PhilosophersJudith Jarvis Thomson

Judith Jarvis Thomson

Made the trolley and its 'fat man' famous: sacrificing someone is not the same as diverting a threat.

Analytic philosophy1929 · 2020 United StatesNew York

Life

Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929-2020), an American philosopher, taught at MIT for decades. She is famous for the violinist thought experiment, in her defence of abortion (1971), and for the trolley problem: she named and developed this case from Philippa Foot, and it gave its name to a whole area of ethics. She also wrote a theory of rights.

Main works

1971
A Defense of Abortion

Argues, with the violinist example, that a right to life does not imply a right to use another's body.

1976
Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem

Names the trolley problem and develops its variants.

1990
The Realm of Rights

A detailed theory of rights and their limits.

Positions

click a row to see the evidence
What makes an action good?Basis of morality
Duty (deontology)Consequences (consequentialism)Character (virtue ethics)Other (divine law, relationships, value creation…)

She defends individual rights and the moral difference between killing and letting die, which no simple sum of outcomes can capture.

Thomson, The Realm of Rights (1990)

Do good and evil exist objectively?Status of morality
Anti-realism (morality is human-made)Moral realism (objective moral truths)
Interpretation

She holds that goodness is a real, objective property that is always goodness of some kind, not a mere attitude.

Thomson, Goodness and Advice (2001)

Also appears in

Turning the trolley: one death rather than fivePhilippa Foot · 1967 · debate over 4 levels
What makes something right?Consequences 3