I’m not sure why it’s perceived as more difficult. The trolley didn’t just appear magically on the tracks. Someone put it there and set it moving (or negligently allowed it to).
Well, I perceive it as more difficult because of my intuitions about how culpability travels up a causal chain.
For example, if someone dies because of a bullet fired into their heart from a gun shot by a hand controlled by a brain B following an instruction given by agent A, my judgment of culpability travels unattenuated through the bullet and the gun and the hand. To what degree it grounds out in B and A depends on to what degree I consider B autonomous… if B is an advanced ballistics-targeting computer I might be willing to call it a brain but still unwilling to hold it culpable for the death, for example. Either way, the bulk of the culpability grounds out there. I may go further and look at the social structures and contingent history that led to A and B (and the hand, bullet, gun, heart, etc.) being the way they are, but that will at best be in addition to the initial judgment, and I probably won’t bother.
Similarly, if five people are hit by a trolley that rolled down a track that agent A chose not to stop, my intuitions of culpability ground out in A. Again, I may go further and look at the train switching systems and so on and so forth, but that will be in addition to the initial judgment, and I probably won’t bother.
I find it helpful to remember that intuitions about culpability are distinct from beliefs about responsibility.
I’m not sure why it’s perceived as more difficult. The trolley didn’t just appear magically on the tracks. Someone put it there and set it moving (or negligently allowed it to).
Well, I perceive it as more difficult because of my intuitions about how culpability travels up a causal chain.
For example, if someone dies because of a bullet fired into their heart from a gun shot by a hand controlled by a brain B following an instruction given by agent A, my judgment of culpability travels unattenuated through the bullet and the gun and the hand. To what degree it grounds out in B and A depends on to what degree I consider B autonomous… if B is an advanced ballistics-targeting computer I might be willing to call it a brain but still unwilling to hold it culpable for the death, for example. Either way, the bulk of the culpability grounds out there. I may go further and look at the social structures and contingent history that led to A and B (and the hand, bullet, gun, heart, etc.) being the way they are, but that will at best be in addition to the initial judgment, and I probably won’t bother.
Similarly, if five people are hit by a trolley that rolled down a track that agent A chose not to stop, my intuitions of culpability ground out in A. Again, I may go further and look at the train switching systems and so on and so forth, but that will be in addition to the initial judgment, and I probably won’t bother.
I find it helpful to remember that intuitions about culpability are distinct from beliefs about responsibility.