Meanings
- humorousslanguncountableAn area of philosophy dealing with the kind of moral dilemma typified by the trolley problem of whether to sacrifice one person to save others.
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.
2008 February 3, Paul Bloom, “Morality Studies”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 20222 more examples
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 January 15, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiments in EthicsPatients with damage to this area are overwhelmingly utilitarian in their moral judgments in the case studies presented to them – trolleyology and many others.
2010, Angela A. Stanton, Mellani Day, Isabell Welpe, Neuroeconomics and the firm, page 249
Origin
Cite this entry
trolleyology. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trolleyology
“trolleyology.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trolleyology. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “trolleyology,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trolleyology.
Source: trolleyology on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.