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vol. 2. I discuss the DTE(R), its application to the Loop Case, and what it implies
about instrumental rationality in more detail in The Doctrine of Triple Effect and
Why a Rational Agent Need Not Intend the Means to His End, in The Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society (2000).
When Thomson introduces the Loop Case, she compares it with Transplant. Here
is what Thomson says:
Let us now imagine that the five on the straight track are thin, but thick
enough so that although all five will be killed if the trolley goes straight, the
bodies of the five will stop it, and it will therefore not reach the one. On the
other hand, the one on the right-hand track is fat, so fat that his body will by
itself stop the trolley, and the trolley will therefore not reach the five. May the
agent turn the trolley? . . . [W]e cannot really suppose that the presence or
absence of that extra bit of track makes a major moral difference as to what
an agent may do in these cases, and it really does seem right to think (despite
the discomfort) that the agent may proceed.
On the other hand, we should notice that the agent here needs the one (fat)
track workman on the right-hand track if he is to save his five. If the one goes
wholly out of existence just before the agent starts to turn the trolley, then the
agent cannot save his five just as the surgeon in Transplant cannot save his
five if the young man goes wholly out of existence just before the surgeon
starts to operate.
Indeed, I should think that there is no plausible account of what is involved
in, or what is necessary for, the application of the notions treating a person
as a means only , or using one to save five , under which the surgeon would
be doing this whereas the agent in this variant of Bystander at the Switch
would not be.
I believe that the intuition that it is permissible to turn the trolley in the Loop Case
need not be based on assuming that the five s being hit if we did not turn it is what
would stop the one from being killed by the trolley. To keep this point in mind, I
wish to revise the case as Thomson presents it so that there is a semipermeable brick
wall behind the five. It is coated on one side, so that it would stop the trolley if the
five were not there, but not coated on the other side, so that if the one were not on
the side track, the trolley would go through the wall, killing five. Thomson says the
following about this problem:
There are two facts about what he does which seem to me to explain the moral
difference between what he does and what the agent in Transplant would be
doing if he proceeded. In the first place, the bystander saves his five by making
Toward the Essence of Nonconsequentialism 177
something that threatens them threaten the one instead. Second, the bystander
does not do that by means which themselves constitute an infringement of
any right of the one s. [Thomson repudiated this explanation in The Realm of
Rights.]
However, I think there are cases of permissible harming that do not satisfy these two
conditions. For example, consider the following Lazy Susan Case: A trolley is headed
toward five people seated on a large swivel table. We are physically unable to redi-
rect the trolley, but we can turn the table so that the five are moved out of reach of
the trolley. However, turning the swivel table causes it to bang into and kill a
bystander near the table who cannot be moved. Furthermore, the only way to turn
the Lazy Susan involves our throwing a rock at and damaging (though not stopping)
the out-of-control trolley, which is owned by the bystander. The rock bounces off at
an angle that releases the lock on the Lazy Susan.
In this Lazy Susan Case, we do not make something that threatens the five threaten
the one instead. Arguably, we also infringe a property right of Joe s in damaging his
trolley. Yet it seems permissible to turn the Lazy Susan. So these two conditions are
not necessary for permissibly killing. Nor are they sufficient, for suppose a bystander
is on a bridge. If we wiggle the bridge this will cause an electrical discharge that
turns the trolley. Unfortunately, the wiggling also topples the bystander off the bridge
and in front of the diverted trolley by which he is hit and killed. Though the two
conditions Thomson mentions are present in this case, it is impermissible to do what
kills the bystander. So, I suggest, there is still a problem distinguishing Loop and
Transplant.
The solution Thomson offers to the Trolley Problem in The Realm of Rights would
justify turning in Loop if the following were true: It was to the advantage of each of
the six before they knew who would be among the five and who would be the one
that the trolley be turned, even when it would not be to the advantage of the one
that it be turned at the time of the turning. The problem is that this proposal could
also justify pushing someone into the trolley to stop it in order to save the five. For
example, suppose all six were railroad workers (as Thomson imagines) and five will
be assigned to work on the tracks and one to clean up the bridge over the track. It
would be to the advantage of each, before they know their assignments, for someone
to push the one off the bridge if this is the only way to stop the trolley. See my dis-
cussion of her proposal in The Realm of Rights in Nonconsequentialism, the Person
as an End-in-Itself, and the Significance of Status.
13. The trolley need not even be coming from a different direction for there to be a new
problem. We could imagine a Loop Case in which the diversion results in the trolley
going in a perfect circle right back to where it was originally (A) and then heading
to the five. (See figure 8.1.) I still believe it is proper to see the trolley s coming back
to A as a second problem that arises from what we did to take care of the first
problem.
14. There is another possibility that is consistent with the Loop Case violating neither
the seek greater good nor the do not intend evil conditions of the DDE(R). This
is that our aim in acting is that we achieve the greater good of the five being really
saved, but we do not intend all the means causally necessary to achieve this. If this
were possible, it would show that, contrary to a so-called Principle of Instrumental
Rationality, a rational agent need not intend what he believes are means causally nec-
essary to an end he continues to intend. I discuss this possibility in The Doctrine of
Triple Effect and Why a Rational Agent Need Not Intend the Means to His End.
15. Judith Thomson notes this in The Realm of Rights.
16. Being noncausally related is not the same as merely not being causally related.
178 F. M. Kamm
Figure 8.1
Another Trolley Case
17. I thank John Gibbons for his suggestion that there are two descriptions of the same
event and they are noncausally related to a state of affairs.
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