Joshua Greene

A kind of unfortunate side effect of all of this is that I was studying the Footbridge case

Because it's utilitarianism at its least appealing, right?

And then this work really took off.

And then people started associating utilitarianism with pushing people off of footbridges, which is really kind of like addressing the most salient objections to it, but not the heart of it, right?

So I want people to associate utilitarianism with providing opportunities in healthcare to poor people around the world and making sure that we're not torturing animals unnecessarily and things like that.

To me and to Peter Singer, that's what it's really about.

But so much focus...

partly due to me, has been on these kind of horror cases, but it was done out of a kind of intellectual integrity.

That is, if this is going to be your philosophy, you need to defend it at its least appealing.

And so that's how we got there, right?

So an unfortunate sort of cultural narrative side effect of doing all of this, but I hope at least your listeners will understand that it really is about making the world better and not about shoving people in front of speeding trolleys.

I've played.

In fact, we have a copy of it in my lab where I'm sitting.

Yeah, we've done this at lab parties and other things.

It's better than you'd think.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty fun.

Oh, I thought it was great.

They did a brilliant, amazing job with, you know, just demonstrate.

And I actually did a little bit of consulting for them for later season, but not for the original Trolley episode.