problems, among which is Philippa Foot’s famous 1967 thought experiment known as the Trolley Problem. The series as a whole, the author of this article argues, revolves around this impossible moral dilemma, suggesting self-sacrifice as an ultimate solution to the Trolley Problem.

scholarly journals Economic Rationality and Ethical Values in Design-Defect Analysis: The Trolley Problem and Autonomous Vehicles

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Bradley Wendel
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Strict Liability ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Products Liability ◽  
The Third ◽  
Design Defect

The trolley problem is a well-known thought experiment in moral philosophy, used to explore issues such as rights, deontological reasons, and intention and the doctrine of double effect. Recently it has featured prominently in popular discussions of decision making by autonomous vehicle systems. For example, a Mercedes-Benz executive stated that, if faced with the choice between running over a child that had unexpectedly darted into the road and steering suddenly, causing a rollover accident that would kill the driver, an automated Mercedes would opt to kill the child. This paper considers not the ethical issues raised by such dilemmas, but the liability of vehicle manufacturers for injuries that foreseeably result from the design of autonomous systems. Some of the recent commentary on the liability of autonomous vehicle manufacturers suggests unfamiliarity with modern products liability law, particularly the design-defect standard in the Third Restatement of Torts. A superficial understanding of products liability principles – for example, believing it is a regime of strict liability in any meaningful sense – can lead to serious errors in the application of this area of law to autonomous vehicles. It is also a mistake to believe that the economic approach to negligence liability, as developed by Posner and Calabresi, accurately characterizes modern products liability principles. Under the Third Restatement approach, a court or jury will consider whether a product embodies a reasonable balance of safety and utility, and “reasonable” can be interpreted in accordance with ordinary community ethical standards. Thus, some of the issues that are central to resolving trolley problems in moral philosophy may actually recur in design-defect litigation.

scholarly journals A Deeper Look at Autonomous Vehicle Ethics: An Integrative Ethical Decision-Making Framework to Explain Moral Pluralism

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimin Rhim ◽  
Ji-Hyun Lee ◽  
Mo Chen ◽  
Angelica Lim
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Ethical Behavioral Intentions

The autonomous vehicle (AV) is one of the first commercialized AI-embedded robots to make autonomous decisions. Despite technological advancements, unavoidable AV accidents that result in life-and-death consequences cannot be completely eliminated. The emerging social concern of how an AV should make ethical decisions during unavoidable accidents is referred to as the moral dilemma of AV, which has promoted heated discussions among various stakeholders. However, there are research gaps in explainable AV ethical decision-making processes that predict how AVs’ moral behaviors are made that are acceptable from the AV users’ perspectives. This study addresses the key question: What factors affect ethical behavioral intentions in the AV moral dilemma? To answer this question, this study draws theories from multidisciplinary research fields to propose the “Integrative ethical decision-making framework for the AV moral dilemma.” The framework includes four interdependent ethical decision-making stages: AV moral dilemma issue framing, intuitive moral reasoning, rational moral reasoning, and ethical behavioral intention making. Further, the framework includes variables (e.g., perceived moral intensity, individual factors, and personal moral philosophies) that influence the ethical decision-making process. For instance, the framework explains that AV users from Eastern cultures will tend to endorse a situationist ethics position (high idealism and high relativism), which views that ethical decisions are relative to context, compared to AV users from Western cultures. This proposition is derived from the link between individual factors and personal moral philosophy. Moreover, the framework proposes a dual-process theory, which explains that both intuitive and rational moral reasoning are integral processes of ethical decision-making during the AV moral dilemma. Further, this framework describes that ethical behavioral intentions that lead to decisions in the AV moral dilemma are not fixed, but are based on how an individual perceives the seriousness of the situation, which is shaped by their personal moral philosophy. This framework provides a step-by-step explanation of how pluralistic ethical decision-making occurs, reducing the abstractness of AV moral reasoning processes.

Beyond Respect and Beneficence

Respect ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Moral Attitude ◽  
Moral Attitudes ◽  
Recent Tendency

Thomas E. Hill, Jr. breaks with two conventional approaches in moral philosophy. Hill eschews the recent tendency to focus either on duties or on virtues, and instead emphasizes the importance of moral attitudes. And Hill specifically steps outside the usual framework of Kantian ethics by developing and defending the importance of a moral attitude besides respect and beneficence, namely the attitude of appreciation. To appreciate something is to recognize and respond appropriately to its value as something worth attending to, observing, admiring, cherishing, or the like, for its own sake. The attitude of appreciation is especially important in personal relationships, although it includes recognizing and responding positively to the distinctive features possessed by many sorts of things, not just persons.

