The Trolley Problem, or Would You Throw the Fat Guy Off the Bridge?

基本信息

Format:Hardback 112 pages, black and white line drawings

Publisher:Workman Publishing

Imprint:Workman Publishing

ISBN:9780761175131

Published:30 Sep 2013

Weight:236g

Dimensions:178 x 138 x 15 (mm)

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

书籍简介

本书虚拟了一桩符合“电车难题”情境的事件及随之而来的审判，检控官、法官、被告、受害人家属、陪审团、律师、媒体、大学师生、电视观众、论坛网友等各路人马纷纷登场，各自表态，一场思维的激烈碰撞就此展开。作者还结合案情与审判进程中的讨论热点，言简意赅地介绍了古往今来若干大哲学家 的主要思想与贡献，展示诸位先哲对于当今社会的影响。全书生动有趣，全景式地呈现了诞生数十年来讨论不休且越来越热烈的“电车难题”，堪称一次为广大公民讲授的伦理通识课。

A trolley is careering out of control. Up ahead are five workers; on a spur to the right stands a lone individual. You, a bystander, happen to be standing next to a switch that could divert the trolley, which would save the five, but sacrifice the one—do you pull it? Or say you’re watching from an overpass. The only way to save the workers is to drop a heavy object in the trolley’s path. And you’re standing next to a really fat man….

This ethical conundrum—based on British philosopher Philippa Foot’s 1967 thought experiment—has inspired decades of lively argument around the world. Now Thomas Cathcart, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, brings his sharp intelligence, quirky humor, and gift for popularizing serious ideas to “the trolley problem.” Framing the issue as a possible crime that is to be tried in the Court of Public Opinion, Cathcart explores philosophy and ethics, intuition and logic. Along the way he makes connections to the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, Kant’s limits of reason, St. Thomas Aquinas’s fascinating Principle of Double Effect, and more.

Read with an open mind, this provocative book will challenge your deepest held notions of right and wrong. Would you divert the trolley? Kill one to save five? Would you throw the fat man off the bridge?

作者简介

托马斯·卡思卡特，毕业于哈佛大学哲学专业，此后进入芝加哥大学研究神学。履历丰富，职业多变，从大学授课到临终关怀，均有涉足。67岁时开始写作生涯，首部作品（合著）《柏拉图与鸭嘴兽一块上酒吧？》（Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar…）一炮而红，畅销全球。目前与妻子居住在纽约。

Thomas Cathcart graduated from Harvard with a degree in philosophy, studied theology at the University of Chicago, and embarked on a "checkered career" (his words) from college teaching to hospice management until, at the age of 67, he started his writing life by coauthoring Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar with Daniel Klein. Mr. Cathcart and his wife live in New York City.