I don’t know if your alternatives are that much less plausible than thinking you can throw someone who weighs a good bit more than you do and is presumably resisting, and have them land with sufficient precision to stop the trolley.
I rather think they are more plausible and will save lives more surely than the fat man’s corpse, but the thought experiment strongly implies that the fat man course of action will surely succeed—and I wanted to make my point without breaking any of the rules of the thought experiment, so as not to distract critics from the central argument.
I don’t know if your alternatives are that much less plausible than thinking you can throw someone who weighs a good bit more than you do and is presumably resisting, and have them land with sufficient precision to stop the trolley.
I rather think they are more plausible and will save lives more surely than the fat man’s corpse, but the thought experiment strongly implies that the fat man course of action will surely succeed—and I wanted to make my point without breaking any of the rules of the thought experiment, so as not to distract critics from the central argument.