This is philosophy bites, with me, Nigel.
Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
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Is it ever acceptable to take one life to save five?
To discuss this topic, we have an unusual guest who's written about this.
You may recognise his voice, David Edmonds.
Welcome to philosophy Bites.
Good to be here.
I've heard great things about the show.
The topic we're going to focus on is the trolley problem.
Could you just begin by outlining what the trolley problem is?
Well, in fact, there are lots of trolley problems.
In fact, they've been given a name, trolleyology.
These are all thought experiments, and the first and most basic one is you imagine that a train is running out of control.
We talk about trolleys, but in fact it's easier to talk about trains.
The train is running out of control.
It's going down the track.
The brakes have failed.