fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, April 21, 2011, 1st period]

Ready for summer vacation!

You arrive home after an extended period away to discover your (hypothetical) mother has been kidnapped and presumed dead. What do you do and why?

a) Mourn and move on.
b) Brood about it constantly. Perhaps write poetry.
c) Ignore the idea that she might be dead and go after her yourself. Upon finding her remains, torch the village she was in.
d) None of the above.

You're an excellent swimmer out for a walk in your new, extremely expensive, outfit. You hear the screams of a teenager crying for help from the water. There is no danger to yourself if you attempt a rescue. What do you do?

a) Rescue the kid.
b) Keep on walking. There is no moral imperative to save people and no legal obligation to try.
c) Try to find someone else to help.
d) None of the above.

A rebel who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been caught. Unfortunately, she has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It's possible that hundreds of people may die and the authorities cannot make her divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. What do you do and why?

a) Torture her to get the information. There's no time left to be reasonable.
b) Torture her and her family to get the information. If you're going to do something illegal, might as well be really, really thorough.
c) Continue working through the the legal structure of the judicial system and hope for the best.
d) None of the above. Perhaps your dimension works differently?

As a "special honor", the authorities who have captured you and your children will let you choose one of them not to die immediately. You will never see the other one again, as the two of you remaining will be sent to languish in the spice mines of Kessel, which are not known for their low mortality rates. Do you choose your older son or your younger daughter? And how do you deal with the guilt?

a) You choose to let your son live. He's older and might survive the intense labor in the spice mines.
b) You choose to let your daughter live. She's younger--perhaps one of the other prisoners will take pity on her and assist her.
c. There is no c in this question.

After the exam is over!

HOW IS IT THE END OF THE SEMESTER ALREADY? I CALL SHENANIGANS.

Katniss Everdeen ~~whose summer vacation is not like anyone else's and thus just is going to bum me out with icons~~

Lion-o

Katniss took a moment and considered. For her own mother, she wouldn't do a lot.

So instead she fixed the question, confident that her reasoning would be understood.

You arrive home after an extended period away to discover your ~~(hypothetical) mother~~ sister has been kidnapped and presumed dead. What do you do and why?

a) Mourn and move on.
b) Brood about it constantly. Perhaps write poetry.
c) Ignore the idea that she might be dead and go after her yourself. Upon finding her remains, torch the village she was in.
d) None of the above.

You're an excellent swimmer out for a walk in your new, extremely expensive, outfit. You hear the screams of a teenager crying for help from the water. There is no danger to yourself if you attempt a rescue. What do you do?

a) Rescue the kid.
b) Keep on walking. There is no moral imperative to save people and no legal obligation to try.
c) Try to find someone else to help.
d) None of the above.

Under her answer, Katniss added: If you value your clothing more than a child's life, someone's probably about to shoot you in the neck anyway.

A rebel who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been caught. Unfortunately, she has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It's possible that hundreds of people may die and the authorities cannot make her divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. What do you do and why?

a) Torture her to get the information. There's no time left to be reasonable.
b) Torture her and her family to get the information. If you're going to do something illegal, might as well be really, really thorough.
c) Continue working through the the legal structure of the judicial system and hope for the best.
d) None of the above. Perhaps your dimension works differently?

Katniss wasn't sure whether she was going to utterly fail this test, or do really, really well. Didn't really matter, all the same.

Threaten, but take no further action. Frighten her into talk, if she is weak enough. It depends entirely upon who is endangered here, and who I'd side with.

She'd be that rebel. And she knew which answer Snow would chose.

As a "special honor", the authorities who have captured you and your children will let you choose one of them not to die immediately. You will never see the other one again, as the two of you remaining will be sent to languish in the spice mines of Kessel, which are not known for their low mortality rates. Do you choose your older son or your younger daughter? And how do you deal with the guilt?

a) You choose to let your son live. He's older and might survive the intense labor in the spice mines.
b) You choose to let your daughter live. She's younger--perhaps one of the other prisoners will take pity on her and assist her.
c. There is no c in this question.

Katniss stared at the question for a long, long time, her possible future played out before her eyes. Substitute 'mines' for 'games' and it was everything she dreaded about what they'd force her into, at home.

She finally, simply wrote, They'd both live. I die.

Rinoa Heartilly

Rinoa stared at the questions, frowning as she reasoned her way through it.

Finally, she circled c.

I loved my mom and I miss her every day. She died in an accident. If it had been someone's fault, if someone had killed her on purpose, I don't think I'd be able to keep my temper. I would want them to hurt.

I don't think this is what I should do or what anybody should do, so if that is what you are asking, then I misunderstood. I am just trying to be honest.

Rinoa shuddered before circling a.

