The Footbridge Dilemma — Would You Push?
Same runaway trolley, same five people on the track. But this time there is no lever. You are on a footbridge above the rails, and the only way to stop the trolley is to push the heavy stranger beside you onto the track — their body would halt it. You are too light to stop it yourself. The arithmetic is identical to the classic lever case: one life to save five. Yet far fewer people will push than will pull a lever. The difference is not the math — it is whether you are willing to use a person as the instrument of the rescue.
Vote on this dilemma
A runaway trolley will kill five people tied to the tracks. You're on a bridge above them, standing next to a large stranger. Pushing them off would stop the trolley and save the five — they would die on impact. Jumping yourself would not stop it. There is no other option.
Research background
The footbridge case was introduced by Judith Jarvis Thomson as a variant of Philippa Foot's original trolley scenario, to probe why people accept diverting harm but refuse to cause it as a direct means. Studies consistently find that most people pull the lever yet refuse to push. SplitVote shows where its own voters land in real time.
- Doing vs. Allowing Harm — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Doctrine of Double Effect — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
SplitVote is for entertainment and aggregate insight, not a scientific test.
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