SOC341/2031

Engineering Ethics
May 03, 2024

Md. Anower Perves,

Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, SEU
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6. Lecture
Facing Moral Dilemma
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Lecture Outline
➔ Facing Moral Dilemma
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Moral Dilemma

❏ Moral dilemmas often test our character and our

commitment to the greatest good for the greatest number
of people.

❏ Some moral dilemmas are simply complicated decisions

which must be thoroughly evaluated before choosing a
course of action.

❏ Other choices are genuine moral dilemmas which

challenge our ability to makes fair and just choices.
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Moral Dilemma

❏ Some people have hypothetical minds that like to debate

what is right and wrong.

❏ Sometimes, however, what is right and wrong is not so

clear, as is the case in a moral dilemma.
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Long Term, Short Term Consequences

❏ Moral dilemmas can also be evaluated on the basis of their

short-term and long-term consequences.

❏ If short-term consequences are overshadowed by

long-term benefits, then moral dilemma can find its ethical
solution by pursuing an outcome which obtains the
greatest long-term benefit for the greatest number of
people.
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Moral Dilemma

Should you always tell the truth?

❏ A murderer at the door is looking for your friend who is

hiding in your house.

❏ Your co-worker is cheating on her time-sheet.

❏ You witness a parking-lot accident.

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Moral Dilemma

Should you take this job?

You are offered a job that will require you to do things that
you find morally questionable.
★ If you don’t take it, someone else will.
★ Maybe you can work for good from the inside.
★ With the money you can take care of your family and
even give back to charities
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Moral Dilemma Scenarios

What would you do?
★ There is a train that, is about to run over your own
son, who has been tied to its track.
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Moral Dilemma Scenarios

What would you do?
★ There is a train that, is about to run over your own
son, who has been tied to its track.

★ It just so happens that you have only enough time to

pull a lever which will send the train down an
alternate track saving your son.
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Moral Dilemma Scenarios

What would you do?
★ There is a train that, is about to run over your own
son, who has been tied to its track.

★ It just so happens that you have only enough time to

pull a lever which will send the train down an
alternate track saving your son.

★ However, you see that, tied to the other track, is your

best friend, who recently saved your life and you have
yet to repay him for doing so.
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Moral Dilemma Scenarios

Right or Wrong?
★ You have the responsibility of filling a position in a
firm. Your friend Paul has applied and is qualified, but
someone else seems even more qualified. You wants
to give the job to Paul, but you feels guilty, believing
that you ought to be impartial.

★ You gives the job to Paul. Was he right?

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Moral Dilemma
How to Respond to an Ethical Dilemma?
★ Responding to an ethical dilemma requires that you are able to, in a
sense, step back from the situation and properly look at the
situation as a whole.

★ You need to understand who is affected by the dilemma aside from

yourself, what potential decisions could be made and what the
outcomes of those decisions might be for all those involved.

★ By gaining a wider perspective of the problem as a whole, you will

be more informed and able to make a decision that is perhaps
justifiable based on your assessment of the circumstances.
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Moral Dilemma

How to handle Moral Dilemma?

★ Discuss the issues with a trusted friend or colleague.
Understand that listening to an additional opinion can provide
more insight. It can also help you focus on issues that you may
have overlooked.

★ Spend time thinking about the appropriate decision to make.

Avoid thinking about your decision in terms of “right” or “wrong,”
as this can make it easier to be trapped in your own thoughts.
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6.Lecture
Moral Dilemma/Heinz Dilemma
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Lecture Outline
➔ Moral Dilemma

➔ Heinz Dilemma
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Moral Dilemma

A situation in which, whatever choice is made, the agent

commits a moral wrong.

1. Something morally right Bad outcome

2. Something morally wrong Good outcome
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Moral Dilemma

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927‑1987) was a well‑known theorist in the

field of moral development. He posed a series of moral dilemmas
(e.g., Heinz Dilemma) to his subjects and then asked questions
to probe their reasons for recommending a specific course of
action. From a large set of responses, he developed a model of
moral development, with six stages, analogous to the affective
development stages of Erikson and the cognitive development
stages of Piaget, extended by Gowan.
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Moral Dilemma
Scenario 1:
A woman was near death from a unique kind of cancer.
There is a drug that might save her. The drug costs $4,000 per
dosage, although it only costs the scientists $100 to make it. 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. He asked the doctor/scientist who
discovered the drug for a discount or that he let him pay later.
But the doctor/scientist refused.

** Should Heinz break into the laboratory to steal the drug for his
wife?
(Why or why not?)
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Moral Dilemma

Scenario 2:
Heinz broke into the laboratory and stole the drug. The next
day, the newspapers reported the break‑in and theft. Brown, a
police officer and a friend of Heinz, remembered seeing Heinz
near the laboratory last evening, behaving suspiciously. Later
that night, he had seen Heinz running away from the laboratory.
** Should Brown report what he saw? Why or why not?
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Moral Dilemma

Scenario 3:
Officer Brown reported what he saw. Heinz was arrested and
brought to court. Heinz was found guilty and could be sentenced
to as much as two years in prison.

** Should the judge sentence Heinz to prison? Why or why not?

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Levels

Level 1: PRE-CONVENTIONAL

Level 2: CONVENTIONAL

Level 3: POST-CONVENTIONAL
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Kohlberg’s Stages

Level 1: Pre-conventional
Reasoners judge the morality of an action by its direct
consequences

Stage One: Obedience and Punishment

Stage Two: Individualism, Instrumentalism, and Exchange
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Heinz Dilemma

Stage One (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because
otherwise he will be put in prison.

Obedience orientation: Individuals focus on the direct consequences

that their actions will have for themselves.
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Heinz Dilemma

Stage Two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine, because

he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to
serve a prison sentence.

Self-interest orientation: what's in it for me position. Right behavior

is defined by what is in one's own best interest.
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Kohlberg’s Stages

Level 2: Conventional
People who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of
actions by comparing these actions to social rules and expectations.

Stage Three: Interpersonal Concordance ("Good boy/girl")

Stage Four: Law and Order
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Heinz Dilemma

Stage Three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine, because

his wife expects it.

Conformity orientation: Individuals seek approval from other people.

They judge the morality of actions by evaluating the consequences of
these actions for a person's relationships.

Stage Four (law and order mentality): In stage four, individuals think
it is important to obey the law and conventions of society
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Kohlberg’s Stages

Level 3: Post-conventional
Most people do not reach this level of moral reasoning
Stage Five: Human Rights
Stage Six: Universal Ethical Principles (Principled Conscience)