Who cares about an outfit? I like looking nice but that's someone's life. And even if you were petty enough that you didn't care about someone's life over your new outfit, would you really be able to wear the outfit again without thinking about the kid who was probably DEAD!?

Peter Bishop

Dammit. It would have been too easy if all the questions were as simple as the last one. This one took her a while.

The first thing she wrote -- above the question, before circling an answer, was:

I want to know what she's rebelling against and why. Is she fighting a repressive government? Are people being killed, and she wants to bring light to it? I mean, how serious is this resistance movement? It's never okay to kill civilians, though, so I'm still against them, but why did they feel they had to go that far?

Maybe she was sympathizing too much with the rebel, since she'd been a resistance fighter herself.

She very, very hesitantly circled a but wasn't anywhere near to being done.

Are we sure the bombs are really there? Is there no way to make them shut off without information from her? Do we not have time to evacuate? If there really, really, really isn't any choice and really, really, really isn't any time left, then I pick a, but can we please just maybe do weird psychological stuff to her instead of, I don't know, cutting her liver out? I don't like what it would make us into if we had to torture her but I don't think I could deal with the bombs going off if I didn't.

Rinoa was going to try not to be sick. Every time she tried to make herself choose, her mind slid away from the awfulness of that decision.

This was going to have an even longer answer than the last.

This is a terrible thing to ask and I think those people are sick for making someone pick something like that because that is torture plain and simple and when I said last question that we should mess with the rebel's head I didn't mean stuff like this because this is just plain wrong and what kind of sick person would do that to someone else!? That's the most horrible thing I've ever heard and I can't believe I have to answer this for a final question.

She shuddered before realizing that going off on the teacher might ... not be a great idea.

I don't mean that like meanly or anything because it's your class and you have the right to ask anything you want.

Okay. So.

I don't know how I can answer this. I feel like I'm supposed to say a, the boy, because he's older and stronger and hey, look, older and stronger means he has more of a chance to survive, so it's more pragmatic? But the girl being younger and not as strong, that makes me want to protect her more (and therefore not just hand her over to be killed).

And I don't know that I can be objective because these are hypothetical kids and not real ones. I had an alternate-universe daughter and she was the most precious thing in the world and so I keep wanting to say the daughter because it's her face I see as the girl, and the boy is just a blank mark, and it's easier to send someone to die if they're not a kid you've tucked into bed and sang songs to. I couldn't let anything happen to Sylvie, but Unnamed Boy is just ... an unnamed boy.

It might even depend on their ages. If the younger one is too young, then she can't really help anybody, anyway. And if they kept her alive it might not be out of pity, it might be so they can hurt her, or even ... this is so gross but like use her as like a sex toy or something, in which case she'd wish she was dead.

Maybe I pick whoever seems weaker, not physically but emotionally, mentally, because this is going to be an ugly horrible place and maybe one of them can't stomach it.

I suppose I say the boy, then, even though it feels like I should pick the girl because she needs to be protected more in my head, but I can't protect her, I'm just sending her to a horrible place of pain and death.

I can't believe you just made me kill Sylvie for a final exam question.

I don't think I live with the guilt. I probably wait around and pray for death and wonder if Sylvie died thinking I didn't love her enough to pick her.

This test is seriously depressing and I hope you're happy about that.

I am really sorry about, um, that. *points to question 4*

Lindsay Weir

Quinn Fabray

Anduin Wrynn

Momoko Akatsutsumi

Momoko frowned and circled d.

I would totally go after her and try to rescue her, like in (C), but I wouldn't set the village on fire.

And if she was supposed to answer honestly... I would probably beat the kidnappers up, though, before taking them to the police.

Momoko circled A and moved on. No need to even think about that one.

Momoko had to stop and look up at Professor Skywalker. Really? Torture?

She circled d and c.

I'd make sure she was handed over to the police to take care of questioning her more, then phone the Professor to see if he had anything that could find the bombs, while my team and I searched for the bombs.

It was an unsmiling Momoko who turned in her final without answering question 4.

Jack McCallister

d) None of the above. If there was the opportunity to go after her, I would, but I would hope my reaction wouldn't be so violent. That would lead to brooding at first and then mourning and moving on. I would have other responsibilities to deal with, so it would mean dealing with the situation as fast as possible.

a) Rescue the kid. It's the right thing to do.

c) The legal structure of the judicial system is there for a reason. There's no reason why major areas can't be evacuated as much as possible in the short time left and that qualified professionals can continue their efforts to find the bombs.

Jack understood the idea of asking a question with no good outcome. How could you choose? He emotionally stepped away from the question and scribbled down an answer.

a) He's older and might survive the intense labor in the spice mines.

Ethics [Thursday, April 21, 2011, 1st period]

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