Discussion 1: What if you could save five lives in a way that results in the death of a single person? If the overall consequences were the same, would it matter if you were intentionally harming that person or not? This problem is raised by the philosopher Philippa Foot (2002c) in her famous “trolley problem.”
Discussion 2: One way to conceptualize utilitarianism is to hold that the morally required thing to do is to increase the intrinsic good in the world. Trigg is doing just that. But is he going far enough?
If one is morally obligated to maximize the good in the world when should he stop? Should Trigg and the rest of us give all of our income to save the poor – right up to the point of being poor ourselves?
