Switch the track and most people agree. Push him with your hands, and they refuse.

Faced with a runaway trolley, most people say it's fine to flip a switch that diverts it onto a track where it kills one person instead of five. Given the exact same math, but framed as pushing someone off a bridge to physically stop the trolley, most refuse. Brain scans found the hands-on version fires emotional circuits that override the cold calculation.

— Joshua D. Greene et al., An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment — Science, 2001

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