Case Studies

Choose four of the following six short cases and write at least 1/2 page analysis of each, utilizing the theories we have discussed in class. When possible, you should talk about elements of good (utilitarianism), right (Kant and rights philosophy) and virtue (Aristotle) and how they relate to the case. This is more important than the supplied questions. While you are writing on only four, be prepared to discuss all of them.

1. Alcohol Use. Allowing alcohol use in our society produces various bad effects. Drunken drivers are responsible for about one half of the nearly 50,000 traffic fatalities that occur each year. Alcohol is implicated in more than half of the nation’s 30,000 homicides. Pregnant women who drink risk giving their child fetal alcohol syndrome, where the affected baby is abnormally short, has heart defects or cleft lip and palate, and lower than average intelligence. Drinking also increases the likelihood of miscarriage. Heavy drinking can cause cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease. Alcohol dependence or alcoholism is a major factor in crime, marital breakdown, child abuse, accidents, and job absenteeism.

These bad effects could be decreased by restricting the availability of alcohol. During Prohibition, an amendment to the Constitution prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcohol, but not the use or production of alcoholic beverages for one’s own consumption. As a result, alcohol consumption declined dramatically, perhaps by as much as 50%. Why not return to Prohibition? Wouldn’t the good

effects outweigh the bad effects? What do you think?

2. A Secret Affair. Billy Pilgrim is a world—famous Christian Evangelist. He has a very popular T.V. show called God Loves You (GLY), and he has converted thousands to Christianity. He also raises about $500 million a year from donations. Almost all of this money is used to help needy people in the United States and other countries. The God Loves You Foundation, which administers this money, is run by volunteers who receive no money for their work, and Billy himself lives very modestly in a two room apartment with Milly, his wife of 50 years. They have no children because, as Billy says, “Everyone is God’s child, and I want to help everyone equally.” In almost every respect Billy is a model of Christian virtue, but he has one flaw. For more than 20 years, he has had a secret extramarital affair with Jill, a secretary at the Foundation. They get together infrequently, but these encounters are enormously satisfying for both Billy and Jill. The fact that they are doing something forbidden seems to make it all the more exciting. Of course Billy feels guilty for his love affair, and he begs God to forgive him, but he cannot give it up. In fact, his secret love is what makes it possible for him to be a model of virtue the rest of the time. Without this one sin, he could never be so good.

Is this love affair morally wrong or not? What do you think?

3. Saving Your Son. Suppose your son and some other people are trapped in a burning hotel. Your son is on the top floor, and you will be able to save him, and only him, if you quickly climb the emergency extension ladder on the fire engine and bring him down. On the other hand, you can save five children (who are not related to you) on the first floor who are unconscious from smoke inhalation but not yet dead.

Should you save the five children and let your son die, or should you save your son and let the five children die? What do you think Mill would say? How about Kant? What do you think?

4. Having Children. Sally is an unmarried single woman with eight children. She is unemployed, and receives welfare payments under the AFDC (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) program. She likes children, and does a reasonably good job of taking care of the children with limited resources--less than $1,500 a month from various sources. This puts her family near or below the poverty level. She wants to have another child with her current lover, an unemployed alcoholic name Slim. Does she have the right to have as many children as she wants? Does the state have an obligation to provide for her and her children?

5. Suicide. Alice Marshall is an 80-year-old woman who is a widow with no children and no close relatives. She lives in a one room apartment in a slum area; that is all she can afford on her Social Security and Welfare payments. She is not physically ill, but she is chronically and seriously depressed. She feels that she has no reason to keep on living, that life is an unbearable burden. She stops eating and drinking, and in one week she is dead.

Did Alice do anything morally wrong or not? Explain your answer. Would it make any moral difference if instead Alice killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills?

6. Cannibalism. A small plane crashes in high mountains in Nepal near Mt. Everest. The pilot is killed instantly, but the two passengers survive. One passenger is Jill, a 35-year-old woman with a husband and three children. The other passenger is Jim, a 23-year-old single man. The plane has no emergency rations, and after a week they are near death. They are suffering from high altitude sickness, dehydration, and lack of food. Jim reluctantly starts eating the flesh of the dead pilot, but Jill cannot bring herself to do this. Another week later, the rescue helicopter finally finds them. Jim has managed to survive, but Jill is dead.

Who did the right thing——Jim or Jill?