Waking up in the morning, one may think that picking out what to wear to fit this year’s spirit week themes was a tough discussion. And while we sympathize, we wanted to draw some attention to some of the bigger, harder hitting questions that are overlooked on the day to day. We had a hard choice to make when deciding on what our next newspaper article should be. We did not have many ideas and resorted to asking others morally hard questions to balance the struggle. However, our mission unlocked many more struggles along the way. The first being that no one roams the hallway on a Wednesday morning; you get a better crowd towards the end of the day. We thus plopped ourselves down on the bench right outside the math hallway and let time do its work. Here, we called on many people to answer our nauseating questions on their way to the nearby restroom or water fountain. In this location we did pick up quite a crowd, with at one point in time one third of the math department answering our questions. Now, we also had to find these morally difficult questions, searching reddit pages we received stories on stories of answers, a lot of these crossing the boundary of what you are allowed to ask a magnet student in the hallway.

1. You’re involved in a two-car crash on your way to work one morning in which you accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian. As you get out of the car, you are intercepted by a tearful woman who is thoroughly convinced that she hit and killed the pedestrian. You’re not sure why she thinks she hit the person, but she is sobbing, now gutted that she’s killed someone. There’s only you, the woman, and the person you hit on the road; there are no witnesses. You know that whoever is deemed responsible will be sent to jail for life. What do you do? 

Our best response was between Elizabeth Hample, Lily Thompson, and Lilly Murphy. We found a common pattern in Lilly’s behavior where she would most likely choose the morally right and backed answer. However, Elizabeth and Lily made efforts to look for a loophole around the conflict. While for the most part their loopholes were not aligned with the dilemma, they did come up with some pretty creative answers. 

Elizabeth: “If she wants to take the blame I mean…this is terrible.”

Lilly: “I feel like you wouldn’t go to jail for life.” 

Sutton: “But in this scenario you would.”

Elizabeth: “Well in my world I would go to jail.”

Lilly: “You would?”

Elizabeth: “Well no I wouldn’t. No, but, I’m thinking. I don’t want to go to jail.” 

Lilly: “I would confess.”

Elizabeth: “Of course you would. We are not the same Lilly Murphy.” 

Elizabeth: “She can take the blame.”

And then Lily joined. 

Lily: “I would tell her it was me.” 

sigh

Elizabeth: “No you would not.”

Lily: “No you know what I would do, I would convince her not to tell anyone, no witnesses, no one goes to jail.”

Elizabeth: “I was thinking about that actually, because what I don’t understand is how we are getting in trouble.”

Lily: “I’d be like I’ll help you, this is important write this down, I’d be like I’ll help you its okay.”

Elizabeth: “I wouldn’t tell anyone. Then I’d hide the body.” 

Sometimes you just got to talk it through. Although this conclusion is creative, it does involve some gaslighting to get from point A to point B. Don’t tempt me with a good time 😉

Amy & Bennett 

giggling

Both: “Uhh..”

Bennett: “I mean I wouldn’t want to blame the woman. Like if I knew I did it-”

Amy: “I would run off.”

more chuckles

Amy: “I wouldn’t say anything, I would just run away.”

Caroline and Jasmine decided that together they would offer up to the woman the possibility that they had committed this atrocious act. Only if the woman insisted that it was her, they would allow themselves to be gaslighted into believing her word and that maybe they truly did not kill this pedestrian. Other than a thorough police investigation that would prove them wrong, this seems like a comforting plan.

Cliffie: Let’s walk it through. So immediately I’m like of course I would tell the woman and confess my crime. Because if that’s not the knee-jerk reaction, yikes. But then when you read further you get hit with the “in jail for life.” Hypothetical or not, that knocked me off my high horse real quick. But then it’s like, how old is this woman. Oh wait she’s your exact age, so that rules out who would have to spend less time in jail. So we’re left with the tough reality of going to jail for life or making someone else go to jail for life AND believe that they killed someone. I think that’s where my decision is made, I would have to tell the woman. Because the stakes aren’t equal and not only would she go to jail, she would also have the guilt of killing someone, which would make both of us riddled with guilt. If that extra, misplaced guilt for the woman wasn’t in the equation, then I might jump ship. A tried and true moral dilemma for you. 

1. Your dad is suffering from a terminal illness and is in constant pain. You are his doctor. He asks you to end his life to relieve his suffering and he will pass on his inheritance to you. However, Euthanasia is illegal in your country, but you have the means to do so. Do you perform euthanasia or refuse to do so?

Lane Yarborough (11) did not dilly dally in her response stating wholeheartedly, “I would do it.” 