Trust in Autonomous Cars: Exploring the Role of Shared Moral Values, Reasoning, and Emotion in Safety-Critical Decisions

2020 ◽  
pp. 001872082093304
Author(s):  
Ryosuke Yokoi ◽  
Kazuya Nakayachi
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Value Similarity ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Intention To Adopt ◽  
Autonomous Cars ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
Risk Managers ◽  
Near Future

Objective Autonomous cars (ACs) controlled by artificial intelligence are expected to play a significant role in transportation in the near future. This study investigated determinants of trust in ACs. Background Trust in ACs influences different variables, including the intention to adopt AC technology. Several studies on risk perception have verified that shared value determines trust in risk managers. Previous research has confirmed the effect of value similarity on trust in artificial intelligence. We focused on moral beliefs, specifically utilitarianism (belief in promoting a greater good) and deontology (belief in condemning deliberate harm), and tested the effects of shared moral beliefs on trust in ACs. Method We conducted three experiments ( N = 128, 71, and 196, for each), adopting a thought experiment similar to the well-known trolley problem. We manipulated shared moral beliefs (shared vs. unshared) and driver (AC vs. human), providing participants with different moral dilemma scenarios. Trust in ACs was measured through a questionnaire. Results The results of Experiment 1 showed that shared utilitarian belief strongly influenced trust in ACs. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, however, we did not find statistical evidence that shared deontological belief had an effect on trust in ACs. Conclusion The results of the three experiments suggest that the effect of shared moral beliefs on trust varies depending on the values that ACs share with humans. Application To promote AC implementation, policymakers and developers need to understand which values are shared between ACs and humans to enhance trust in ACs.

Refusal of Killing a Stranger to Save Five Brothers: How Are Others’ Judgments Anticipated and Favored in a Moral Dilemma Situation?

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Ryo Oda
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Computational System ◽  
Rule Based System ◽  
Coordination System ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

One evolutionary theory of morality, examined here, is based on theories of kin selection while another has proposed that moral judgment is based on a Kantian rule-based system. Using the Trolley Problem, Kurzban et al. (2012) asked subjects to decide whether they would kill one person to save five others, varying the relationship of the subject with the others involved. They revealed that nearly half of the subjects reported that they would be unwilling to push one stranger to his/her death to save five brothers in a footbridge version of the Trolley Problem. In the present study, I tried to replicate this somewhat surprising result in Japanese participants, to investigate the robustness of the finding. I also examined how participants anticipated and favored the moral judgment of other people. If a Kantian decision was made according to the coordination system suggested by Kurzban et al. (2012), a Kantian decision, rather than a Hamiltonian decision, would be anticipated and favored as the decision of people generally. The results seem to support the discussion of Kurzban et al. (2012), that the computational system that delivers Kantian moral judgment functions to coordinate condemnation decisions.

Comparing Harms:The Lesser-Evil Defense and the Trolley Problem

Legal Theory ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hallborg
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Risk Of Death ◽  
Intuitive Judgment ◽  
Judith Jarvis Thomson

“The Trolley Problem” is the name Judith Jarvis Thomson has given to a difficult problem in moral philosophy and legal theory. The problem arises by considering a series of cases, all of which involve a choice of evils. Many, but not all of these cases, involve an out-of-control trolley about to run over a group of five people. In each case we are asked for our intuitive judgment as to whether it would be permissible to save the five people at risk when doing so would require the death of, or the imposition of a high risk of death on, another human being.

STARZ Spartacus

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Cable Television ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Classical Reception ◽  
Four Seasons ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Film And Media Studies

The figure of Spartacus often serves as an icon of resistance against oppression in modern political movements, while his legend has inspired numerous receptions over the centuries in many different popular media. This new book brings together a wide range of scholarly perspectives on the four seasons of the acclaimed and highly successful premium cable television series STARZ Spartacus (2010–13), with contributions from the fields of classics, history, gender, film and media studies, and classical reception. The book uncovers a fascinating range of topics and themes within the series such as slavery, society, politics, spectacle, material culture, sexuality, aesthetics, and fan reception.

scholarly journals The Trolley and the Pinto

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryant Walker Smith
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Cyber Physical Systems ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Automated Driving ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Automated driving has attracted substantial public and scholarly attention. This brief Article describes how that attention has brought new fame to a classic philosophical thought experiment (the “trolley problem”), critiques how this thought experiment has been applied in that context, proposes a more practical extension of that experiment based on risk rather than harm, notes that this extension may still involve programming value judgments, argues with reference to the Ford Pinto debacle that these judgments could inflame juries or the public at large, and emphasizes the need for appropriately focused public discussion of these issues. The Article may be especially relevant to developers and regulators of cyber-physical systems, including the automated driving systems that operate self-driving vehicles.

The Good Place in Your Classroom: Recommendations for Teaching Management Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 237929812110416
Author(s):  
Chantal van Esch ◽  
Emily Tarr ◽  
John Frye
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Teaching Management ◽  
Good Place ◽  
Management Ethics ◽  
Ethical Frameworks ◽  
The Us ◽  
Pedagogical Analysis

The sitcom The Good Place can be used by management instructors to teach ethical frameworks and concepts. This series, familiar to many undergraduate students in the US, features a Professor of Ethics and Moral Philosophy who gives mini lectures applied to what the characters are experiencing. These mini lectures can be shown to undergraduates studying ethics in a full course or as a subsection of courses such as management, organizational behavior, or leadership. This article provides information on particular clips that management instructors can use, recommendations for discussion topics with prompts provided, and a comparative pedagogical analysis of using this resource.

5. Doing thought experiments

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
To Come

Reasonable true belief without knowledge is possible, but knowledge is not only justified true belief—so what is it? ‘Doing thought experiments‘ explores how human beings use their imagination and intuition to solve philosophical problems in imaginary scenarios. Thought experiments have played a major role in recent moral philosophy. Sometimes thought experiments are enacted in real life, whereas some can only be imagined. The challenge is to come up with a scenario interesting enough to prove. Through imagining something fully, we know that it is possible, but imagination is not infallible. What if we all gave the same verdict on a thought experiment, but were wrong?

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