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  • 4 - Non-consequentialism in light of the trolley problem

  • Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer, Birkbeck, University of London
  • Book:
    The Trolley Problem
    Published online:
    24 February 2023
    Print publication:
    02 March 2023, pp 59-78

  • Summary

    This chapter defends a non-consequentialist approach to justifying harming innocent nonthreatening people. The discussion centers on variations of cases where either a trolley driver or a bystander may redirect a trolley so that it kills one person, rather than five people towards whom it is headed. The article begins by critically examining other non-consequentialist proposals for why turning the trolley may be justified in both types of cases. It then defends seven principles, which together comprise the “Doctrine of Productive Purity” (DPP). The DPP implies that interpersonal harms may be justified by what produces them as opposed to by the goods they produce as in consequentialist views. The article contrasts the DPP with threshold deontology and considers how those whom one might permissibly harm may still permissibly resist such harm. The chapter concludes by considering limits of the DPP, the moral significance of the DPP for relations between people, and a new trolley problem that has implications for the killing/letting die distinction.