Sophie Reuben (12) stuck with the rules of the nation she worked in saying she “would probably refuse to do it”. In a lot of these situations fear of jail time or death truly overrides any moral response. But also, in a lot of these different situations there is no right or wrong answer. 

However, Sophie’s twin, Grace Reuben (12) decided the opposite and without hesitation she said she would perform euthanasia on her struggling father. 

Sutton: When reading this question I honestly did not know what to think. How did I get into this situation, being the doctor to my own father? And of course why did the inheritance have to get involved in this one? This scenario really questions your motives with a lot of moving parts. What are you truly euthanizing him for? His inheritance or because you are watching your loving father struggle alone in a hospital. Even if I help my father, there is still a chance I will get painted as his greedy child who only helped him for his money. 18 years of being family with him gone just like that. All in all, I am a people pleaser, I would have to help my father and soothe his pain.

1. You are an emergency worker that has just been called to the scene of an accident. When you arrive you see that the car belongs to your wife. Fearing the worst, you rush over to see she is trapped in her car with another man. The man next to her is her lover with whom she’s been having an affair. You see your wife is seriously hurt and she needs attention straight away. Even if she gets attention there’s a very high chance she’ll die. You look at the seat next to her and see her lover. He’s bleeding heavily from a wound to the neck and you need to stem the flow of blood immediately. It will only take about 5 minutes to stop, but it will mean your wife will definitely die. If you tend to your wife however, the man will bleed to death despite the fact it could have been avoided.Who would you choose to work on?

Madeline & Molly

Uhhhh

Molly: I would pick my husband because I’ve known him longer.

Sounds of laughter

Madeline: Me too.

Seems like there’s a bit of hopping onto the bandwagon going on here. I truly feel like the question caught them by surprise and they were struggling coming up with a thorough answer. Anyways, helping the husband is always the safe option.

Lilly Murphy had more to say (she stuck around for a while)

Lilly: “I feel like you have to take the professional route and save the person with the highest chance of living. Is there another person with me?”

Sutton: “No.”

Lilly: “If there isn’t another person to help then I blame that on Emergency Services.”

It is a good route to take to save the one more likely for survival. This way her true motivations and feelings about her cheating husband can be severed and her choice can be validated solely by her job description. 

Cliffie: Well, if my husband cheated on me, then we would be dealing with ex-husband or his lover. I would help the lover or whatever you want to call her because she has a better chance of living and she also didn’t do anything wrong in this scenario.  I think I would be too mad at my husband to go out of my way to save him when I could save someone else. No-brainer. 

1. You and your family are going away for the weekend. Your daughter is 7 and is best friends with your niece, who is also 7. Your families are very close and your daughter asks if your niece can come with you on your holiday. They ask to go swimming, and you tell them that they have to wait until you have unpacked the car, but they can play on the sand directly in front of the beach. After about 5 minutes, you hear screaming coming from the direction of the beach and it sounds like the girls. They hadn’t listened to you and had gone for a swim. There is no one else on the beach and the girls are caught in a rip. The girls are really struggling, particularly your niece who isn’t as strong a swimmer as your daughter.You swim out quickly, but when you get there, you realize that there is no way you will be able to get both the girls back into shore on your own. You need to decide which of the girls you will rescue first, you have enough strength and energy to rescue them both, but you can only do it one at a time. You look at the two girls, and your niece is really struggling to hold her head above water and you know if you take your daughter back first, there will be little or no chance that she will survive. Your daughter is struggling also, but is much stronger in the water and you estimate that if you take your niece back to shore first, there’s probably a 50% chance that your daughter will be able to stay afloat long enough for you return, but you simply don’t know how long she will hold on for. Who do you save? 

Dr. Cassidy: Naturally, I would say whoever is closer.

Cliffie & Sutton: What if they are the exact same difference apart?
Dr. Cassidy: And you notice it at the exact same time?

Dr Cassidy: Probably my niece.

Dr Cassidy: I have a secret ring of life that I keep hidden and blows up when I extend it, so this would never happen to me. 

Dr. Cassidy light-heartedly brought Mrs. Renes into the conversation, taking a sophie’s choice perspective, asked what Mrs. Renes if she had to choose between her kids if they were in the exact same situation. 

After long consideration for Mrs. Renes, she decided that she has to go for her “little one, she has no chance”. 

In the normal situation at hand she would go to save the niece, claiming it’s “just math”. What a good note to end this discussion on. A lot of these moral situations really come down to math.  

Honorable Mentions: 

“I feel like in that moment you don’t think about how strong of a swimmer they are and you would save your kid as a parent.”

Sutton: The thing that does it for me is the fact that the niece has zero chance of survival and no way of making it back to shore. How could you not save the niece from drowning knowing that they will die under your supervision. Knowing my daughter with have a chance of making it back to shore is enough for me.