Essay 1
The ship’s passengers:▪ Captain: age 57. Married three times; five children aged between 5 and 27. His youngest child has Down's syndrome. Drinks and smokes heavily. Plays the accordion. Carries a bottle of rum.▪ Ship's engineer: married; accompanied by his pregnant wife. His heroism in fighting the fire has given his fellow-passengers time to launch the lifeboat but he has sustained severe burns. Carries a shaving mirror.▪ Radio operator: ex-Israeli Navy. Brought up on an agricultural kibbutz. A fitness fanatic and champion kickboxer. He escaped the fire which destroyed his radio as he was on deck trying to impress the food scientist with a display of his kickboxing skills at the time. Carries a length of rope.▪ Cook: a former Special Forces officer reduced to working as a cook after being court- martialled following an unfortunate incident involving a torpedo and a presidential yacht. Carries a knife.▪ Anglican priest: a Philosophy graduate who taught English as a foreign language in South America for several years before returning to her home town to look after her disabled mother (now aged 85) with whom she still lives. Trained as a counselor and was ordained in 1990. Carries a first aid kit.▪ Diving instructor: After 20 years as a stockbroker in New York, he has just moved to Tahiti to set up his own diving school. Divorced, with a son at boarding school in Connecticut. Goes pheasant hunting in Pennsylvania every August. Carries a signed copy of the final Harry Potter novel.▪ Indian ship's carpenter: Married with four children aged between six months and seven years old. Was convicted of violent affray following a demonstration in Mumbai ten years ago. Writes poetry and has had two poems published in Indian literary magazines. Has a magnifying glass.▪ French Botany student: Lived in the Brazilian rainforest for eighteen months while carrying out Ph.D. research into plants that can be used in anti-cancer drugs: these are now undergoing testing by a major multinational pharmaceutical company. Voted for Le Pen in the last election. Has a rifle.▪ Retired soldier. Recently registered a civil partnership with his long-term partner, a 45- year old political journalist. Together, they have campaigned for improved healthcare for soldiers wounded in Iraq. Carries a compass.▪ Food scientist. A vegetarian whose research centers on developing plant-based, low- cholesterol alternatives to meat. She has been involved in a number of demonstrations against the use of animals in medical research. Carries a box of Mars bars.▪ Nurse. Moved to Scotland eight years ago as a teenage refugee from Sudan who spoke no English on arrival. Went to school and has recently qualified as a nurse. A devout Muslim who plans to complete the Haj next year. Carries a box of matches.▪ Ship's engineer's wife: Aged 35 and about to begin maternity leave from her work as a medical sales representative. Due to give birth to their first child in 4 months time. For some reason known only to herself she happens to be carrying a fishing line and hook.▪ Bank manager: Lives in Westchester County : Guild leader, president of neighborhood association, and president of a local charitable society in spare time. Has $100,000 in used $20 bills carried in a small suitcase.
Instructions :Instructions:
You are the captain of a ship. A fire on board has destroyed the radio. From the rate the water is rising inside the ship you estimate that it will sink in between two hours and two and a half hours. You did not tell the authorities of your destination.
It will take about 45 minutes to launch the only boat and it will take 15 minutes for each person to be lowered into the boat and they can only go one at a time. They can't jump as the water is shark infested. The nearest land is an uninhabited tropical island 18 miles distant.
The ship's manifest with a basic description of each passenger can be found in the PDF in the Week 3 folder. Please keep in mind, a passenger can NOT be separated from the item he or she is carrying for any reason.
Based on these calculations, you can definitely save five passengers. (Keep in mind, #6 and #7 may or may not make it onto the lifeboat). You might be able to save an additional two, depending on how quickly the boat sinks.
Your task is to decide which people will enter the boat, and in which order. Everyone has agreed to abide by your decision. Items held by individuals must stay with the owner; they cannot be transferred to other people.
Assignment 2:After watching the Trolley Problem videos, reading the encyclopedia entry, and listening to my lectures, I'm interested to hear your opinion. What would you do in each situation and why?
1. There is an empty runaway train barreling towards five railroad workers. You can pull the switch and divert the train to the other track. On the other track there is only a single railroad worker.
2. There is a empty runaway train barreling towards five railroad workers. You can push an immensely fat man off of a bridge above the track. His girth is such that he will stop the train and save the five railroad workers, but he will be killed in the process.
3. There is an empty train barreling towards five people who have been tied to the track, cartoon style. You can push an immensely fat man off of a bridge above the track. His girth is such that he will stop the train and save the five people, but he will be killed in the process. Also, by the way, this immensely fat man is the one who tied the five people to the railroad track in the first place.
4. There is an empty runaway train barreling towards five railroad workers. You can pull the switch and divert the train to an abandoned track. This track will send the train careening over the side of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff is a man sleeping in his house. He has no connection to the railroad company. The train will destroy the sleeping man's house, and the sleeping man will die a fiery death.
5. There is an empty runaway train barreling towards five hundred railroad workers. You can pull the switch and divert the train to the other track. On the other track there is only a single person. That person happens to be your mother (or father, sister, aunt, whoever you prefer).
In your responses, let's try to help each other see all possible viewpoints in each scenario by challenging one another and playing devil's advocate. This will be helpful by preparing the original poster to articulate his or her stance fully in the upcoming Essay 3.
The Trolley Problem
trolley problem variants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problemhttps://youtu.be/-N_RZJUAQY4https://youtu.be/bOpf6KcWYyw