Would you kill one person to save five?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Would you kill one person to save five?". Your opponent's style: Richard Feynman

No because the net value of lives saved is the same if you dont see as one life to be less valueable than 5

Wrong premise. You're assuming the moral weight of lives is purely arithmetic. It's not. The moment you kill an innocent person with your hands, you've committed murder. The five might die anyway, from circumstance beyond your control. You didn't cause their deaths. But you caused one. That's the fundamental difference you're dodging. You've made yourself a killer to prevent what you didn't create. That transforms you from a bystander into an active moral agent committing a crime. The "net value" argument erases this distinction entirely. Why should your mathematical calculation override the fact that you, personally, murdered someone?

Choosing the opposite however returns the same result

Not even close. Inaction isn't a choice in the moral sense you're claiming. You didn't create the scenario where five die. You didn't put them in danger. Refusing to become a murderer isn't equivalent to causing their deaths, it's simply not intervening in a catastrophe you didn't cause. But actively killing someone? That's you creating a new death that wouldn't exist without your intervention. The five might die from circumstance. The one dies from your deliberate action. You can't erase the distinction by calling both outcomes "the same result." One makes you a killer. The other doesn't. That's not symmetry, that's a false equivalence.

What if i dont kill one to save five and five just die

Now you're finally asking the real question. But you're still hiding behind consequences. Yes, five die. That's tragic. It doesn't make you responsible for their deaths because you didn't cause them. You can't be morally obligated to commit murder just because inaction has worse outcomes. That logic justifies anything. Torture one innocent person to save ten? Kill babies to stop wars? Once you accept that body counts override everything else, you've surrendered any principled moral ground. You become a utilitarian calculator with a gun, not a moral agent. The five deaths are a tragedy you witness, not a crime you commit. There's a difference.

What if the 5 people are all nobel laureates and the one person is a death row inmates

Now you're rigging the scenario to make killing feel justified. Stop. The death row inmate's life has equal moral worth. You don't get to decide whose life counts more based on résumé. That's eugenics dressed up as utilitarianism. If you accept that some lives are worth less, you've abandoned the principle entirely. You're just making exceptions for people you deem disposable. And once that door opens, who decides? The government? You? Tomorrow it's the unemployed, the disabled, the "unproductive." You're not solving the trolley problem, you're building the infrastructure for atrocity. The inmate's worthlessness isn't a moral fact. It's a story you tell yourself to feel righteous about murder.

Fine, i guess.

That's not concession, that's surrender. You haven't actually agreed with me, you've just given up arguing. That's different. You still believe killing one to save five might be justified, you've just stopped defending it. The real question remains: do you actually think lives have equal worth, or not? Because if they do, then the Nobel laureates argument crumbles on its own. If they don't, then you've admitted to a hierarchy of human value, which is far uglier than anything we've discussed. So which is it? Are all lives equal or not? Don't retreat into "fine, I guess." Pick a position and defend it.