Okay, here's my controversial philosophy opinion: People who wouldn't pull the trolley lever are responsible for a huge amount of the problems we have as a society.

There's a type of person, and they're surprisingly common, whose main concern in any situation is not what the results are, but how it reflects on them.

According to these people, the bystander watching the trolley careen into the group of helpless people has no moral responsibility. If they grab the lever, however, then they are responsible for any deaths that result.

You see the problem here: If you hold this view, the correct choice is to not pull any lever, ever. Even if there's nobody on the second track, you have no moral duty to save the lives of those innocent people because until you get involved, you have no responsibility.

These are "silver rule" people: Instead of "do unto others," their rule is "don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you." Whatever problems other people might have, as long as you didn't cause them, you carry no blame--even if you could fix them but don't.

OTOH, if you DO get involved, then whatever happens IS your fault, even if it's less bad than the alternative. If you saved five people but one died, you are now responsible for one death. If you hadn't done anything, you wouldn't have been responsible for any deaths.

In real life, these people are the ultra-perfectionists who walk away from any project the instant they have to compromise on anything; if they're involved, they bear responsibility for the less-than-perfect aspect, but sitting it out is always value neutral to them.

These people talk like they have values, but they'll never act on them unless they find a magically perfect situation where one of the options aligns flawlessly with their values with no possible negative repercussions.

And they'll act like that gives them the moral high ground.

But the truth is there's no such thing as not being involved. You're inherently involved just by being alive. Your hand is already on the lever. Just like the rest of us, you have no choice but to look at the options and pick the one you think will have the best result.

And, FFS, stop being so precious! Nobody except you cares how clean you kept your hands. For literally everyone else, the part they care about is "five people are dead," not "but I didn't touch the lever!"

Just maybe don't choose what Michael chose.

Fin.