Word.ws English Dictionary

trolley problems

trolley problems is the plural of trolley problem.

Meaning of trolley problem

Noun

trolley problem (plural trolley problems)

  1. A type of thought experiment in ethics and psychology, involving ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number.
    • By the late ‘90s, trolley problems had fallen out of fashion. Many philosophers questioned the value of the conclusions reached by analyzing a situation so bizarre and specific.2015 October 9, Lauren Cassani Davis, “Would You Pull the Trolley Switch? Does it Matter?”, in The Atlantic

Questions about trolley problems

What is trolley problems the plural of?
Trolley problems is the plural of trolley problem.

Words near trolley problems in the dictionary

  1. trolley park
  2. trolley parks
  3. trolley pole
  4. trolley poles
  5. trolley problem
  6. trolley problems
  7. trolley trasher
  8. trolley trashers
  9. trolley-dollies
  10. trolley-dolly
  11. trolleybus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trolley problems (page history and authors); trolley problem (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “trolley problems.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trolley_problems. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.