Never Mind the Trolley: The Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles in Mundane Situations
Trolley cases are widely considered central to the ethics of autonomous vehicles. We caution against this by identifying four problems. (1) Trolley cases, given technical limitations, rest on assumptions that are in tension with one another. Furthermore, (2) trolley cases illuminate only a limited r...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2018]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2018, Volume: 21, Issue: 3, Pages: 669-684 |
| RelBib Classification: | NCA Ethics NCJ Ethics of science VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Self-driving cars
B Methodology B Driverless cars B Applied Ethics B Ethics of self-driving cars B Trolley Problem B Ethics of autonomous vehicles B Autonomous vehicles B Ethics of technology B thought experiments |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Trolley cases are widely considered central to the ethics of autonomous vehicles. We caution against this by identifying four problems. (1) Trolley cases, given technical limitations, rest on assumptions that are in tension with one another. Furthermore, (2) trolley cases illuminate only a limited range of ethical issues insofar as they cohere with a certain design framework. Furthermore, (3) trolley cases seem to demand a moral answer when a political answer is called for. Finally, (4) trolley cases might be epistemically problematic in several ways. To put forward a positive proposal, we illustrate how ethical challenges arise from mundane driving situations. We argue that mundane situations are relevant because of the specificity they require and the scale they exhibit. We then illustrate some of the ethical challenges arising from optimizing for safety, balancing safety with other values such as mobility, and adjusting to incentives of legal frameworks. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-018-9896-4 |