This week there was a familiar problem posted on the Open University’s Philosophy Forum. You see a train hurtling towards a group of five workers on the line. If you pull a lever the train will be diverted to a side line where only one worker is working on the track. Do you pull the lever, divert the train to save five lives at the expense of one worker’s life?
In another scenario you are walking across a footbridge over a railway line where an extremely fat man is sitting on the edge. A train is approaching and there are five men working on the track in it’s path. If you push the fat man off the footbridge onto the track you will stop the train and save five lives
Most people would pull the lever to divert the train killing one person rather than five. But pushing the fat man off the bridge would be a much harder decision to make. Are the two different choices that produce a similar outcome morally equivalent?
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