We had a great discussion on Thursday about Dan Savage’s visit to Rhodes. I initially intended to further the discussion on my blog, but there are already two posts related to his visit. I therefore decided to share a moral dilemma I read a couple of days ago. It’s an interesting one that I believe everyone will enjoy. The story is as follows:
You are on holiday in Bali with your 18 year old son and wife. You have been there for a week and are ready to head home. All three of you are at the airport getting ready to board your plane, when an armed officer comes around with a sniffer dog. You have all your bags on a trolley, and the dog sniffs at both your wife and your bag, and passes over it, however when he gets to your sons bag, he begins to get a bit more active.
You look over at your son and he’s looking a little nervous. You know he’s smoked a little marijuana in his time, but generally, he’s a good kid, and you certainly didn’t think he’d actually be stupid enough to bring it back on the plane with him. At first you feel angry that he would do such a thing and start planning your responsibility lecture, but then you realize that you are in Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning your son could be jailed for life, or worse, executed, if he does have some illicit materials in his bag. You look at your wife and realize she has come to the same conclusion and has gone pale with fear.
The armed officer accompanying the dog is beginning to look sterner with every sniff the dog takes and looks directly at you and asks you to open to the bag. You do, and as the officer begins to take things out of the bag, you see to your horror that there is a small quantity of marijuana stashed in with your son’s belongings.
The officer looks at you and asks “Whose bag is this?”
You realize you have to answer, but the answer won’t be easy. You see your wife in the corner of your eye, and she is about to step forward and claim it as her own; what do you say?
URL: http://www.gaire.com/e/f/view.asp?parent=1735753&nav=2
I’m looking forward to reading your responses.
PS: Remember, you’re in Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning the culprit could be jailed for life.
As a kantian there are two paths you could follow, you could tell the truth and throw your sons to the sharks, or you could side with the "necessity" view, and say that it is necessary for the well being our your son (and his future), your wife, yourself, and the rest of your family that you lie, AND DON'T GET CAUGHT then they would simply disgard of the bag and the drugs, and you can go home, where your son will receive the whopping of his life.
ReplyDeleteAs Utilitarian, the path you would follow will be similar the the Kantian necessity view. you would have to gage which decision provides the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. The only thing with the theory is that it has to stages. First is do you lie or tell the truth? if you tell the truth, well there you go, but if you lie then there is a chance that you might or might not get caught (just like in the Kantian view of Necessity), so you also have to apply the Utilitarian Calculus of greatest good for greatest amount of people to what would happen if you did get caught. Which leads me to think that a Utilitarian you actually might decided to tell the truth, and suffer the consequences.
For Spinoza he would tell you that everything is fated, and that you need to live your life according to the 3rd knowledge, meaning that you must see things, and act with the understanding that everything comes from God(nature). So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no idea what Spinoza might say. if others have a better understanding of him and could venture a guess, please share.
The same would go for Nietzsche, I am not sure what he would say, but I don't think it matters. I think he would respond that whatever you decide to do, you must take responsibility for it, an realize that it was YOUR decision to make, not God's. And later we were to ask you "if put in that same exact situation again, would you act as you did?" then your answer should be "yes!"
Personally, as a selfish being who believes in a supreme being, but considers myself to be completely responsible of my actions, I would lie through my teeth! and hopefully not get caught so that i could be sent home with my family where i would receive my son with a belt in one hand and a sandal in the other.
So Nellie, are you saying you would lie and say that you have never seen the bag and don't know whose it was and hope to not get caught lying? Because if that was an option for me I would definitely do it. Unfortunately though I am not a very good liar, and under that kind of pressure I think I would be an even worse one. So either way, whether from a parental perspective or the kid's perspective, I would have to say the bag was mine. As a parent you want to protect your child even in a situation like this one. Of course I would be furious with my kid but my instincts would be to protect my child from begin jailed for life. And then, if I were the kid and the bag was mine with the marijuana in it, I also would have to take responsibility. I would never be able to live with myself if I let one of my parents go to jail for me. So it looks like in this situation, no matter what, I am going to jail.
ReplyDeleteLet's be real for a minute. There is no way in the world that you could lie about this. Someone would have to take the blame. However, even if you have to take the blame yourself you must have faith in the good ole USA! If anything would happen the US embassy would take care of your troubles in Bali. You would definitely have to pay a lot of fines in the US but there is no ways that the US government would let a citizen of theirs sit in a foreign jail.
ReplyDeleteHowever, playing along, if the embassy wouldn't act I would have to take the blame. As a father it is one of those inherent duties in our culture for a father to protect his family. One teaching from Aristotle said that, one must put into account the different cultures of people when judging what is morally acceptable. For a person in this culture they would gain more utility by taking blame (utilitarianism). The motive of taking blame, even though you would be lying, I would also believe to be okay (deontology).
I'm with Nellie! I'm putting aside the philosophers and their theories for now to follow my instincts! It is my duty to protect my family and if the only way to do that means lying to the Bali officials then so be it. And if we make it home alive, then like Nellie, I will "receive my son with a belt in one hand and a sandal in the other."
ReplyDelete