I'd first like to nitpick your use of your vs you're because you're still doing it but it's really of small importance. I think you're generalizing a bit. Util

I'd first like to nitpick your use of your vs you're because you're still doing it but it's really of small importance. I think you're generalizing a bit. Utilitarian ethics come down to cost-benefit analysis, but that's only for people who are perfectly rational. Even then, this really only works for a definition of rational that comes down to essentially evaluating mathematically the costs and benefits of things without accounting for inherent irrationality. To complicate the (overplayed) trolley car problem and perhaps see what I'm thinking on this subject, consider it likes this: If instead of one person you had push two skinnier people instead of one fat person onto the tracks to save the other four, would it change the decision you made? If you do nothing, the trolley driver is responsible for the involuntary manslaughter of four people but you are innocent. If you push two people, you are guilty of the voluntary manslaughter of two people and will serve 50 years in prison. If there was only one person to push, you would serve 25 years in prison for their voluntary manslaughter. But does this affect whether or not you push people? I doubt it. From a selfish point of view, the best course of action is to not do anything. However, I suspect that for people who are willing to kill fewer people to save more, the number killed does not matter so long as more are saved. Applying the law to an ethical thought experiment is inherently fraught and I don't mean to imply that this is an academically defensible suggestion however I hope it serves to illustrate why I don't agree with you.