The lecture hall at Harvard Law School was packed at 9:00 a.m. on October 15, 2025. Two hundred first-year students sat in steep tiers, notebooks open, pens poised. Professor Elena Vasquez—a former federal prosecutor and moral philosopher—paced the stage, voice clear and unhurried.
“Let’s begin with a simple choice,” she said. “You are the driver of a runaway trolley. Ahead, five workers are repairing the track. They can’t see you. They can’t hear you. If you do nothing, all five die. But there is a lever. Pull it, and the trolley diverts to a side track where one worker is working alone. Pull the lever: one dies, five live. What do you do?”
Hands rose quickly. Ninety-two percent said pull the lever.
Vasquez nodded. “Consequentialism in action. The outcome—five lives saved—outweighs the cost of one. Most of you chose the greater good.”
She clicked the projector. New slide: same trolley, but now you are a bystander on a bridge. The trolley is heading toward the five workers. Beside you stands a very large man. If you push him off the bridge, his body stops the trolley, saving five, killing one.
Hands dropped. Only eleven percent said push.
Vasquez smiled—small, sharp. “Same numbers. Five saved, one dead. Why not push?”
A student spoke. “It feels wrong. It’s murder.”
“Murder,” Vasquez echoed. “Categorical reasoning. Some acts are intrinsically wrong, regardless of outcome. You may accept sacrificing one to save five when you pull a lever, but not when you push a man to his death with your own hands.”
She clicked again. Two more scenarios.
“Emergency room: one severely injured patient needs all resources, or five moderately injured can be saved. Most say save the five.”
Slide change.
“Transplant ward: five patients dying of organ failure. One healthy visitor. Kill the visitor, harvest organs, save five.”
Hands vanished. Almost unanimous: no.
Vasquez leaned on the podium.
“Again, same math. Why the difference?”
Silence.
“Now let’s leave the thought experiment. Let’s go real.”
She clicked to a black-and-white photo: four gaunt men in a small boat on a stormy sea.
“1884. The yacht Mignonette sinks. Four survivors: Captain Thomas Dudley, first mate Edwin Stephens, seaman Edmund Brooks, and cabin boy Richard Parker, seventeen years old. After nineteen days adrift, no food, no water, they draw lots. Parker loses. Dudley and Stephens kill him. Eat him. Three days later they are rescued. They stand trial for murder in England. The defense: necessity. The question: was it justified?”
The room leaned forward.
Vasquez paused.
“The court said no. Murder is murder. Necessity is no defense. They were sentenced to death—commuted to six months. But the moral question remains: when survival demands the unthinkable, do the ends justify the means?”
She looked out at the students.
“That is where we begin. With Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism—maximize happiness, minimize suffering—and Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative—some acts are always wrong, no matter the consequences. We will read Bentham, Mill, Kant, Aristotle, Locke, Rawls. We will apply it to free speech, equality, conscription, torture, abortion, war. And we will face skepticism: perhaps there are no answers. But we will try anyway. Because justice demands it.”
The students sat silent.
But the question that would soon burn through every late-night study session, every group chat, and every conscience in the room was already taking root:
When four starving men draw lots to eat one of their own… and three survive because of it… is it salvation… or murder?
The class met three times a week for twelve weeks. Vasquez never lectured from notes. She walked the aisles, called on students by name, pushed them to defend their intuitions.
Week 2: Bentham. “Pleasure and pain are the sovereign masters,” she quoted. “Calculate the utility. In the trolley, pull the lever. In the lifeboat, kill Parker. Net happiness increases.”
A student objected. “But it’s murder.”
Vasquez smiled. “Bentham would say: murder is only bad because it causes pain. If it causes more pleasure than pain, it is good.”
Week 4: Kant. “Act only according to maxims you can will to be universal law,” she said. “If everyone murdered when it suited them, society collapses. Therefore, murder is categorically wrong.”
Another student: “But in the lifeboat, no society left. Only four men.”
Vasquez nodded. “Kant would still say no. The moral law holds even when the world ends.”
Week 6: consent. “Suppose Parker had volunteered. Would it be permissible?”
Debate erupted. “Yes—consent changes everything.” “No—coercion voids consent. Starvation is coercion.” “Even consensual, killing is wrong.”
Week 8: Rawls. “Behind the veil of ignorance, not knowing your position, what rules would you choose?” Students concluded: equal rights, safety net for the worst-off.
Week 10: contemporary cases. Free speech: should hate speech be banned if it maximizes utility? Conscription: can the state force you to die for the greater good? Torture: permissible if it saves lives?
Vasquez ended each class with the same line:
“Philosophy is dangerous. It makes you question everything you thought you knew. It risks skepticism—no answers exist. But we will not stop. Because justice is not a luxury. It is a necessity.”
Week 12: final papers. Students wrote on Dudley and Stephens, trolley variants, real cases—abortion, euthanasia, war. Vasquez read every one.
On the last day, she stood at the front.
“You began with a trolley. You end with yourselves. Justice is not out there. It is in your choices. Bentham asks: does it maximize happiness? Kant asks: is it universalizable? Aristotle asks: does it build virtue? Locke asks: does it respect rights? Rawls asks: is it fair?”
She paused.
“Choose honestly. Because the world will ask you to choose again and again. And it will not wait for certainty.”
The room rose. Applause rolled—long, earned.
Vasquez saluted them—quietly, seriously.
They saluted back.
The course ended, but the questions did not.
Cadets carried them to commands worldwide. One became a JAG lawyer defending conscientious objectors. Another led diversity initiatives in her brigade. A third drafted policy on AI targeting ethics.
Vasquez watched from her office, grading the next class’s trolley essays.
The work never ended.
But neither did the questions.
Years later, a former student—now a lieutenant colonel—visited her office. He carried a worn copy of the course syllabus.
“I still teach it,” he said. “Every year. The trolley, the lifeboat, Dudley and Stephens. They still argue. They still doubt. But they still think.”
Vasquez smiled. “Good. That’s all we can ask.”
He hesitated. “You changed how I see justice. Not as rules or outcomes, but as a habit of mind. A refusal to stop asking.”
She looked out the window at the Hudson.
“Keep asking,” she said. “Because the moment we stop… is the moment we lose it.”
So here’s the question that still echoes through every philosophy classroom, every courtroom, and every conscience grappling with right and wrong:
When the trolley is barreling down the tracks… when the lifeboat is sinking and the cabin boy is dying… when the choice is five lives or one, ends or means, utility or duty… Do you pull the lever? Do you kill the innocent? Or do you hold to the principle— knowing some acts are always wrong… even if the world burns because of it?
Your honest answer might be the difference between a world of cold calculation… and one where justice still means something sacred.
Drop it in the comments. Someone out there needs to know their choice still matters in a world of hard questions.
