Imagine this scenario. You’re walking past a train track. You get to a place where the rails split, and notice people tied to the track. One rail has five people tied to it and the other has one tied to it. You try to untie them when you see a runaway train hurtling towards you. It’s heading towards the rail with five people. You don’t have enough time to rescue them, but you can change the train’s course by pulling a lever. Who do you save: the five people or the one person?
Other thoughts:
Imagine the same scenario, except that the one person is your best friend or a family member. Do you kill five people for your loved one, or sacrifice him/her for the greater good?
Suppose there was a third option: throw yourself onto the track to stop the train. This would kill you but leave six strangers unharmed. Would you do this?
Imagine another scenario: the only way to stop the train from killing six people is to either throw yourself or a random onlooker onto the tracks. What would you do?
I think that this is pretty impossible in real life since there’s always people checking the tracks but still, I’d choose to block the train since in all the other options, you’d eventually feel bad about the decision, but in the last option, you won’t, technically, you can’t, since you’d die. But if you live, I don’t think anyone will regret that choice since you saved 6 lives.
Or, you might as well just walk away and pretend that nothing happened.
The trolley dilemma!