suppose the only way you can save a number of innocent people is by killing another innocent person whose circumstances prevent the lives of another being saved (e.g. a child has been wired up with explosives – which the child is too young to understand – and told to run into a crowd where a treat awaits him. The explosives will detonate as soon as he reaches the crowd. There is no way of getting to the child or persuading him to turn around. Time is running out. So you shoot the child dead thereby detonating the explosives before the child reaches the crowd. The lives of the many in the crowd have been saved. The life of the innocent child loaded with explosives (which would have been lost in any case had he reached the crowd) has been deliberately taken.