I think non-actions are judged less harshly than actions, so people are more inhibited in making them..
I would ask the person who is (in most of these scenarios) on the diverted tracks what they want me to do. They have the right to make this decision, since they are masters of their own life.
What I find…not surprising I guess, but sad is that while a large percent of people would pull the lever only a small percent of people would pull the lever if they were the one on the other track. People not being at least as likely to pull the lever when they are at stake breaks all basic moral principles.
Then again, a sizeable minority wouldn't sacrifice their life savings for lives either, which means this portion of the respondents does not think the lives of strangers have value at all, or at least that they are not in any case responsible for lives other than their own. Which is interesting!
Jokes aside, I'm aware of my own moral weakness in this regard. The religion I was raised in - and I'm still a spiritual person - holds that suicide is the gravest of sins, but I don't have that high an opinion of my own life and its potential. The closer I am to the situation, and the more urgent it is, the more tempted I am. So I try to stay aloof, for the sake of those who love me, and out of my own instinct of self-preservation, which is a powerful force in most human beings.
If your mind was exactly like mine, and you were close enough to the situation to make the decision to sacrifice someone else for a group of strangers - and being tied to the tracks is pretty damn close - you would likely be willing to sacrifice yourself. But remember, someone must have tied me to the tracks in the first place for my life to be in danger. As I said in previous comments, in most cases I am, though inaction or stalling, attempting to save the life of the single person in the tracks - the person in the same position. I will not kill to save others, and attempting to not kill myself to save others is consistent with this position.
I would be useless as a soldier!
For instance:
- Being run over by a trolley is a highly improbable event
- Being run over by a vehicle (higher category in which trolleys are a part of) is a less improbable event
- Dying of a very specific form of cancer which destroyed an organ is a highly improbable event
- Dying of cancer is less improbable
In the scenario for organ donation, what if the recipient had an improbable reason for needing the organ?
As far as my own views, I don't know if the tragicness/one-offness/improbability of the cause of death factors much in my decision-making. Though, I do think there's probably a good argument for reducing active suffering (that I haven't fully thought out).
The only moment in the scenario that matters is when you've made your choice and as others have said: it's binary. You pull the lever or you don't. The moral act is in making the choice, not what comes after. In that moment of choice you've expressed a hierarchy of your values.
Now, you might value most highly your own mental well-being, and making the most of that by rationalizing to yourself that you didn't actually make the choice that you just made. You might value your social standing or legal disposition the highest and make the choice accordingly. etc.
Of course, the scenario itself is a bit silly and not the kind of everyday living guidance that one will most likely have thought deeply about in anything than abstract moralistic terms. It's pretty rare to face that sort of scenario with that kind of consequence.