Here is an interesting moral dilemma that is a puzzle for Moral Philosophers. Some of you may have heard this before but others won't have done. Apparently there is remarkable agreement among people on what the preferred course of action is, and factors such as age, sex, religion, education, nationality etc have no influence at all on what people answer. It appears to be innate. What do you think the best course of action is in the following scenario, and why?
A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. There is no other way to stop the trolley and save the five people. Is it morally permissible to turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one?