What Do You Think?

Please read the following stories and respond to the questions.  There is no right or wrong answer.  We simply want to know your opinion.  Please do not talk about the questions with other students while answering the questions.  We want to know what YOU think.  The large text boxes below will expand as needed to accommodate comments of greater length.  When you have completed filling out this form, please click the submit box at the end of the form. Thank you very much for your time. 

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Dilemma One:  The Heinz Dilemma

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer.  There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her.  It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered.  The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make.  He paid $400 for the radium and charged $4,000 for a small dose of the drug.  The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $2,000 which is half of what it cost.  He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later.  But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.”  So having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. 

It is against the law for Heinz to steal.  Does that make it morally wrong?

Please explain your answer in the following box.

Please explain why or why not in the following box.

Dilemma Two: The Bridge Dilemma

In Korea, a company of Marines was way outnumbered and was retreating before the enemy.  The company had crossed a bridge over a river, but the enemy were mostly still on the other side.  If one person were to go  back to the bridge and blow it up, it would give the other men in the company enough of a head start to allow them to probably escape.  But the man who stays back to blow up the bridge will not be able to escape alive.  The captain himself is the man who knows best how to lead the retreat.  He asks for a volunteer to go back and blow up the bridge, but no one will volunteer.  If he goes back to blow up the bridge himself, the men will probably not get be able to retreat to safety since he is the only one who knows how to lead the retreat. 

Should the captain go back to blow up the bridge himself if it means his men will probably not make it back to safety? 

Please explain your answer in the following box.

Please explain why or why not in the following box.