By The Way...

Saturday, November 24, 2007
9:49:00 PM EST
Hearing Nothing at the moment
Time Magazine has a morality quiz for you, asking you what you would do in a couple of highly charged situations. For example:

You're in a lifeboat with several other people. The boat is overloaded and will capsize soon killing everyone aboard unless you lighten the load by one person. One of the passengers is grievously injured and is certain to die soon, but is fully alert and aware of everything that is going on. Could you throw that person overboard, knowing that that would save everyone else and that the person would know what you were doing while you were doing it?

The answer choices you are given are "I could/could not throw the grievously injured person overboard." Which I find interesting, because there are other options, too, which do not involve murdering someone. For example, you (or someone else) who is able-bodied could exit the lifeboat and tread water alongside it until the grievously injured passenger expires; at which point you put them off the boat and you get back on. Which is much better, morally, than killing someone.

And this is what I think is a real test of morality: When provided two options, neither of which is entirely morally acceptable, what can you do to find a third way? Because as it happens, life if very rarely binary. There are usually other options.


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This entry has 8 comments: (Add your own)

• #8 Comment from goddessninanna 
  11/26/07 6:24 PM | Permalink

  I think that one of the Whateverettes you put on the Whatever site poses a more interesting moral question.
  
  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2217067,00.html)
  
  Should the clock restorers be punished? They broke the law by breaking in after hours, however they restored a priceless, historical artifact free of charge.
• #7 Comment from monponsett 
  11/25/07 8:50 AM | Permalink

  You're dead in 30 minutes treading water, probably less.
  
  Eff whoever I could push out of the lifeboat. Of course, I'm likely to be the smallest... but I'll have a head start in the struggle, as I've already cleared the morality hurdle that the others would have to negotiate then/there as I'm darting up to push them overboard.
• #6 Comment from fisherkristina 
  11/25/07 4:48 AM | Permalink

  My immediate thought was the same as yours.  Why couldn't there be another option?  Or options.  I remember the year that these questions came out in school.  They were all the rage.  It was called "situational ethics".  We were told there were no right or wrong answers, no morals, no absolutes.  If you wanted to kill somebody off, well that was just fine.  You were not encouraged to think of a second or third option.  Now here's a thought.  What if there were other things on the boat that were overloading it?  Could you not throw some of that stuff off to make it lighter?  Look for a third solution!  Murder is not a valid option!  There ARE some absolutes.  Think!  Thanks for a brilliant post!
  
  Krissy
  http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink  
• #5 Comment from fdtate714 
  11/25/07 1:33 AM | Permalink

  Is President Bush on the boat?
  
• #4 Comment from preciousfewe 
  11/25/07 12:35 AM | Permalink

  I agree with you. In fact, it's the first response I thought of when I read that particular question. Of course, I think the quiz presumes that you have eliminated all the other options.
  
  I find it interesting that none of the responses involve sacrificing oneself (ie, jumping off the lifeboat into freezing water and dying of hypothermia in mere minutes to spare the others).

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