Jeffrey, on one of the other threads, I volunteered to be the one tortured to save the others from the specks.

As for "Real decisions have real effects on real people," that's absolutely correct, and that's the reason to prefer the torture. The utility function implied by preferring the specks would also prefer lowering all the speed limits in the world in order to save lives, and ultimately would ban the use of cars. It would promote raising taxes by a small amount in order to reduce the amount of violent crime (including crimes involving torture of real people), and ultimately would promote raising taxes on everyone until everyone could barely survive on what remains.

Yes, real decisions have real effects on real people. That's why it's necessary to consider the total effect, not merely the effect on each person considered as an isolated individual, as those who favor the specks are doing.