Received from C.Michael Robinson from St. John Fisher College (spring 2018)

Moral Dilemma 1

There is a city of happiness where all of its citizens remain all their lives.  It’s residents demonstrate civil pride through many celebrations and a commitment to the welfare of its citizens.  Several national publications have recognized the city as the best place to live in America.  There is no crime and, in fact, there are no law enforcement agencies because there has always been total respect for individuals and the property of those individuals.  Everyone has a job and the schools are rated among the best in the Nation.

In the basement of City Hall, there is a room.  It has one locked door, and no window.  And in this room sits a child.  The child is feeble-minded, malnourished, and neglected.  It lives out its days in wretched misery.

Everyone in the city knows that the child is there and the condition of the child.  No one knows who the parents of the child are and there are no known relatives.  Every citizen understands that the happiness and prosperity of their city is wholly dependent upon the child remaining in the basement room and living in the current conditions.  If the child were to be brought out of the basement and cared for, the city would be transformed immediately.  It would experience crime, citizens would be disrespectful of each other and abuse each other’s property.  The public celebrations would cease and the quality of their schools would decline sharply. Unemployment would exist at high rates.

Those are the terms and the only terms.  You cannot change the moral dilemma. 

Where do you stand and why?

Adapted from “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Moral Dilemma 2

You are the driver of a trolley car hurtling down the track at sixty miles per hour.  Up ahead you see five workers standing on the track, tools in hand. You try to stop, but you can’t.  The brakes don’t work.  You feel desperate, because you know that if you crash into these five workers, they will all die.  (Let’s assume you know that for sure.)

Suddenly, you notice a side track, off to the right.  There is a worker on that track, too, but only one.  You realize that you can turn the trolley car onto the side track, killing one worker, but sparing the five.

What would you do?

Don’t make up any escape scenarios!  Make a decision and justify it.

Moral Dilemma 3

Socrates taught that the soul is that which distinguishes good from evil; it is improved by choosing good and harmed by choosing evil.

A Jewish holocaust survivor told of having lived in a Nazi-occupied village.  The German soldiers had created a large pen in the town square where they held their daily quota of Jews to be sent for extermination.  Walking through the square, the man saw his ten-year old son locked in the pen.  The man knew it meant death for the boy.  He begged the guard, one of his non-Jewish neighbors, to let the boy out.  The guard said the Nazis would kill him if any Jews were missing, but he gave the father this option:  The Nazis only wanted numbers; bring him another child and his son could go free.  The father rushed to his rabbi for advice.  Could he allow another boy to die in his son’s place?

Taken from War and the Soul by Edward Tick