How reliable are our moral intuitions? (OP-ED).

Free Inquiry, December, 2002 by Singer, Peter (Judge)

In bioethics as in other areas of ethical debate, arguments very often circle back to our intuitions-those almost automatic responses we have to whether something "feels" right or wrong. But where do these intuitions come from, and how much reliance should we place on them?

Some unusual recent research has cast new light on the role of intuitive responses in ethical reasoning. At Princeton University, Joshua Greene, a philosophy Ph.D. student, became interested in a set of dilemmas known in the philosophical literature as "trolley problems." In the standard trolley problem, you are standing by a railroad track when you notice that a trolley (or handcar) with no one aboard is roiling down the track, heading for a group of five people. They will all be killed if...

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