2. You are a very skilled doctor with five dying patients, each of whom needs a
different organ in order to live. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to
perform any of the transplants. It just so happens that you have a sixth dying
patient, suffering from a fatal illness, who will die sooner than the other five if not
treated. If this sixth patient dies, you will be able to use his organs to save the five
other patients. However, you have a medicine you can give to this sixth patient that
will cure his illness and he won’t die. Would you:
a: Wait for the patient to die and then harvest his organs or
b: Save the patient even though the other patients won’t get organs.
3. You have witnessed a man rob a bank, but then, he did something
completely unusual and unexpected with the money. He donated it to an
orphanage that was poor, run-down and lacking in proper food, care, water
and amenities. The sum of money would be a great benefit to the
orphanage, and the children’s lives would turn from poor to prosperous.
Would you:
a: Call the police and report the robber, even though they would likely take
the money away from the orphanage, or
b: Do nothing and leave the robber and the orphans alone?
4. Your best friend is about to get married. The ceremony will be performed in
one hour, but you have seen, just before coming to the wedding, that your
friend’s fiancee has been having an affair. If your friend marries this woman,
she is unlikely to be faithful, but on the other hand, if you tell your friend
about the affair, you will ruin his wedding. Would you, or would you not, tell
your friend of the affair?
5. You are head of a student council at a high school, and are faced with a difficult
decision regarding a grade-twelve girl’s risky, last-resort choice. This girl is an honor
student. All through her academic years, she has obtained straight A’s, has many
friends and has never been disciplined by the principal. However, near the end of her
grade twelve year, she fell ill with the flu and fell way behind in her school work,
which resulted in her having to rush a report that would be worth 40% of English, a
required graduation subject in her curriculum. She was so desperate about the
report that she went online and passed off a report she found on that subject as her
own. Her English teacher caught her and has referred her to you. If you enter on her
academic record that she plagiarized, she will likely not be eligible to be accepted
into St. Steven’s University, a school she has dreamed of attending all through high
school and needs in order to fulfill her academic and future dreams.
What would you do?
6. A man/woman, is immortal, because he and his/her family have drank from a
fountain of youth, not knowing what it was. You are now in love with this person
and have felt this way long enough that you know (s)he to be your destiny. However,
the only way you can stay together forever is if you drink from the fountain of youth
and become immortal, too. If you do this, however, your family and everyone else
you know will grow old and eventually die, and you will never be reunited in heaven
with them, or your loved ones that you have known, who have already died. On the
other hand, if you don’t drink from the fountain, you will grow old and eventually
die, and the person with whom you are in love will never see you again, and be
condemned to an eternity of loneliness and only memories of you. What would you
do?
7. Jim has the responsibility of filling a position in his firm. His friend Paul has
applied and is qualified, but someone else seems even more qualified. Jim
wants to give the job to Paul, but he feels guilty, believing that he ought to
be impartial. That’s the essence of morality, he initially tells himself. This
belief is, however, rejected, as Jim resolves that friendship has a moral
importance that permits, and perhaps even requires, partiality in some
circumstances. So he gives the job to Paul. Was he right?
8. Heather is part of a four-person mining expedition. There is a cave-in and
the four of them are trapped in the mine. A rock has crushed the legs of one
of her crew members and he will die without medical attention. She’s
established radio contact with the rescue team and learned it will be 36
hours before the first drill can reach the space she is trapped in.
She is able to calculate that this space has just enough oxygen for three
people to survive for 36 hours, but definitely not enough for four people.
The only way to save the other crew members is to refuse medical aid to the
injured crew member.
Should Heather allow the injured crew member to die in order to save the
lives of the remaining crew members?
9. A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workmen who will be
killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Molly is on a footbridge over the
tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workmen. Next to her on this
footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large.
If she does nothing the trolley will proceed, causing the deaths of the five workmen.
The only way to save the lives of these workmen is to push this stranger off the
bridge and onto the tracks below, where his large body will stop the trolley, causing
his death.
Should Molly push the stranger onto the tracks in order to save the five workmen?
10. Tom, hating his wife and wanting her dead, puts poison in her coffee,
thereby killing her. Jane also hates her husband, and would like him dead.
One day her husband accidentally puts poison in his own coffee, thinking it
is cream. Jane realises this, and has the antidote that could save him, but
does not hand it over and her husband dies.
Is Jane’s failure to act as bad as Tom’s action?
