Ethics, Tuesday, April 21, 2015

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If you thought a little thing like weeks of unrelenting trauma was going to stop your final exam, you didn't know Anakin very well. He at least look vaguely sorry about it between texts on his comlink (that was only half to avoid talking to Obi-Wan).

Smooth, Anakin. Very smooth.

It was Obi-Wan who cleared his throat and began speaking after the exams had been distributed. "It is traditional for this class to end in a written exam," he said. "No choice listed on these sheets is wrong--" though he and Anakin might disagree about which ones were least wrong, ahem, "--as we are primarily interested in your reasoning. Please be thorough."

"And legible," Anakin added. He coughed. "And if anyone feels the need to talk about this weekend, or last, for that matter, we're around after class."

Comments

Sign in 4/21

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Grumble, grumble.

Question 1

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What is the strangest ethical dilemma you've faced since coming to Fandom? How have you resolved it?

Question 2

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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, then blow up her planet. 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.

Question 3

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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.

Question 4

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You have a friend whose homeworld has long since been embroiled in a civil war. The war has gone on for generations, and there appears to be no end in sight. However, your friend and some of their companions back home believe they can put a stop to it by getting in between the warring factions. Since you have powers or skills that they do not, they ask for your help. Do you intervene, despite having only one, biased, second-hand account of the war and what might be fueling it? Or do you refuse, and potentially abandon your friend to a very dangerous situation?

a) You go and fight. You're loyal to your friend, and don't want to see them or their world suffer. You'll sort out the complexities later.
b) You go, but you only provide support, such as setting up a hospital or attempting to mediate between the factions.
c) You try to reason with your friend. Are they sure they can simply fix something that has been broken for so many generations? Perhaps they need to take a step back and find another way to solve the problem.
d) You refuse to intervene at all. It isn't your fight.

Question 5

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You're involved in a conflict of your own. There's a time limit: if you don't do something quickly, the entire planet, or even galaxy, might suffer. But your mentor insists on stopping and helping every single lost soul he comes across along the way. Do you:

a) Support him in this: you should help on the small as well as the large scale, after all.
b) Go along with it, but make your disapproval very clear and try to speed things up.
c) Argue with him loudly and provide an incentive to stop doing it.
d) Abandon him and all of his lost causes and go save the planet yourself.

Talk to Anakin or Obi-Wan

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Or shamelessly eavesdrop during the exam as the Idiot Twins try to talk about feeeeelings.

OOC

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How is the end of the semester already? HOW?