Moral Dilemmas Involving Self-Driving Cars

How to Regulate Them and Why Your Opinion Matters

Norbert Paulo, Lando Kirchmair

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781040302194
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Technology & Engineering Research & Skills

Experts believe that self-driving cars will be much safer than conventional cars. However, there will still be some accidents, even fatal ones. The innovation of self-driving cars gives us the new, amazing, and, at the same time, arduous opportunity to decide in advance what should happen in which accident situation. It will force us to decide who must die in order to save others in dilemma situations.

This book prepares readers to take an informed stance on the difficult moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars. It will convince them that the ethical and legal challenges posed by self-driving cars are real, novel, and unavoidable—and that they require a solution. It presents the problems involved in programming self-driving cars for dilemma situations, putting the reader in the position to develop their own well-informed opinion on the issues. The book also discusses the astonishing discrepancies between existing regulations for collisions involving self-driving cars in some jurisdictions and empirical findings about what people think about how they should be regulated. Finally, it presents advice for policymakers around the globe on how to regulate moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars.

Moral Dilemmas Involving Self-Driving Cars will be of interest to a broad range of students, scholars, and policymakers interested in the ethics of self-driving vehicles.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 The Possibility and Necessity of Regulation: Preparing Ourselves for Urgent Moral Dilemmas
• 2 How to Regulate Moral Dilemmas Involving Self-Driving Cars
• 3 Why Your Opinion Is Relevant for the Law and for Ethics
• 4 Our Tips for Policymakers
• Index