The Footbridge Variant

Same trolley, same five people. But now you are on a bridge above the tracks, standing next to a very large man. If you push him off the bridge, his body will stop the trolley and save the five. The math is identical — one dies, five live. Yet most people refuse.

Why the difference? The outcome is the same. The numbers are the same. But pushing someone feels like murder while pulling a lever feels like redirection. Your moral intuitions are not following a consistent rule — they are reacting to the directness of the harm.