The Trolley Problem

Ken Kagami's Shopping 2006

I was just over at the Pop Culture Keys blog and read this post
Aaron Swartz Wrote His Last Blog Post On "The Dark Knight"  
on Aaron Swartz's last blog post before he took his own life.
It is a review of the movie The Dark Knight.

What Happens in "The Dark Knight" 
It's one of the best reviews that I have ever read about this movie, and it has links off it to models of ethical problems mentioned in the review.
One such ethical problem was The Trolley Problem.

 "The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics, first introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967.
Outside of the domain of traditional philosophical discussion, the trolley problem has been a significant feature in the fields of cognitive science and, more recently, of neuroethics. 
It has also been a topic on various TV shows dealing with human psychology.
The general form of the problem is this: Person A can take an action which would benefit many people, but in doing so, person B would be unfairly harmed. 
Under what circumstances would it be morally just for Person A to violate Person B's rights in order to benefit the group? "
Trolley problem

More of Ken Kagami's artwork on the cover

I bought the above book from a bookstore in Brisbane about two years ago, around the time of Halloween. 
I had only just the other day pulled it from the bookshelf and flicked through it to find the photo of the doll pushing a shopping trolley full of limbs.

My son's toy trolley he got for Xmas.
He works at a supermarket.

The main reason that photo caught my eye and made me take notice is that my youngest son works for a supermarket chain and sometimes his job used to involve going out into the car-park to collect trolleys. 
So,  for Christmas this year his girlfriend bought him a toy trolley, just like the one the doll is pushing, which is why the photo in the book caught my attention in the first place.

Ken Kagami on the left ...
as if I had to tell you.

Hell bound alright.
The binding is falling apart first read;-)

Hopefully this is the only trolley problem that I ever run into;-)

UPDATE: Jan 16th, 2013.

Cleaner crashes stolen train into flats
I wonder if this lady in Sweden was acting out the trolley problem in real life?-)