Hard's post is correct, though I don't remember teh details. The point of conducting these cognitive experiments is also to understand how people react in certain ways, and whether or not the right choices can be made... And to what extent the actions involved would probably change the emotional or psychological reaction of the actor.
This is a more interesting comparison wrt human psychology and ... well. ... ethics. since both don't exist without one another.
I wouldn't push unless it's someone i know within the five, or unless it's clear that the five are there due to institutional injustice and the one is there... benefitting from institutional injustice. Because, in real life, THIS is what is going to happen. Not all people are worth the same in the eyes of society. And those who are worth less in the eyes of society are usually the first to fall.
The lever? Who cares? It's utilitarianism vs principle. This is a situation where in philosophy it's to determine whether principle/morals (I irc it's called universalism, idgaf) Update: It's moral absolutism or sheer hardcore utilitarianism. It's a thought experiment. If you put gandhi in that situation and gandhi's philosophy is 'do no harm', then he's not going to pull the lever or push the person off, but if you force him to because it's the 'right' choice then it disregards his dignity. Sartre is right in that both are choices. That's the nature of being. So basically it's just a really simple one, reality is always more complicated than that, and there are reasons to determine which one is right or wrong, and at the end of the day if you don't believe in the sanctity of human life or the equality of human life (which, if you look at the world, society, and how people react to the news, you will know that people implicitly DO NOT believe that all human lives are equal, even if they say otherwise). so. fuck ppl
And how many times are you realistically going to stand there and pull levers while people vote for warmongers or perpetuate systemic inequality everyday with erroneous beliefs that have already been disproven by social sciences... people... like. ....lark................? It's bullshit. Those choices are illusory in the context of the world system.