Would YOU push a man off a bridge to save five others?

IT’S a disturbing moral dilemma: Would you push a fat man off a bridge to prevent a train killing five others?

A bizarre study has suggested that almost three out of five people in the UK would.

That’s almost double the percentage of those prepared to push him off in China – and higher than the level in 23 other European countries.

In an animation, researchers asked 70,000 online participants worldwide to imagine that a runaway train was heading towards five people. But an onlooker on a bridge could save them if he pushed a fat man onto the track.

In the UK, almost 60 per cent said the large man should be sacrificed: the fourth highest result among 42 countries. While it may suggest people in this country could be more prejudiced against overweight people, experts say it

‘It doesn’t mean we’re more evil’

is more likely due to Britons being unafraid to voice opinions others secretly also hold.

Dr Edmond Awad, first author of the study from the University of Exeter, said: ‘Choosing to push the large man in the footbridge option may be seen by many as horrible, but on the other hand it saves five lives. So these findings certainly do not suggest that people in the UK are more evil!’

On the Moral Machine site, another option was to switch the carriage to another track, where just one other person stood and would be killed. The bridge onlooker could not throw himself off, as his body was not large enough to halt the train.

The study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that overall, 81 per cent would switch the carriage to another track to kill one person instead of five, and just over half would throw the fat man on to the tracks.