I would probably be resigned to witnessing an unfortunate act of God and not even think of involving myself (and thus risking the danger of implication, which is a whole other moral ball game). We always like things to not be our fault.

There are certain scenarios in which we’ve learned it is appropriate and noble to intervene, such as the event of a drowning person, but I’m not convinced that is our biological instinct – especially if both choices that would result from our intervention would lead to death and destruction.

Battery sounds too much like the language of a lawyer and I think falls short in explanatory power by being too semantically rich. However, I think Mikhail’s explanation is penetrating and would be more apt if “battery” and “no batter” were replaced with “unpredictable” or “predictable.” Drawing on Jeff Hawkins’ work, On Intelligence, and the J.J. Gibsons’ and Edward Reed’s treatment of Affordances, I consider “battery” as the source of motivation for action or inaction unlikely. Rather, an individual perceives what might afford a course of actions in the information available in the surrounding environment. This includes one’s own person (memories, psychological state, etc. all included). Hawkins has keenly demonstrated from another angle the interrelation of pattern recognition and action. In other words, the importance of predictability in making something intelligible or actionable.

So take Mikhail explanation and substitute “unpredictability:

Means (arranged temporally)

-touching the man [unpredictable (he may fight back or resist)]

-throwing the man [unpredictable (he may fight back or resist)]

-causing train to hit man [unpredictable (if thrown, no guarantee of accuracy)]

OR

Means (arranged temporally)

-throwing the switch (effectiveness predictable)

-turning the train (effectiveness predictable)

“Battery” makes the act socially communicable and in this way more immediately acceptable. Scientifically, it assumes that a person imagining this scenario holds all elements controlled. It assumes that the bystander would passively let him or herself be thrown. I can think of nothing that suggests a person inserts this experimental control into their consideration of the scenario. Experience, intuition, memory, etc. would suggest the opposite is true. A person would consider seizing another and throwing them highly unpredictable and therefore unintelligible and unmotivating as a course of action.