Would you rather...

Well just to be a rebel.

I would save the one person. Why? Because fate put the majority of the people on the original path of the train. Its not fair to the 1 person that was not destined to die, to be killed because there is more people on the one side. Why should the 1 person have to be sacrificed for many? The 1 person is of no lesser value then why should he so readily be killed? He deserves it more than the group of 5. Fate put them on the original course of the train, so I would leave it on the course it was on.

 

There's actually been a lot of philosophical discussion about this problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

 

Sacrificing 1 life for 5 to live is the obvious choice, but what if you discover the life you sacrificed was a loved one? Hmm... Do you save that person instead of the 5...?

 

save the 5.

 

This is a tough one. Let's address both sides of the story:

Do nothing:
Well, you let 5 people die, and in turn, you cannot be blamed for switching the tracks and "murdering" 1 person. On the other hand, you will catch grief from the media on allowing 5 to die instead of 1. You also must deal with the fact of the guilt. Even though you can say, "If I hadn't been there, it would have happened anyways." well, the fact is, you ARE there, and you know if you had switched it, you would have saved 5 peoples lives. As Rise Against says in one of their songs, "Neutrality means that you don't really care, because the problem goes on even if you're not there." Meaning, sure if you weren't there 5 people would have died anyways, but being neutral also means you just let 5 people die.

Changing the course and saving 5:
Press will most likely give you grief for "murdering" an innocent person as it was not your place to judge and change fate. You may be charged with some degree of murder as you chose for this person to die rather than letting the train run it's course. You did however save 5 people and lost only 1 life.


Overall, I'm not sure what I would do, it would be a heat of the moment choice and I cannot predict it.