For Doctor Williams
so much depended
on a red barrow,
rain-glazed and split with
precision. Also
adjacent chickens.
A runaway train, A runaway train,
five people tied to five people tied to
a railway track, one a railway track, one
person a spur line, fat man leaning over
a point switch saves five, a footbridge, push him,
kills one. save five.
Can this be
the architecture
of a moral choice?
Does so much depend
on so few details?
Would a faulty switch,
an imposed diet,
make a difference
to a moral life?
But what colours were
the point switch, the fat
man’s clothes, the bridge paint?
The Trolley and Footbridge problems were developed by Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson, respectively, to illustrate moral choices. Certain phrases are taken or adapted from by William Carlos Williams’ ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’..
