Ethical question

trustno1

the good girl gone bad
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Ok, in my english class we were talking alittle about ethics(one of our short stories centered on ethics, so my teacher was giving us background info) anyway, he was giving us case scenario, just wondering where you guys stand:

Ok, one night, you go to bed. While your sleeping you are kidnapped from your home(I know, the likely hood of you waking up is probable, but for the sack of the scenario, play along). You wake up and you have this cord attatched to you(you had no say in this matter at all), and on the other end is the worlds most famous violinest(sp). The violinest needs to be connected to you for almost a year for him to be able to survive, he needs the use of your kidney. Do you:
A. Let the violinest live off of you for the year and know you did a good thing.
B. Feel very inconvinced and cut the cord, no complications except the violinest will die.

Now the answer to this scenario says that if you choose a, you are against abortion. if you choose b, you aren't against it. What would you guys do?
 
Well...without hearig the meaning I would have chosen A. I think most people here would. Why not? What is a year of my life if I can give life to another permenantly? And hey, I get free nifty bedtime music! BONUS! 😛
 
lmao, yeah really think of the perks!
I would have chosen to help as well. I can kinda see the correlation between the two, but I think it would be difficult to compare a unborn baby to a full grown human, plus what if you hated violins? lol
 
I couldn't have put it better Faithy! LOL! In fact, I can VOUCH for the fact that they are nothing alike...but I really can see the point Trustno1...interesting...
 
errr... i think that i would have chosen A. But i doint know about the abortion thing at the end cos im not against it.
 
Am I the only person that's outraged by this question being asked in a public school (I'm assuming it's a public school).

What a sneaky, underhanded way for some reborn christian, teacher type to predjudice pliable minds to accept his or her's anti-pro-choice mindset.

The model has a basic and obvious flaw. It ignores the central question of the whole pro-choice debate. Is the fetus a human life at the time of the abortion?

Also, why does the fetus have to be a famous violinist? It's an obvious attempt to brainwash you into joining his cult.

Here's a couple question of Ethics to ask him or her. Is it right to shoot doctors who perform abortions? Is it right for anti-abortion groups to create spoof clinics for pregnant women claiming to offer support, but instead horrifying, or guilt-tripping them into accepting the spoofer's ideology. What if the woman commits suicide as a result (which has happened). Was it still a good thing?

I'll be honest with you. I'm not even sure I'm pro-choice. However, I'm definitely Anti-Bullsh#%t.
 
What a stupid assigment!!!We talk bout ethics at school, but our teacher asks us first if we want to talk about sth...
 
Originally posted by nerd4hire
I'll be honest with you. I'm not even sure I'm pro-choice. However, I'm definitely Anti-Bullsh#%t.
LOL! Why do you always write the funniest comments?!

I chose A without looking at the answers, but it doesn't mean a thing. I'm actually not against abortion. Just completely my opinion on that subject.

But the fact that a teacher went and made students answer that type of question is a wrong because it's too personal. He should think about giving your class an easier-answered scenario.
 
I would have killed the violinist.

Had he asked me to help him, I may have decided to choose to help, but since I was forced into being in that situation, I choose not to care... The only way he could convince me though, would if this greatest violinst may want to finish a symphony or something, just because it's a shame that so many good authors have unfinished works.

Note, that "only way" is forgotten if he has a stradivarius, then I would let him die and keep it for myself, one of those is worth many lives.




Edit: Didn't read the abortion thing nor the replies, just for the record, I'm not against abortion, and nerd4hire is mostly right. I, however, don't see anything wrong with the example, nor I see a problem with abortion even if you think the fetus is a human life.

What if a girl is pregnant and may die from giving birth?, even if the fetus is a human life, it is still a "kill or be killed" situation. This is just as asking a soldier to try not to kill people in battle, but of course, for religious people it's ok to go into crusades and jihads, when it comes to a girls and babies, then you must be supressed by morality, and that is other people's morality, even if it puts yourself at risk. Maybe it's just me, but that's completely crap.
 
Ohh wait... what Lorne The Host just said confused me. Was the violinist the one who kidnaps you? If so, then I might very well let the guy die too. Not that I have no heart and want to murder people... it's just that nobody's gonna kidnap me and get away with it.
 
Originally posted by Oz
Ohh wait... what Lorne The Host just said confused me. Was the violinist the one who kidnaps you? If so, then I might very well let the guy die too. Not that I have no heart and want to murder people... it's just that nobody's gonna kidnap me and get away with it.

