Ethics — When there is no clean answer

A trolley is heading toward five people. You can pull a lever to divert it. But it will then hit one person on the other track. What do you do? There is no clean answer. That is the point. Ethics is not about getting the answer right. It is about learning to think through situations where every option has a cost.

• Ethical reasoning does not give you certainty. It gives you a process for navigating uncertainty.
• Practice: the next time you face a choice where both options feel wrong, write down the cost of each. Compare them.