Gained in translation

“WOULD You Kill the Fat Man?” is the title of a recent book about a set of moral problems that philosophers like to ponder, and psychologists to put to their experimental subjects. In the canonical form, you are on a footbridge watching a trolley speeding down a track that will kill five unsuspecting people. You can push a fat man over the bridge onto the tracks to save the five. (You cannot stop the trolley by jumping yourself, only the fat man is heavy enough.) Would you do it?

Most people quail at the idea of shoving the man to his death. But alter the scenario a bit, and reactions change. People are more likely to throw a switch that would divert the trolley on to another track where it will kill only one person. The utilitarian calculation is identical—but the physical and emotional distance from the killing makes throwing the switch much more popular than throwing the man.