Abstract
The prospective introduction of autonomous cars into public traffic raises the question of how such systems should behave when an accident is inevitable. Due to concerns with self-interest and liberal legitimacy that have become paramount in the emerging debate, a contractarian framework seems to provide a particularly attractive means of approaching this problem. We examine one such attempt, which derives a harm minimisation rule from the assumptions of rational self-interest and ignorance of one’s position in a future accident. We contend, however, that both contractarian approaches and harm minimisation standards are flawed, due to a failure to account for the fundamental difference between those ‘involved’ and ‘uninvolved’ in an impending crash. Drawing from classical works on the trolley problem, we show how this notion can be substantiated by reference to either the distinction between negative and positive rights, or to differences in people’s claims. By supplementing harm minimisation with corresponding constraints, we can develop crash algorithms for autonomous cars which are both ethically adequate and promise to overcome certain significant practical barriers to implementation.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In her 1985 work in which she presents the bystander variant of the trolley problem, Thomson frames similar concerns in terms of rights. However, in order to maintain a clear distinction between her and Foot’s views, and because we will primarily draw from the 1976 paper in what follows, we stick to her 1976 usage of the term ‘claims’ in discussing these considerations.
Thomson relies on the latter to account for why the surgeon may not distribute the patient’s organs (1976).
Unfortunately we cannot, as of yet, point to empirical evidence establishing the actual appeal of this approach, because, as we noted in section 6, existing surveys do not unambiguously differentiate between involved and uninvolved persons. We hope that future research will begin to incorporate and emphasise these factors.
References
Aschenbach J (2015) Driverless cars are colliding with the creepy trolley problem. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/12/29/will-self-driving-cars-ever-solve-the-famous-and-creepy-trolley-problem Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Bonnefon J, Shariff A, Rahwan I (2015) Autonomous vehicles need experimental ethics. Are we ready for utilitarian cars? Computing research repository. https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.03346v1 Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Bonnefon J, Shariff A, Rahwan I (2016) The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Science 352:1573–1576
Doctorow C (2015) The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/23/the-problem-with-self-driving-cars-who-controls-the-code Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Foot P (1967) The problem of abortion and the doctrine of double effect. Oxford Review 5:5–15
Gerdes J, Thornton S (2015) Implementable ethics for autonomous vehicles. In: Maurer M, Gerdes J, Lenz B, Winner H (eds) Autonomous driving: technical, legal and social aspects. Springer, Berlin, pp 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48847-8
Gogoll J, Müller J (2017) Autonomous cars: in favor of a mandatory ethics setting. Sci Eng Ethics 23:681–700
Goodall N (2014) Ethical decision making during automated vehicle crashes. Transp Res Rec 2424:58–65
Harris J (1975) The survival lottery. Philosophy 50:81–87
Harsanyi J (1953) Cardinal utility in welfare economics and in the theory of risk-taking. J Polit Econ 61:434–435
Harsanyi J (1982) Morality and the theory of rational behaviour. In: Sen AK, Williams BAO (eds) Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 39–62
Lin P (2015) Why ethics matters for autonomous cars. In: Maurer M, Gerdes J, Lenz B, Winner H (eds) Autonomous driving: technical, legal and social aspects. Springer, Berlin, pp 69–85 http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-48847-8
Loh W, Loh J (2017) Autonomy and responsibility in hybrid systems – the example of autonomous cars. In: Lin P, Abney K, Jenkins R (eds) Robot ethics 2.0. From autonomous cars to artificial intelligence. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 35–50
Millar J (2014). An ethical dilemma: when robot cars must kill, who should pick the victim? Robohub. http://robohub.org/an-ethical-dilemma-when-robot-cars-must-kill-who-should-pick-the-victim Accessed 4 Oct 2017
MIT Media Lab (2017) Moral machine. http://moralmachine.mit.edu Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Mladenovic M, McPherson T (2016) Engineering social justice into traffic control for self-driving vehicles? Sci Eng Ethics 22:1131–1149
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2015) Critical reasons for crashes investigated in the national motor vehicle crash causation survey. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Nyholm S, Smids J (2016) The ethics of accident-algorithms for self-driving cars: an applied trolley problem? Ethical Theory Moral Pract 19:1275–1289
Thomson J (1976) Killing, letting die and the trolley problem. Monist 59:204–217
Thomson J (1985) The trolley problem. Yale Law J 94:1395–1415
Windsor M (2015) Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you if it means saving more strangers? Science Daily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150615124719.htm Accessed 4 Oct 2017
World Health Organization (2015) Global status report on road safety 2015. http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/en Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Worstall T (2014) When should your driverless car from google be allowed to kill you? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/06/18/when-should-your-driverless-car-from-google-be-allowed-to-kill-you Accessed 4 Oct 2017
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Markus Ahlers, Sven Nyholm, and two anonymous referees from Ethical Theory and Moral Practice for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hübner, D., White, L. Crash Algorithms for Autonomous Cars: How the Trolley Problem Can Move Us Beyond Harm Minimisation. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 21, 685–698 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9910-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9910-x