Ethical Dilemma (Essay #3) PHIL 3020 Mr. Borowsky Assigned Tuesday October 21st Choose one of the following topics and write an essay of approximately 750 words which discusses whether the action by one person is ethically justified (cases 1 and 2) or how you would act in a situation that would require you to choose between two actions (case 3). In addition to the questions in each topic you will also need to include some discussion of different approaches to the problem and their relevance to the dilemma (deontological consequentialist Rawlsian ethics virtues ethics equity). Here is one method of approaching the topics to use as a way of writing a first draft: 1. What information is relevant? Irrelevant? 2. Given the situation which party bears which responsibility? Why? 3. What are these responsibilities or obligations in this case? (Here you might use deontological and consequentialist ethics as guiding principles in answering this question.) 4. Having answered these questions draft and revise your essay. 5. Having reviewed these five steps write your answer. Ground rules (review all from class): 1. Preserve the hypothetical situation. Remember that ethical dilemmas always involve moral failure. In other words by fulfilling one moral obligation you fail to fulfill the other. So do not neutralize the question by saying that you would (see topics below) check to see if there were other candidates for surgery or another route to get out of the cave. A choice is required. 2. Legal obligations do not create moral obligations. You are not a detective; you are not trying to determine whether a crime has been committed. You want to know what kind of moral obligation should be fulfilled instead of another. 1. The Case of the William Brown In 1842 the American ship William Brown left Liverpool headed to Philadelphia with eighty passengers mostly poor Scot and Irish immigrants. After hitting an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland eighty passengers and crew attempted to load themselves into the two boats attached to the ship. Of these fifty survived. Many of those that sank with the ship were children. The rescue effort did not go well either. In the nineteenth century ships carried boats with them which in an emergency functioned as lifeboats. But they were actually different kind of boats. In this case the ship had two kinds: a longboat and a jolly boat. The longboat could carry 30 passengers and was equipped to pass through high powerful waves. The jolly boat like others was much smaller and held only eight. But unlike jolly boats on other ships this one had sails and the passengers aboard quickly came across a ship to rescue them. The longboat was not as lucky. It was overloaded with passengers and leaking badly. Soon the ship was on the verge of sinking. One of the sailors called to lighten the load. In response two sailors Alexander Holmes and another forced twelve passengers off the side of the longboat—including two women who may have volunteered to join their husbands. The next day two more men were thrown into the sea. Was Alexander Holmes justified in his actions? 2. The Case of the Five Spelunkers Five spelunkers—or more simply cave explorers—are trapped inside a cave following a landslide. The danger of future landslides prevents all rescue efforts. However the spelunkers are able to make radio contact with the rescue team aboveground. As the days pass food is running low and as the explorers discovered shortly after the landslide there is no source of nutrition within the cave. Twenty days after the cave-in members of the rescue team inform the explorers that it will take ten more days to reach them. Medical experts aboveground confirm that under the circumstances ten more days without food would mean that starvation would be likely if not inevitable. One of the cavers Whetmore spoke into the radio equipment and cautiously asked the medical experts an unsettling question: “Wouldn’t it be possible to survive these ten days if we—how shall I put this—choose one of us to be eaten?” The medical experts reluctantly confirm this to be the case. Goshen another caver asks whether it would be best to draw lots to select a person to be killed and eaten. No one aboveground is willing to answer this question. At that point radio contact is subsequently lost. Once the cave-in is cleared it is discovered that only four cavers have survived; Whetmore had been killed and eaten by the others. The survivors state that Whetmore had originally come up with the ideas of cannibalism and choosing the victim through random chance offering a pair of dice in his possession. Whoever rolled the lowest was chosen as the victim. A tie was settled by another toss of the dice. However before the dice were thrown Whetmore allegedly expressed a wish to withdraw from the arrangement. He suggested that the party wait another week before the party made the terrible mistake of killing one person and committing the others to a shocking crime. But the others refused to accept his change of mind and threw the dice on his behalf. The survivors claim that Whetmore conceded that the dice were thrown fairly. He is subsequently killed and eaten. Following their rescue and recovery the survivors are charged with the murder of Whetmore. Answer these two related questions: First from a moral standpoint rather than a legal one are the surviving cavers guilty of murder? Why or why not? Second was it right for the other to hold Whetmore to the original agreement to pick the first victim by a roll of dice? Was it within Whetmore’s rights to withdraw from the agreement? What it right for the other cavers to roll the dice for him? 3. You’ll remember the handout I posted on ethical problems for class. One of them proposed a Rawlsian system of grading in which the teacher would take a certain number of points from higher-performing students and give them to lower-performing students provided 1) that the higher performing students did not lose any part of their letter grade for the essay or exam and 2) that the lower-performing students would at a maximum receive no more points than it would take to raise their grade above failing. Do you think this is a fair way to grade exams or essays if it only helps the lower-performing students in the class? If not why not and please state why Rawlsian ethics should not apply in this case. Is there another fair way to help lower-performing students by changing only the grading system? Propose a change to the traditional system of grading that would be relatively fair to all students and distribute grades in such a way to help lower-performing students. Here’s what was written in the handout: — IV. Grading the Final Exam (Fairness and Virtue) Once again Mr. Borowsky is busy designing a memorable final exam for the students of PHIL 3020. He doesn’t like to give out bad grades so he is thinking of trying out a new grading system. Under this system Mr. Borowsky may skim points from one student’s final exam grade and give them to another provided that the points given to one student enable the student to pass (with a score of 60 or above) and the points deducted from the other student do not affect his or her grade. The following table is an example of how this might work: Original Transferred Revised Grade Points Grade Student 1 92 (A) -2 90 (A) Student 2 88 (B ) -2 86 (B ) -4 Student 3 57 (F ) 4 61 (D) What are the advantages or disadvantages to this system? Is it fair? Is it right? Why or why not?