Doesn't matter, if I'm being forced to help someone I don't know, at the cost of my own health, without being previously asked nor knowing the person I'm helping, I won't. He may die, so sad, so sorry, end of the story. I still wouldn't.

Of course, it would depend alot on the situation itself, here few facts are presented, like I said, in some rare cases I would choose to help him, even if I'm being forced to do it. Maybe he didn't know they were going to kidnap me or anything, and even if he did, there may be other factors.
 
The other night I saw this thing on a television news program called W5, that shocked the bejesus out of me.

It was an expose on the Hellhouse phenomena that's sweeping small town North America.

Hellhouses are these House of Horrors theatre things that come to your town, and try to scare you into accepting the "Religious Right's" version of Christianity.

W5 showed this one skit in one room that dealt with the abortion issue.

A young girl was laying on the floor screaming in agony. Her jeans were soaked in blood from her crotch to her ankles. This was supposedly the result of a botched abortion. Behind her a demon danced about cackling maniacly and laughing about how the girl's soul now belonged to him.

The people in the audience watching this ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old.

But to get back to the question Trust No 1 was asked by her teacher. It isn't the fact he wanted to debate the abortion issue that bothers me. It's the way he asked the question.

The way it's presented it's a "How often do you beat your wife" kind of question. It assumes the answer it wants you to give, before it receives a response. This isn't education. It's indoctrination. It's wrong. It's unethical. If he honestly wanted to discuss ethics, he should ask whether or not he had the right to present the question in the manner he did.

To my way of thinking, brainwashing kids by using your authority as a teacher to enforce your personal dogma, is no more ethical than the Hellhouse thing. In fact it might be the same thing.
 
LOL Nerd4hire! I love the passionate you!

It is a pretty damn rediculous queston for a pulic classroom....it's pretty rediculous reguardless...that queston didn't even spark a likeness to abortion for me...not until I read the end. And I still don't see how that is a good hypothetical scenario to make a point about abortion. But it is pretty clear what the teacher feels. If it were my kid I would be giving the teacher a hypothetical scenario involving my foot and his ass...
 
Originally posted by nerd4hire
The other night I saw this thing on a television news program called W5, that shocked the bejesus out of me.

It was an expose on the Hellhouse phenomena that's sweeping small town North America.

Hellhouses are these House of Horrors theatre things that come to your town, and try to scare you into accepting the "Religious Right's" version of Christianity.

W5 showed this one skit in one room that dealt with the abortion issue.

A young girl was laying on the floor screaming in agony. Her jeans were soaked in blood from her crotch to her ankles. This was supposedly the result of a botched abortion. Behind her a demon danced about cackling maniacly and laughing about how the girl's soul now belonged to him.

The people in the audience watching this ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old.

But to get back to the question Trust No 1 was asked by her teacher. It isn't the fact he wanted to debate the abortion issue that bothers me. It's the way he asked the question.

The way it's presented it's a "How often do you beat your wife" kind of question. It assumes the answer it wants you to give, before it receives a response. This isn't education. It's indoctrination. It's wrong. It's unethical. If he honestly wanted to discuss ethics, he should ask whether or not he had the right to present the question in the manner he did.

To my way of thinking, brainwashing kids by using your authority as a teacher to enforce your personal dogma, is no more ethical than the Hellhouse thing. In fact it might be the same thing.

I mostly agree here.
 
Nerd4hire, I'm sorry if I offended you or anyone else in anyway, but our teacher was giving us examples on ethic questions, as I said, one of our stories we had to read had to deal with right vs wrong. None of us had to answer the question, it was all rehtorical, and it wasn't even his question, he gave the question as written by it's original author(I might have left out a few points because i forgot it) and was giving us the analytical points of it. Our teacher never said anything about religion being in there(does it even envolve religion? no..I don't believe so) it was a class debate, if you wanted to give your opinion, fine, if you didn't, fine, and that's how I left it here. No one had to answer in my class or on this board and I feel that my english teacher is a pretty damn good teacher. I've learned more from him this year than from most of my other teachers(this is also advanced english) The point of the violinist was to say that how do you not know that you're "unborn" child doesn't become someone famous? like a violinist, the next Martin Luther King, or even god forbid, the next Adolf Hitler, that was the point of the violinist, I don't understand why the author chose violinist, but she did, and there was some good analytical points in it.

Again, I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but you DON'T have to answer the question if you don't feel like it, I understand completely. I felt that the question was kinda neat and saw it's link.
 
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