Except that somewhere down that chain someone is almost certainly going to choose to kill people, so by passing the trolley on down to them you’re responsible for killing a lot more than if you ended it right now.
And since every rational person down the line is going to think that, they’ll all be itching to pull the “kill” lever first chance they get. So you know that you need to pull the kill lever immediately to minimize the number of deaths.
Only the person pulling the lever is responsible for his/her action though. There is a difference between passively passing on and actively murder someone
If we all collectively agree to just pass it on, then either:
It’s infinite, and it just passes on forever, or…
It’s not infinite and somebody at the end has no choice, in which case nobody in charge of a lever has killed anyone
So yeah, I say pass it on.
Except that somewhere down that chain someone is almost certainly going to choose to kill people, so by passing the trolley on down to them you’re responsible for killing a lot more than if you ended it right now.
And since every rational person down the line is going to think that, they’ll all be itching to pull the “kill” lever first chance they get. So you know that you need to pull the kill lever immediately to minimize the number of deaths.
Only the person pulling the lever is responsible for his/her action though. There is a difference between passively passing on and actively murder someone
Dentological ethics: you have a duty to not murder people, so you don’t pull the lever
Utilitarian ethics: pulling the lever will kill less people