This is the first of
nine blogs in the MSLD 634, Leadership Ethics and Corporate Responsibility course.
This assignment peers into my ethical way of thinking by presenting some very tough
choices on ethical issues. My position on how / why the choice was made and
what the implications are is provided. Please let me know what choices you
would make and why you would make them by responding to this blog.
Train Dilemma - Five Children
In this scenario, a
train is racing towards five children. I am the switch person. By throwing the
switch, I can force the train to take a path where only one child is standing.
Do I throw the switch?
Yes, I would throw the
switch to save four children. When processing this decision in my mind, a
feeling of grief comes over me. The feeling of grief is for the child who would
be killed by my action. The only comfort that would come of the action of
throwing the switch would be knowing that four children that would have died
had the switch not be thrown, are still alive. This is a case where the answer
comes easily because there is a right ethical answer that all normal adults
would agree with.
Train Dilemma - Five Children & Elderly Man
Same scenario except I
am standing next to an elderly man and if I push him on to the tracks, the
train will stop and all the children will be saved. Will I push him to save all
the children? Without hesitation the answer is yes. What I find curious is that
the same level of grief is not present when this action is processed in my
mind. There is some level of grief, just not as much. Probably because the
elderly people are thought to have lived a long and rich life and the elderly
man has not lost too much of what he had left in life anyway.
Much like the first
case, this is also a case where the answer comes easily because there is a right
ethical answer that all normal adults would agree with. There is an important
distinction however that deserves consideration. Throwing a switch that results
in death and physical contact by pushing someone to their death is two very
different psychological events. One is detached and one involves direct
contact. In our country, capital punishment is carried out that is detached in
nature (no physical action directly results in death). So there may be some
that could not ‘push’ the elderly man to save the children. I would not have
this problem.
Train Dilemma - Five Children (One is Your Child)
Same scenario except the path where the only child is standing is
my child. Do I throw the switch to save the five children or do I save my child
and let the five perish? This scenario is the most difficult of the three
because there are two very different levels of ethical values at stake here.
Five children who deserve to live and one child who is family and deserves to
live. In the first scenario, it was a one to five ratio with all other factors
being equal. Easy decision. The second scenario, it was even easier (although
the touching nature could present problems for some) with one elderly man and
five children.
Because the only child in this last scenario is family, this adds
an extra value to the ethical choice. This extra value is a protected value
that is non-negotiable for me (Hoch & Kunreuther, 2001, p, 251). Family
always comes first, so again this becomes a choice with a right answer and is
easier to arrive at. Others might see a different right answer, so in this
scenario more than one right answer can exist.
Summary
These three ethical scenarios had choices with
a unique twist, yet all three choices were relatively easy decisions for me to
arrive at. LaFollette
(2007) suggests that when we are confident about the consequences of our
actions that we are more confident which one is morally correct (p. 10). This is probably why my decisions where easy
to arrive at without much consternation.
Additionally, either one right answer exists (scenario one and
two) or more than one right answer is possible (scenario 3). This means if we
were to classify these three ethical scenarios by the Cyenfin Framework,
scenarios one and two would be a simple decision making context and scenario
three would be a complicated decision making context (Snowden & Boone,
2007, p. 73).
References:
Hoch, S. J., &
Kunreuther, H. C. (2001). Wharton on
making decisions. (1st edition.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
LaFollette, H. (2007). The
practice of ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Snowden, D., &
Boone, M. (2007). A Leader's Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68-76.
