I recently wrote a piece about the Trolley problem in the context of an episode of the Netflix show “Orange Is the New Black” a few weeks ago, so this is still fresh for me

As you suggested, the reason is because there is moral hazard both to killing AND to allowing to die. The whole point is that walking away has a moral cost, because you are arguably ethically responsible for the unintended but predictable outcomes of your actions as well as for the intended outcomes. If you have paid attention to the recent uproar about the teens who sat and did nothing while a man drowned you have seen half of this scenario, to some extent, play out in real time.

I suspect, from your response, you might be an adherent to the philosophy of Ayn Rand?

I just wrote a piece about the Trolley problem in the context of an episode of the Netflix show “Orange Is the New Black” a few weeks ago, so this is still fresh for me

As you suggested, the reason is because there is moral hazard both to killing AND to allowing to die. The whole point is that walking away has a moral cost, because you are arguably ethically responsible for the unintended but predictable outcomes of your actions as well as for the intended outcomes. If you have paid attention to the recent uproar about the teens who sat and did nothing while a man drowned you have seen half of this scenario, to some extent, play out in real time.

I suspect, from your response, you might be an adherent to the philosophy of Ayn Rand?