trolleyology

trolley +‎ -ology

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trolleyology (uncountable)

1. (slang, humorous) An area of philosophy dealing with the kind of moral dilemma typified by the trolley problem of whether to sacrifice one person to save others.
   • 2008 January 15, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics:

     Trolleyology . . . by now the philosophical commentary on these cases makes the Talmud look like Cliffs Notes, and is surely massive enough to stop any runaway trolley in its tracks.

   • 2008 February 3, Paul Bloom, “Morality Studies”, in New York Times‎:

     It used to be that the only people who had even heard of such dilemmas were professional philosophers, but now it seems as if everyone is doing trolleyology.

   • 2010, Angela A. Stanton, Mellani Day, Isabell Welpe, Neuroeconomics and the firm, page 249:

     Patients with damage to this area are overwhelmingly utilitarian in their moral judgments in the case studies presented to them – trolleyology and many others.

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