[I]t is difficult to believe that the way in which an agent is instrumental in the occurrence of an outcome could be more important than the nature of the outcome itself. Consider the value of an entire human life—of all the good that the life contains. Now suppose that one must choose between killing one person to save two and allowing the two to die. Is it really credible to suppose that how one acts on that single occasion matters more in moral terms than the whole of the life that will be lost if one lets the two die rather than killing the one?

Jeff McMahan, ‘Killing, Letting Die, and Withdrawing Aid’, Ethics, vol. 103, no. 2 (January, 1993), p. 279