The New Trolley problem: driverless cars and deontological distinctions
The New Trolley problem: driverless cars and deontological distinctions
Discussion of the ethics of driverless cars has often focused on supposed real-life versions of the famous trolley problem. In these cases, a driverless car is in a position where crashing is unavoidable and all possible crashes risk harm: for example, it can either continue on its current path and crash into five pedestrians or swerve and crash into one pedestrian. There are significant disanalogies between the human versions of the trolley problem and situations faced by driverless cars which affect the application and moral significance of key deontological distinctions, such as the distinction between doing and allowing harm. The application and moral significance of the doing/allowing distinction in the context of the behaviour of driverless cars depend on (a) our conception of the behaviour of driverless cars; (b) the forms of driverless cars that are developed and used; (c) the background expectations of programmers/manufacturers/ owners of driverless cars and the conditions of being able to put those cars on the roads. These are as yet unsettled – and may even be undetermined. Nonetheless, trolley problems may still be useful in thinking about the ethics of driverless cars.
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, autonomous vehicles, deontological distinctions, driverless cars, trolley problems
49-64
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
February 2023
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
Woollard, Fiona
(2023)
The New Trolley problem: driverless cars and deontological distinctions.
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 40 (1), .
(doi:10.1111/japp.12610).
Abstract
Discussion of the ethics of driverless cars has often focused on supposed real-life versions of the famous trolley problem. In these cases, a driverless car is in a position where crashing is unavoidable and all possible crashes risk harm: for example, it can either continue on its current path and crash into five pedestrians or swerve and crash into one pedestrian. There are significant disanalogies between the human versions of the trolley problem and situations faced by driverless cars which affect the application and moral significance of key deontological distinctions, such as the distinction between doing and allowing harm. The application and moral significance of the doing/allowing distinction in the context of the behaviour of driverless cars depend on (a) our conception of the behaviour of driverless cars; (b) the forms of driverless cars that are developed and used; (c) the background expectations of programmers/manufacturers/ owners of driverless cars and the conditions of being able to put those cars on the roads. These are as yet unsettled – and may even be undetermined. Nonetheless, trolley problems may still be useful in thinking about the ethics of driverless cars.
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AuthorAcceptedThe New Trolley Problem
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Accepted/In Press date: 27 May 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 July 2022
Published date: February 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This article was written during a Visiting Fellowship at the Australian National University in July and August 2019. It was presented at the Morality and Machine Intelligence Conference, ANU, August 22, 2019, at the Seminar in Moral Philosophy of the University of Gothenburg, and at the University of Southampton Research Day. I thank members of each audience for helpful comments. I also thank the anonymous referees whose generous comments significantly improved the article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author. Journal of Applied Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Philosophy.
Keywords:
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, autonomous vehicles, deontological distinctions, driverless cars, trolley problems
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Local EPrints ID: 457968
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/457968
ISSN: 0264-3758
PURE UUID: 21b4c29f-b3eb-4ccf-a08d-8ced18fdde63
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Date deposited: 23 Jun 2022 17:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 07:23
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