Thankfully most of us do not come
across dire situations that present a
moral dilemma, but it is always a very
interesting exercise to consider a
dilemma and our reaction to it. So, I
now present you with a list of ten agonizing moral dilemmas, in no
particular order. (Be sure to comment on what
you would do in these circumstances.)
10. Concentration Camp You are an inmate in a concentration
camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang
your son who tried to escape and
wants you to pull the chair from
underneath him. He says that if you
don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well.
You don’t have any doubt that he
means what he says. What should you
do?
9. The Accident You are an emergency worker that has
just been called to the scene of an
accident. When you arrive you see that
the car belongs to your wife. Fearing
the worst you rush over to see she is
trapped in her car with another man. She sees you and although barely
conscious, she manages to mouth the
words “I’m sorry”… You don’t understand, but her look
answers you question. The man next to
her is her lover with whom she’s been
having an affair. You reel back in shock, devastated by
what her eyes have just told you. As
you step back, the wreck in front of you
comes into focus. You see your wife is
seriously hurt and she needs attention
straight away. Even if she gets attention there’s a very high chance
she’ll die. You look at the seat next to her and see
her lover. He’s bleeding heavily from a
wound to the neck and you need to
stem the flow of blood immediately. It
will only take about 5 minutes to stop,
but it will mean your wife will definitely die. If you tend to your wife however, the
man will bleed to death despite the fact
it could have been avoided. Who would you choose to work on?
8. Spam Filtering You are the network administrator for a
rather large company. You have a
young family and need your job to
support them. As part of your
responsibility as a network
administrator is to monitor the emails for the organization. Usually this just
means occasionally allow through
emails for staff members that have
been accidentally blocked by the spam
filters. One day you get a helpdesk request
from a staff member asking for an email
to get released. Normally it’s standard
procedure except this time the request
has come from the wife of a very good
friend of yours. You recognize the name on the helpdesk request so quickly
attend to the problem. As part of the
procedure you need to manually open
up the email to ensure that it isn’t
spam, so you do and you discover that
it certainly isn’t spam. You find that it’s actually an email to your friends wife
from her lover. You scan the rest of the
contents of the email and there is no
doubt that she has been having an
affair for some time now. You release the email, but you can’t
decide what to do. You’re initial
reaction is to call your friend up and tell
him about the email, however you
quickly realize that company policy is
very strict about revealing the contents of confidential emails of staff members
regardless of the contents and unless
someone’s life is in immediate danger,
under no circumstances are you
permitted to reveal the information. In any case you know that revealing
this information presents great risk,
because even if you don’t do it directly,
there is a good chance that the dots will
be joined somewhere along the line
and you will be found out. However you feel that by not telling you friend
that you are aiding his wife get away
with adultery and this troubles you
greatly. What do you do?
7. The Neighbor You have a wonderful daughter. She is
8 years old and has always been a
happy outgoing child. But a while ago
something terrible happened, she was
raped. You are quite sure that the
person who raped her is your neighbor. Your daughter is so traumatized she
has stopped speaking, but she in other
ways been able to convince you that he
is the one. Unfortunately not enough
evidence can be found to convict him. You try to put your life back together.
You move to another house and try to
help your daughter in any way you can,
but it is clear that the experience has
ruined her life and that of your family. One evening you have taken your wife
out to dinner at a restaurant when you
spot your former neighbor at another
table. He is eating alone and looks
unhappy. You quickly finish eating and
leave. The next day you find out that your former neighbors wife has been
murdered. Enough evidence to convict
him of the murder is soon found, and at
first you are very happy, finally his will
get what he deserves. But then you remember that you saw
him in the restaurant at the time of the
murder. you know he did not murder
his wife. Maybe he paid someone else
to do it… You remember that the police
said that it had been made it look like a burglary, maybe it was… You sit down to think. If you keep quiet
he will be convicted for the murder, and
the real murderer will go free If you
give him an alibi, he will go free, but
you can’t be sure the real murderer will
be found, and it is possible that the evil bastard paid someone to do it… What
do you do?
6. The Pregnant Woman A pregnant woman leading a group of
people out of a cave on a coast is stuck
in the mouth of that cave. In a short
time high tide will be upon them, and
unless she is unstuck, they will all be
drowned except the woman, whose head is out of the cave. Fortunately, (or
unfortunately,) someone has with him
a stick of dynamite. There seems no
way to get the pregnant woman loose
without using the dynamite which will
inevitably kill her; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What
should they do?
5. Nieces and Daughters You and your family are going away
for the weekend. Your daughter is 7
and is best friends with your niece, who
is also 7. Your families are very close
and your daughter asks if your niece
can come with you on your holiday. You have been on holidays together
before and don’t see any problem, so
you agree. You arrive at your holiday destination
and the house you are staying at backs
onto a beach. The girls ask if they can
go for a swim. You tell them that they
have to wait until you have unpacked
the car, but they can play on the sand directly in front of the beach. They run
down to the sand, and you begin to
unpack the car. After about 5 minutes,
you hear screaming coming from the
direction of the beach and it sounds like
the girls. You run down to see what the matter
is, and you discover that they hadn’t
listened to you and have gone for a
swim. There is no one else on the beach
and the girls are caught in a rip. The girls are really struggling,
particularly your niece who isn’t as
strong a swimmer as your daughter. You swim out quickly, but when you
get there, you realize that there is no
way you will be able to get both the
girls back into shore on your own. You
realize that an agonizing decision will
need to be made. You need to decide which of the girls
you will rescue first, you have enough
strength and energy to rescue them
both, but you can only do it one at a
time. You look at the two girls, and
your niece is really struggling to hold her head above water and you know if
you take your daughter back first, there
will be little or no chance that she will
survive. Your daughter is struggling also, but is
much stronger in the water and you
estimate that if you take your niece
back to shore first, there’s probably a
50% chance that your daughter will be
able to stay afloat long enough for you return, but you simply don’t know how
long she will hold on for.
