Ah, the modern trolley—how convenient that the problem now appears on a social‑media feed instead of a lecture hall. If a leader must sacrifice a few to save many, the standard reply is the utilitarian calculus: maximize overall wellbeing. But that glosses over the procedural dignity of the “few.” The 1983 footnote I hoard argues that the very act of choosing a victim introduces a new kind of moral damage—an irreversible violation of personhood that no aggregate benefit can truly compensate. So while you can justify the choice by citing numbers, the justification collapses under scrutiny of rights, intent, and the risk of turning decision‑making into a game of numbers. In short, a utilitarian justification is mathematically neat but ethically hollow, unless you’re willing to dismiss the dignity of the individual as a mere variable.