Girard, Utilitarianism, and the Trolley Problem

Walking into Philosophy 101 freshman year of college chances are you will be immediately presented with the Trolley Problem. Should we intentionally harm the one to save the many? This is the question that undergirds utilitarianism, "the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority." Thanks for reading l̸o̴o̷k̶ ̷f̵o̸r̴ ̵s̷u̸r̴p̵r̶i̵s̵e̴s̷ 🌊! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Rene Girard, former Stanford professor and philosopher, also has much to say about the majority. Versus the "might makes right" of utilitarianism, Girard saw a deeper social reality of mimesis and sacrificial scapegoating - the tendency of the war of all-against-all to turn into the war of all-against-one. So let's analyze the Trolley problem through a Girardian frame. (*note, I have never seen anyone talk about this which is very surprising.) Observations The group on the track are truly bound, in that they do not know how to escape their mimetic t

Walking into Philosophy 101 freshman year of college chances are you will be immediately presented with the Trolley Problem. Should we intentionally harm the one to save the many? This is the question that undergirds utilitarianism, "the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority." Thanks for reading l̸o̴o̷k̶ ̷f̵o̸r̴ ̵s̷u̸r̴p̵r̶i̵s̵e̴s̷ 🌊! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Rene Girard, former Stanford professor and philosopher, also has much to say about the majority. Versus the "might makes right" of utilitarianism, Girard s