One of the tools used to question morality and ethical behaviour is the trolley car thought experiment.
Imagine that a trolly car is headed down the tracks towards 5 people.
Imagine a bystander who can switch the trolly car from the path to another?
Imagine that the other tracks have only one person.
Is it morally required for the person to switch the trolley car to the second track?
Is it morally permitted for the person to switch the trolly car to the second track?
Is it morally prohibited for the person to switch the trolly car to the second track?
What if the bystander was himself standing on the second track alone?
Would it be permitted, required, or prohibitted to switch the trolly car to this second track now?
What if you could push a fat man in front of the trolly car and that would make the car safely switch from track one to track two, albeit killing the fat man?
The answers that you make to these questions defines to some degree the basis one uses for making decisions.
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