Kantianism Or Utilitarian Approach, Who Decides?

Kantianism or Utilitarian Approach, Who Decides? A self-driving car also known as an autonomous car is basically a computerized robot. The computer in the car is programed to take the car and often a traveler from point A to point B without intervention from humans (Rouse). There are three things required for a self-driving car. According to Sridhar Lakshmanan, a self-driving auto expert, the three things are a GPS system, a second system to “recognize dynamic conditions on the road” and “a way to turn the information from the other two systems into action” to drive the car (Pullen). A lot of enthusiasm or lack thereof depends on whether you love to drive or just consider cars as a tool to get from where you are to where you need to be.

There are a huge number of details that need to be worked out. My first thought is to go with the utilitarian approach and minimize the loss of life and save the greatest number of people, but upon farther reflection I started to see the problems with it. The utilitarian approach is too simplistic. It raised all kinds of questions such as will the computer make any decisions as to fault when it makes the decision on what to do. For example, if I am in the car with my young child, and three eighty-year-old drunks wander out in front of my car because they are drunk by their own choice, is the car going to choose them over me and my child because there are three of them? I would not want the computer to make that decision for me because frankly I probably would not make that decision. That kind of computer decision would probably curtail many people including me from buying a self-driving car. It is the same paradox that MIT Review refers to when it says, “People are in favor of cars that sacrifice the occupant to save other lives—as long as they don’t have to drive one themselves” (“Why

Under Kantianism it would be an immoral action, but frankly that is what I would do. If I was giving the programmer directions on how I wanted my self-driving car to perform knowing that it was a matter of saving my family or strangers, I would have to choose my family. Under Kantianism it would be immoral to sacrifice my innocent child to save three people whose actions were libel for the accident because according to Kant taking a life or in this case choosing to sacrifice the innocent child to save three lives is absolutely prohibited and therefore immoral (Ryan). The twist to this for me is if I was driving the car and had to make a decision in this to hit three people or hit a wall, I am not sure my decision would be the same because I am not sure it would enter my mind that it was them or us in that split-second