A New Trolley Problem?

This chapter puts forward a novel healthcare application of the Trolley Problem by applying it to our most recent global health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. The following hypothesis is introduced, analyzed and ultimately rejected: that the Trolley Problem can be used to distinguish between the supposed ethical permissibility of lifting lockdowns and the supposed ethical impermissibility of pursuing herd immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the chapter is twofold: both to test whether and how far we can progress within pandemic ethics by using the Trolley Problem and also to test whether the particular case of the COVID-19 pandemic can make a methodological contribution to trolley debates in philosophy.