The HBS hosts discuss the pedagogical pros and cons of thoughts experiments.

Philosophy has its own laboratory! While it doesn’t have graduated cylinders or Bunsen burners, it is a “clean room” in which philosophers can distill the essential elements of a theory. We talk about the pros and cons of thought experiments, their uses, and their abuses. We give some examples of famous thought experiments and, yes, we talk about the trolley problem.

In this episode, we refer to or discuss the following ideas, people, or texts:

• The Matrix
• Peter Singer
• Philippa Foot, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effects,” in Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
• Karl Marx, Contributions to the Critique of Political Economy
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
• Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
• Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals
• “Act Like Slaves” experiment in schools.