I would expect a utilitarian to stress out and shit themselves for a few days (or as long as they had, up to years) trying to think of some other way to solve the problem before they would ever even think of murder.

But I don't have to solve the problem. Whatever I think of regarding sociopaths is pretty pointless, since I won't have the chance to do it anyway, and even if I decided I really did think that was definitely the best course of action (which I'm not certain of; note that I've always qualified it with "or otherwise removed from society", which could include all sorts of other possibilities) after considering all the other possibilities, I doubt that I personally would be able to do it anyway, and if I did I would go to jail and I don't want that either. So for me to say it is as easy as the trolley problem (am I the only person for whom the trolley problem is easy?).

The thing is, trades of one life for many are nearly always false dichotomies. There is some twisted way that humans are unjustifiably drawn to consider murder without even trying to consider alternatives. See the sequence on ethical injunctions.

Thank you. If I'm ever in a position where killing someone is a course of action that's even on my radar as something to consider, I'll bear that in mind.

Thru the known mechanisms of self-image, cached thoughts and so on, proposing murder as a solution just makes this problem worse in the future. You literally become less moral by saying that.

Thank you for pointing that out. Just for the record, not killing people is one of my terminal values, and if I'm ever in a position to deal personally with the sociopath problem, I'll be considering the other possibilities first.