Quote Originally Posted by Sandeep
Senario A : Its easy 5:1. I will go for the single guy

Senario B : Saving is one thing and killing assuming that will save is another. I dont think i will kill a man believing it will save others.
This was the typical response to the test (I think it was conducted by this young prof in Princeton). Kind of asked Girish leading questions to get as close to this as possible 8)

One of the interpretations to this is as follows: Ethics, like every other human 'function' has evolved over the years in the brain. Physically killing a man is an activity we are used to since the cave man days. A sense of right and wrong has been developed for this situation. Hence we don't even have to consciously think if killing somebody is wrong. We instinctively know it is wrong and we need strong reasons to convince ourselves to do it (like saving the kids).
OTOH pushing buttons is relatively new to the human race. So the immediacy between the button and causing death has not become part of the evolutionary process. That is why we have no/less hesitation in pushing the button though the result is the same as killing the man.
Why does this result make one uneasy ? Ethics and values are things we pride ourselves over. Beauty and brains can just simply be inherited. This does not make them less important but they are not in the domain of personal choice. Ethics and values we adhere to, we like to believe are our choices and thus define us. This experiment calls that into question and supports a line of argument that ethics can also be a plain matter of reflex action having much less to do with free will than we thought.