Do the ends justify the means?

[vonunov]

The problem in answering this question is people don't usually consider all the end results.

It's impossible to consider all end results, and that's the fundamental problem with those philosophical example cases. Suppose the five guys on the track would see the train coming and get away, but you already chose to kill the other guy, who then can't get away?

It seems possible to me. I think we already established that the train will kill either one guy or five guys, given no other interference, so for whatever reason they are not getting away. There is one thing though -- what if you push the fatass off the bridge but the train operator switches the train to the track toward the single guy? Now you've killed the fatass to save the five guys who aren't even in danger anymore because the train operator has decided to kill one guy instead of five. For that reason I think that it is best not to interfere but to trust the train operator to make the right decision.

As for the operator: In the real world, we would not know beforehand whether the people would get away successfully, so the right course of action would, I think, be to sound the horn and apply the brakes as best as possible, but not to take any action to deliberately endanger anyone further (i.e., aim at the other guy). In this problem, though, it appears to be a given that the five guys or the one guy will surely die, so within those constraints it seems best to kill one person instead of five, even though this may come with an increased emotional burden as taking positive action of switching to the other track might seem like more of a moral offense than simply not doing anything, in which case it may be easier not to feel responsible.