Let’s give you a hypothetical situation. Say you’re watching a trolley go by (an old-fashioned trolley, like a train, if you must) and you realize that the driver has no control over the brake. (Of course, you know this because you are an expert when it comes to trolleys). You watch it head down a railway going towards five construction workers. The trolley is on a railway so tight that the workers can’t get out of the way in time. However, there is another route that they have access to, with only one worker on it. You’re standing next to a lever in which you can switch the tracks and make the trolley diverge towards the route with one person. Do you kill the five, or just the one?
This is a hard question for a lot of people. But I think we can all agree that most people would pull the lever and save the five lives. But this isn’t really the true trolley problem: the true problem are different variations that come about. Now that we’ve concluded that most of us would choose to kill the one person, lets take another hypothetical scenario. You’re standing on top of a bridge, watching a trolley go by. You’re, once again, a trolley expert and realize that the trolley is out of control. To make matters worse, there are five people tied to the railroad in a hostage situation. If you don’t do anything, they will be run over. You know that the only way to stop it is by putting a heavy weight down in front of it. However, the only heavy weight you have is a fat man standing next to you. If you push him off the bridge, the trolley will stop for sure, saving five lives but killing one. Do you do it?
Same question, harder answer. However, there are philosophers who have argued as to how similar the two situations still are. In both you are still killing one person to save five. Despite all the victims being innocent people, you must choose what you would do. Most people opt to kill the one worker with the lever, but in the second situation, they don’t throw the fat man off the bridge. Why? It is probably because pushing the fat man off the bridge involves knowingly killing someone, unlike the first scenario. But isn’t that the same in both cases?