If there were an Olympics of university teaching, I'd expect Michael Sandel to place highly. Sandel is a professor at Harvard University and teaches an extraordinarily popular course on ethics (you can watch it on YouTube - look for "What's the right thing to do?"). He opens it with the following scenario: You're driving a tram, and the brakes fail. Ahead, you see five people working on the tram line who will certainly be killed if you hit them. You can't stop the tram, but there is a sidetrack coming up, and although there's still a single worker on that line, you can divert your tram. So … is it okay to cause the death of one person but save five others? Read more

Sources

• Marc Wilson in New Zealand Listener
• Image: Han-Liang Blogspot

Marc Wilson is a Listener columnist