FUTURE OF JEWISH
Can you hear the runaway trolley in Gaza?
Yishai Jusidman
February 24, 2024

…In philosopher Philippa Foot’s original 1967 outline, a runaway trolley is on a downhill course about to hit and kill five people down its main track, yet the trolley can be diverted by its driver to a side-track, such that one person on that track would otherwise be killed. What should the driver do? Divert the trolley to the side-track, or avoid intervening at all? To what extent would the driver be held responsible by diverting the trolley or refraining from doing so? Much ink has been spilled over whether doing nothing amounts, in this case, to doing something. Most people’s gut reaction to the basic Trolley Problem is: Do something! Divert the trolley and save a net of four lives — all lives being equally sacred. For the protestors in pursuit of an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, there is no mystery either…READ MORE