Should You Kill the Backpacker?

This activity focuses on some of the complications raised by the famous Trolley Problem thought experiment. In particular, it relies on Judith Jarvis Thomson's essay, "The Trolley Problem", published in The Yale Law Journal in 1985.

It seems you have not yet completed the "Should You Kill The Fat Man?" activity on this web site (or, at least, not recently). If that's right, you might want to consider giving it a go before undertaking this activity, since it deals with some of the more straightforward issues raised by the Trolley Problem. However, the current activity is entirely self-contained, so if you wish to proceed, just click the button below.

You can track your performance by referring to the graph on your right. Every time the activity detects a contradiction or tension in your responses it will make an addition to your "Tension Quotient" (which currently stands at zero). It will also display the average Tension Quotient for each stage in the activity, so you can see how you're doing compared to other people. See if you can get to the end of the activity with a score that is lower than average.