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Izeinwinter comments on The Unselfish Trolley Problem - Less Wrong
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The reason people object to the fat man is that we have very strong intuitions about how physical systems work, and that includes "things rolling on tracks stay on tracks, and keep rolling regardless of how fat a guy is put in front of them". It is basically a bad philosophy problem because the way the problem reads to most people is "let 5 people die, or up the killcount to 6" which is, you know, not a difficult choice. And no matter how much you state that it will work, this intuition sticks with people. The lever version does not have the same conflict, because the problem does not have to fight against that basic reaction.
The "jump in front of the trolley" question has the same problem. If I can stop the trolley by jumping in front of it, won't the first person tied to the tracks stop it as well?
Why can't we just state these hypothetical problems more directly?
Is it better that five people should die or that one person should die if there are no other options? I prefer the latter.
Is it better that five people should die or that I should directly kill one person if there are no other options? I prefer the latter.
Is it better that five people should die or that I should die if there are no other options? I prefer the former.
Is it better to value my own life more than arbitrarily many other people's lives? I don't think so.