What does morality mean to you?

[Catholic_Lady]

Rob, in the classic example above, where do you sit? How would you label the person who does nothing vs pull the lever?
Morality can be a tricky bastard!

eg: would you do nothing and keep a clear conscious (not labelling yourself a murderer, not your problem) or become a murderer with a positive net sum result for life?
What would the repercussions of intentionally killing someone (irrespective of the reasons) be on your mental health?

I personally cannot ever see myself ending a perfectly innocent person's life for any reason! Shoot me instead, I don't care!

What if the 5 people were all people in their 60s,

...and the 1 person on the side track was a toddler?


Or,

what if the 5 people were a bunch of 20-something drunk fratboys,

and the 1 person was Stephen Hawking?


Or,

What if the 5 people were Stephen Hawking, Salman Rushdie, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Malala Yousafzai,
(assuming all these people were still alive, of course)

and the one person was a toddler?

I'd say it would be ok to divert the train if it would save more lives to do so. The person in the train who would die as a result of the diversion would die as an unintended consequence/side effect of diverting a train that is about to run over people, and not as the intended end result.  

May sound petty, but when you get into grey areas and extreme circumstances like this, you have to comb through the really fine details imho.