The Trolley Thought Experiment and Scam Victim Recovery

A SCARS Institute Scam Victim Recovery Insight

Have you ever heard about the Runaway Trolley thought experiment?

The Classic Runaway Trolley Scenario

Imagine you are standing by a railroad track. You see a runaway trolley barreling down the tracks. It’s moving so fast that the five people tied to the main track will certainly be killed if it continues on its path.

You are standing next to a large lever. If you pull the lever, it will divert the trolley onto a side track. However, you see that there is one person tied to that side track.

You have two choices:

1. Do nothing: The trolley stays on its current track and kills five people.
2. Pull the lever: You divert the trolley, saving the five people, but actively causing the death of the one person on the side track.

The Ethical Dilemma

This is the paradox. What is the “right” thing to do? The thought experiment brilliantly highlights the conflict between two ways of thinking about morality.

1. The Utilitarian Perspective (The Greater Good)

A utilitarian, most famously associated with philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, would argue that the most ethical choice is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

• • The Math: Five lives are more than one life.
  • The Conclusion: A strict utilitarian would argue that you have a moral obligation to pull the lever. Saving five lives at the cost of one is the correct, logical, and moral choice. The outcome, netting four saved lives, is what matters most.

2. The Deontological Perspective (The Rules and Duties)

Deontology, most famously associated with Immanuel Kant, argues that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their consequences. It is based on duties, rules, and moral laws.

• • The Action: Pulling the lever makes you an active participant in killing someone. You are using that one person as a means to an end (saving the others).
  • The Rule: A deontologist would likely argue that it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent person.
  • The Conclusion: A strict deontologist would argue that you must not pull the lever. While the outcome of five people dying is tragic, you did not actively cause it. Pulling the lever would violate a fundamental moral duty not to kill, making you morally responsible for that one person’s death.

The Trolley Problem of Your Recovery

Now, I want you to stop thinking about trains and strangers. I want you to apply this brutal logic to your own life, right here, right now, in the aftermath of your trauma. The trolley problem is not just a thought experiment; it is the living, breathing reality of your recovery.

In your world, the runaway trolley is the overwhelming, crushing pain of your betrayal trauma. The five people tied to the main track are not strangers; they are your most immediate, desperate needs. They are the need to stop the screaming pain in your chest. The need to get just one night of sleep without the nightmares. The need to feel safe, to quiet the panic that surges through your veins. The need to escape the suffocating blanket of shame. The need to make the financial terror stop. These five needs are real, they are loud, and they are your life right now in immediate danger of being destroyed by the oncoming train of your suffering.

The single person on the side track is your future self. This is the person you could become after doing the long, hard, and deeply uncomfortable work of true healing. This is the version of you who has integrated the trauma, who has learned from it, and who has become not just whole again, but stronger and more compassionate than before. Right now, that person is silent. They are an abstract concept, a distant hope.

Every single day, you are faced with the choice to pull that lever.

The Choice to Pull the Lever: The Urgency of Now

Pulling the lever is the utilitarian choice. It is the choice to save your suffering-self who is suffering right now. It is the choice to do something, anything, to make the immediate, intolerable pain stop. This is the path of the quick fix.

When you pull the lever, you are making a choice that feels like survival. You isolate yourself from friends and family because it is easier than explaining what happened and risking their judgment. You numb your feelings with endless scrolling, with substances, or with the frantic distraction of a new, unhealthy obsession. You throw yourself into a desperate job search, not as part of a healthy plan, but as a frantic attempt to fix the external problem so the internal one will magically disappear. You grasp at any simple solution that promises to quiet the storm, even for a moment.

The justification for pulling the lever is powerful and immediate. “I cannot survive this pain right now,” you tell yourself. “I have to stop the bleeding. Saving my sanity today is more important than some abstract future. I am choosing to save the five people who are suffering on this track, right now.” It feels like the only compassionate thing to do. It feels like the only way to keep breathing.

But in pulling the lever, you have made a sacrifice. You have sacrificed your future self. The trauma has not been processed; it has been contained, ignored, or buried. It will fester beneath the surface, a poison working its way through your system. The unresolved shame, the unprocessed grief, and the nervous system that is still stuck in hyper-arousal will inevitably resurface, often in more destructive ways later. The single person you left on the side track, your future self, is hit by the trolley of unresolved trauma. You have doomed them to a life of chronic anxiety, of brittle relationships, of a hollowed-out existence where the old wounds dictate every new decision.

The Choice to Do Nothing: The Deontology of Healing

The other choice is not to pull the lever. This is the deontological choice. It is the choice to endure the present pain for the sake of a future, healthier self. It is the choice to honor the process of healing, even when it is agonizing.

To “do nothing” does not mean to be passive. It means you refuse to take the easy, destructive shortcut. You allow the trolley of pain to continue on its track for now, and you turn to face it. You do the hard things. You sit with the shame and anxiety instead of running from them. You make the phone call to a therapist, even though it terrifies you. You show up to the support group, even when you feel like an imposter. You practice the slow, frustrating work of self-compassion, of grounding techniques, of feeling your feelings without letting them drown you.

The justification for this path is a commitment to a higher moral law. “The right action is to face the truth and engage in the authentic healing process, no matter how painful,” you decide. “I will not violate my future self by taking a shortcut. I will not use a lie, like denial, or a harmful behavior, like isolation, as a means to an end. I will not sacrifice my integrity for a temporary peace.”

This path is excruciating. You have to watch yourself (the five people) suffer. You endure the sleepless nights, the panic attacks, and the overwhelming grief. You feel like you are choosing pain over relief. But by refusing to pull the lever, you have saved your future self. The work you do now, though painful, integrates the trauma. It rewires your nervous system. It builds genuine, unshakable resilience. The single person on the side track, your future self, is safe. They emerge from this process whole, authentic, and truly free.

The Choice Before You

Why is this choice so hard? Because the present is so loud and the future is so quiet. The pain of your trauma is not a theoretical problem; it is a five-alarm fire. The utilitarian choice to pull the lever is not a cold calculation; it is a desperate, primal act of survival. It is completely understandable why a victim would choose to stop the pain now. The person who will be damaged by today’s quick fix is not here to plead their case. They are a ghost, and it is easy to sacrifice their well-being for the screaming needs of the present.

This is what every person in denial does. This is what victims avoiding or resisting their recovery are doing.

This reframing is the key to understanding your journey. True healing is not about being strong or perfect. It is about having the courage to withstand the immediate, utilitarian impulse to flee the pain. It is about making a deontological commitment to a process that is right, even when it feels impossibly hard. Every day, you stand at the lever. The choice you make will determine not just how you feel tomorrow, but who you will become in the years to come.

Prof. Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
May 2026