Five people are tied up on the tram tracks...and there’s a tram heading straight for them! You can pull a lever to divert the course of the tram, but if you do that, it’ll go onto another track that also has someone tied up on it. So you either actively choose to kill one person, or passively allow five people to be killed. What do you do?
The Oxford Times recently ran a story about a cyclist who became trapped under a car. A group of passers-by managed to lift the car off her before the paramedics arrived and are rightly praised in the article for their heroic actions.
I wrote earlier this week about boycotts and the pervasive idea that they “don’t work”. I hope I’ve explained why that’s the wrong way to think about your choices; you can’t punish Nestle or Vodafone by withholding your custom, but where you spend your money should still matter to you.