There are those cases also where you want to let the trolley go one way then push it back the top of the hill, throw the switch, and let it get the other way.
+1, and "Implied legal (and moral) liabilities" is just one of the issues if you're viewing the Trolley Problem as a real-world, real-consequences situation. (Vs. something from the land of make-believe, which is cool / interesting / empowering to sit around & talk about.)
For starters, real-world railroad (RR) switches are more complex than what you would understand from model RR sets, cartoons, old movies, and philosophy books. They are not binary, are often less than well-maintained, and may required upper-body strength that you don't have to successfully throw. The trolley may be going too fast for the track that you divert it onto, resulting in a derailment that kills everybody you were looking at - plus some more inside the trolley. Plus extra bystanders. Your well-intentioned passerby's understanding of which way the switch is actually pointing may be wrong. RR history has some famous (& deadly) accidents where an experienced RR employee misunderstood the situation, and threw a switch the wrong way.
Real-world, I certainly would not be touching the switch.
To me, it's really simple. I don't throw the switch. I trust the five people to get off the %^$#@ tracks before the trolley gets there. And I trust the trolley driver to get on the horn to alert the five people that they'd better start doing so without delay.
I think the Trolley Problem is deeply flawed because of the presumption of personal responsibility. I would bet when people put themselves in that position, they don't think of themselves as in charge of the trolley track switching.
I would bet if it were reframed as 'you are in charge of the trolleys. All day long, you control the switching of the tracks. Now you see a situation ...' you would get a totally different answer.
I mean, whenever I imagine this problem, I think ... I would be nervous to pull some lever. I think subconsciously I factor in the unknown of whether I really understand the situation and the result of my action.
Sometimes I think trolley problems need the option "do nothing, push the trolley up to the top of the hill, throw the switch, let the trolley fall again". Say the pair is ("Sam Bankman-Fried", "Eliezer Yudkowsky")
Well, that was fun. My internal geek, however, is annoyed that it seems to miss the point of the trolley problem - that of you do nothing, you're not responsible. Answers seem to indicate that people don't get that.
Whether it's public or private property, the trolley is really not mine alone to destroy. We need to decide, together what to do with it. Maybe we could stop it, and put it in a museum. Maybe we could change its source of power and make it a green trolley.
My feeling was, if I let the trolley go, it can be destroyed later. It will be harder to undo the decision to destroy it. Who knows, maybe the transportation capabilities it offers can save lives by rushing people to hospital. I just don't believe that pulling the switch and destroying a vehicle is really the only possible opportunity to stop emissions that will get released over 30 whole years. So I didn't pull it.
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