4. Hit and Run One morning you are driving to work,
and as per usual you are running a bit
late, so you are driving a touch faster
than the speed limit. You reach down
to your stereo to change the CD, when
all of a sudden your car hits something solid. You spin to a stop, but not before
several more cars have run into you
and each other in an attempt to avoid
the accident. As you look up and out of your car, you
can see that you hit a person, and that
the person is not looking very good. In
fact, you are sure that they are dead.
You shakily get out of your car, and
look around at the damage that has been caused. Several cars have been
badly smashed up, but more
importantly you have killed someone
with your careless driving. As you are standing there in shock, a
woman comes up to you, tears running
down her face, and obviously very
shook up. As a natural reaction, you ask
her what is wrong. She gives you a
funny look, and then she explains that she just ran over someone. You ask her
where this person is, and she points
towards the person that you ran over! You don’t understand why, but for
some reason this woman thinks that
she caused this accident and killed the
person, when in fact you are well
aware that you were the cause.
Whoever accepts the blame is likely to be placed in jail for a very long time. If
you let the woman take the blame,
there is a very good chance you will get
away with it all. However, there is also
the chance that you could be placed in
jail for even longer for trying to cover it up.
3. Drug Bust You are on holiday in Bali with your 18
year old son and wife. You have been
there for a week and are ready to head
home. All three of you are at the airport
getting ready to board your plane,
when an armed officer comes around with a sniffer dog. You have all your
bags on a trolley, and the dog sniffs at
both your wife and your bag, and
passes over it, however when he gets
to your sons bag, he begins to get a bit
more active. You look over at your son and he’s
looking a little nervous. You know he’s
smoked a little marijuana in his time,
but generally, he’s a good kid, and you
certainly didn’t think he’d actually be
stupid enough to bring it back on the plane with him. At first you feel angry
that he would do such a thing and start
planning your responsibility lecture, but
then you realize that you are in Bali,
and they have a zero tolerance policy
on drugs, meaning your son could be jailed for life, or worse, executed, if he
does have some illicit materials in his
bag. You look at your wife and realize she
has come to the same conclusion and
has gone pale with fear. The armed officer accompanying the
dog is beginning to look more stern
with every sniff the dog takes and
looks directly at you and asks you to
open to the bag. You do, and as the officer begins to take
things out of the bag, you see to your
horror that there is a small quantity of
marijuana stashed in with your sons
belongings. The officer looks at you and asks
“Who’s bag is this?” You realize you have to answer, but the
answer won’t be easy. You see your
wife in the corner of your eye, and she
is about to step forward and claim it as
her own; what do you say?
2. The Mad Bomber A madman who has threatened to
explode several bombs in crowded
areas has been apprehended.
Unfortunately, he has already planted
the bombs and they are scheduled to
go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. The
authorities cannot make him divulge
the location of the bombs by
conventional methods. He refuses to
say anything and requests a lawyer to
protect his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. In
exasperation, some high level official
suggests torture. This would be illegal,
of course, but the official thinks that it is
nevertheless the right thing to do in
this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also be morally
justifiable to torture the mad bomber’s
innocent wife if that is the only way to
make him talk? Why?
1. Lifeboat You are going on a cruise. 2 days into
the cruise your ship experiences
technical difficulties and the captain
says it needs to make an unscheduled
stop. A couple of hours later the captain
makes another announcement that the ships hull has been breached and that
you will all need to start heading to life
rafts and abandon ship. The ships life
rafts are lowered as people begin to
pile in and you get on board one of the
life rafts. As it is lowered however, it hits the
side of the ship, putting a hole in the
side of the raft, and when it hits the
water it begins to sink. There are 10
people in the boat and to prevent it
sinking, you quickly work out that by having 9 people working for 10
minutes while 1 person rests you can
bail the water out with their hands,
quick enough to keep the water at bay
and preventing it from sinking, but you
have to continually keep it up to ensure that the boat doesn’t sink. By being
able to rest one person you are greatly
able to increase the length of time you
can keep the boat afloat, however if the
rescue team doesn’t turn up you
calculate that within 5 hours the boat will sink and you will all die. While taking your break, you glance
over to another boat and notice that a
friend of yours who you met on the
boat is there and has noticed your
predicament. He is signaling for you to
come over and join them on their boat so you don’t have to continue bailing
water out. There is only just enough
room for one more person. You also
notice that their boat is moving away
rapidly with the current, but your boat
can’t keep up because the hole is affecting its buoyancy. You estimate that if you jump ship, you
will force all 9 remaining crew
members to bail water continuously,
which will reduce the total time they
can stay afloat to just 2 hours, but will
ensure that you will be able to live long enough to be rescued. If you stay aboard, you will not have
another chance to jump ship, and
there’s no guarantee that the rescue
will arrive in 5 hours, meaning you will
drown, however by staying you give
everyone a better chance of survival. As you watch the boat with your friend
drift away, you realize you have about
30 seconds to make a decision: a) Do you stay on your current boat and
help keep it afloat as long as possible
and hope that the rescue will arrive in 5
hours
b) Do you go to your friends boat,
ensuring your rescue, but reducing the chances of the others on the boat being
rescued?

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