Читать книгу The Trolley Problem / Das Trolley-Problem (Englisch/Deutsch) - Judith Jarvis Thomson - Страница 13

What counts as “an object which threatens death”? What marks one threat off from another? I have no doubt that ingenious people can construct cases in which we shall be unclear whether to say that if the agent proceeds, he makes threaten the one the very same thing as already threatens the five. [1413]

Moreover, which are the interventions in which the agent gets a thing that threatens five to instead threaten one by means that themselves constitute infringements of stringent rights of the one’s? I have no doubt that ingenious people can construct cases in which we shall all be unclear whether to say that the agent’s means do constitute infringements of stringent rights – and cases also in which [80]we shall be unclear whether to say the agent’s means constitute infringements of any rights at all.

But it is surely a mistake to look for precision in the concepts brought to bear to solve this problem: There isn’t any to be had. It would be enough if cases in which it seems to us unclear whether to say “same threat,” or unclear whether to say “non-right-infringing-means,” also seemed to us to be cases in which it is unclear whether the agent may or may not proceed; and if also coming to see a case as one to which these expressions do (or do not) apply involves coming to see the case as one in which the agent may (or may not) proceed.