The Trolley Problem in the Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

In 2021, Germany passed the first law worldwide that regulates dilemma situations with autonomous cars. Against this background, this article investigates the permissibility of trade-offs between human lives in the context of self-driving cars. It does so by drawing on the debate about the traditional trolley problem. In contrast to most authors in the relevant literature, it argues that the debate about the trolley problem is both directly and indirectly relevant for the ethics of crashes with self-driving cars. Drawing on its direct normative relevance, the article shows that trade-offs are permissible in situations with self-driving cars that are similar to paradigmatic trolley cases. In scenarios that are unlike paradigmatic trolley cases, the debate about the trolley problem can have indirect normative relevance because it provides reasons against the use of moral theories and principles that cannot account for the trolley problem.