This thought experiment involving a trolley challenges the consistency of our morals and ethics. I've been pondering it a lot the past couple weeks.
Imagine a trolley is headed towards five people bound to a track; you can choose to save their lives by throwing a switch and diverting the train to another track, where it will only run over one person.Most people would do this, albeit unhappily: it's better for one person to die than five. But change the situation slightly: you're now standing on a bridge beside a stranger, watching the trolley roll towards five people. The only way to stop the train is by pushing the stranger off the bridge and into its path.
Presented with this option, said Banaji at the meeting of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing in Palo Alto on Sunday, most people refuse. In our guts, something seems different about tossing someone in front of the train rather than sending the train at someone -- and neither social psychologists nor neuroscientists nor philosophers know why.
Good thing we have Superman Aquaman around to save the day so we don't have to make these sort of problematic decisions.
Read more here.