[Hasu]

The value is in training your ethical understanding so you can make better choices in real world scenarios. If you can't answer trolley problems and other thought experiments in a way that is ethically consistent, how can you hope to make ethical choices in the real world with all its complexity?

It's really very similar to the reason physicists use simplified models, and the value of physics, even when it assumes a perfectly spherical cow, shouldn't need to be stated.

[haroldp]

I always took it that the point of the Trolly Problem was to demonstrate that moral problems can be difficult, or perhaps even inscrutable, in a way that confounds things like ethical clarity and consistency.