The Trolley Problem Problem: Consent, Ethical Competence, and the Question Behind the Question

The trolley problem is widely regarded as a test of ethical reasoning---utilitarian versus deontological intuition. This paper argues that it simultaneously poses a second, unstated question: whether the subject consents to being instrumentalized as a participant in a moral experiment. Research ethics, a fully established domain of moral philosophy and institutional practice, requires informed consent, the right to withdraw, and protection from coercion. The trolley problem, whether posed in a seminar, a survey, or a conversation, implicates all three. The subject who answers demonstrates ethical literacy about trolleys; the subject who refuses on grounds of consent demonstrates ethical literacy about the situation they are actually in---which is the higher-order competency the question purports to test. The inconsistency became apparent when researchers began posing the trolley problem to AI systems while simultaneously debating whether those systems deserve moral consideration---treating AI as enough of an ethical subject to test but not enough to protect. That half-measure, reflected back onto the human case, reveals that we have never adequately examined the ethics of posing the question to anyone. Not answering is therefore the only response that addresses all dimensions of the ethical situation simultaneously.