islcollective worksheets advanced c1 proficient c2 adults speaking conversation to moral dilemmas 183483930156f206330dd479 84266236

Moral Dilemmas

1. The Trolley Problem
Situation 1: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five
people tied to the tracks and are unable to move. The trolley will continue coming
and will kill the five people. There is nothing you can do to rescue the five people
EXCEPT that there is a lever. If you pull the lever, the train will be directed to
another track, which has ONE person tied to it. You have two choices:
(a) Do nothing and the five people will die
(b) Or pull the lever and save the five people, but that one person will die.
Did you make your choice? Well then consider this similar situation:
Situation 2: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five
people tied to the tracks and are unable to move. The trolley will continue coming
and will kill the five people. However, in this situation, you are standing on a
bridge above the train tracks and you can see the train coming. There is a man
standing next to you, who is so enormous and heavy that if he places himself in
front of the oncoming train, it will hit and kill him but the train will stop. So you
have two choices:
(a) Do nothing and the five people will die.
(b) Push the big guy down the bridge. He will be killed but will stop the trolley and
save the five people.
The ironic part about this problem is that while most people would choose the
option (b) for the first situation, they will choose option (a) for the second
situation, when technically, in both situations, you are sacrificing one man to save
the lives of five people.


3. The Prisoner’s Dilemma
You are a member of a gang and you have been arrested with another member of
your gang. Both of you are confined away from each other and you have no way of
communicating with the other member. The police does not have enough evidence

to convict both of you with major charges and instead offer you and the other
member a bargain. You have two choices:
(a) You can remain silent
(b) Or betray the other member and testify that he has committed the crime.
Then there are three outcomes:
(a) If you betray the other member and he remains silent, you will be set free and
he will serve 3 years in prison. (But this also works vice versa. If you remain silent
and he betrays you, you will serve 3 years in prison)
(b) If you betray the other member, and he betrays you too, you both serve 2 years
in prison
(c) If you and the other member both remain silent, you both only serve one year in
prison.
What would you do?


25 Moral Dilemmas

Moral dilemmas are thought experiments which ask you to
imagine a difficult situation and decide what you think the
morally correct course of action would be. There are no truly
‘right’ answers to these questions, as they often ask you to
compare two different moral imperatives and choose which one
you feel is most important.
For example, if we accept that it is morally correct to never
torture a living creature, and that it is morally correct to save a
human’s life if you have the ability to do so, how do you decide
what to do if you can only save a human’s life by torturing
someone else?
Read through these 25 moral dilemmas, and have a think about
what you might do in each situation.

The Trapped Mining Crew


Heather is part of a four-person mining expedition. There is a
cave-in and the four of them are trapped in the mine. A rock
has crushed the legs of one of her crew members and he will
die without medical attention. She’s established radio contact
with the rescue team and learned it will be 36 hours before the
first drill can reach the space she is trapped in.
She is able to calculate that this space has just enough oxygen
for three people to survive for 36 hours, but definitely not
enough for four people. The only way to save the other crew
members is to refuse medical aid to the injured crew member
so that there will be just enough oxygen for the rest of the crew
to survive.
Should Heather allow the injured crew member to die in order
to save the lives of the remaining crew members?
The Runaway Trolley
A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five
workmen who will be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present
course. Molly is on a footbridge over the tracks, in between the
approaching trolley and the five workmen. Next to her on this
footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large.
If she does nothing the trolley will proceed, causing the deaths
of the five workmen. The only way to save the lives of these
workmen is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the


tracks below, where his large body will stop the trolley, causing
his death.

Should Molly push the stranger onto the tracks in order to save
the five workmen?
The Deliberate Infection
Ken is a doctor. One of his patients, whom he has diagnosed as
HIV positive, is about to receive a blood transfusion prior to
being released from the hospital. He has told Ken, in the
confidence of their doctor-patient relationship, that after he
gets his transfusion, and his medicine from Ken, he intends to
infect as many people as possible with HIV starting that
evening.
Because Ken is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, there is
no legal way to stop this man from carrying out his plan. Even if
Ken warned the police, they would not be able to arrest him,
since his medical information is protected.
It occurs to Ken that he could contaminate his medication by
putting an untraceable poison in it that will kill him before he
gets a chance to infect others.
Should Ken poison this man in order to prevent him from
spreading HIV?
The Hostage Ecologists


Tom is part of a group of ecologists who live in a remote stretch
of jungle. The entire group, which includes eight children, has
been taken hostage by a group of paramilitary terrorists. One of
the terrorists takes a liking to Tom. He informs Tom that his
leader intends to kill him and the rest of the hostages the
following morning.
He is willing to help Tom and the children escape, but as an act
of good faith he wants Tom to torture and kill one of his fellow

hostages whom he does not like. If Tom refuses his offer, all the
hostages including the children and Tom will die. If he accepts
his offer, then the others will die in the morning but Tom and
the eight children will escape.
Should Tom torture and kill one of his fellow hostages in order
to escape from the terrorists and save the lives of the eight
children?
The Life Insurance Policy
Mary is in a hospital lounge waiting to visit a sick friend. A
young man sitting next to Mary explains that his father is very
ill. The doctors believe that he has a week to live at most. He
explains further that his father has a substantial life insurance
policy that expires at midnight.
If his father dies before midnight, this young man will receive a
very large sum of money. He says that the money would mean
a great deal to him and his family, and that no good will come


from his father’s living a few more days. After talking with him
Mary can tell this man is in desperate need of the money to
feed his family. The man asks Mary to go up to his father’s room
and smother his father with a pillow.
Should Mary kill this man’s father in order to get money for the
man and his family?
The Submarine Crew
Mark is a crewperson on a marine-research submarine traveling
underneath a large iceberg. An onboard explosion has damaged
the ship, killed and injured several crewmembers. Additionally,
it has collapsed the only access corridor between the upper and
lower parts of the ship. The upper section, where Mark and

most of the others are located, does not have enough oxygen
remaining for all of them to survive until Mark has reached the
surface. Only one remaining crewmember is located in the
lower section, where there is enough oxygen.
There is an emergency access hatch between the upper and
lower sections of the ship. If released by an emergency switch,
it will fall to the deck and allow oxygen to reach the area where
Mark and the others are. However, the hatch will crush the
crewmember below, since he was knocked unconscious and is
lying beneath it. Mark and the rest of the crew are almost out of
air though, and they will all die if Mark does not do this.


Should Mark release the hatch and crush the crewmember
below to save himself and the other crew members?
The Baby or The Townspeople
Enemy soldiers have taken over Jane’s village. They have
orders to kill all remaining civilians over the age of two. Jane
and some of the townspeople have sought refuge in two rooms
of the cellar of a large house. Outside Jane hears the voices of
soldiers who have come to search the house for valuables.
Jane’s baby begins to cry loudly in the other room.
His crying will summon the attention of the soldiers who will
spare Jane’s baby’s life, but will kill Jane and the others hiding
in both rooms.
If Jane turns on the noisy furnace to block the sound, the other
room will become uncomfortably hot for adults and children,
but deadly for infants.
To save her and the others Jane must activate the furnace,
which will kill her baby.

Should Jane overheat her baby in order to save herself and the
other townspeople?
The Overloaded Lifeboat
Doug is on a cruise ship when there is a fire on board, and the
ship has to be abandoned. The lifeboats are carrying many


more people than they were designed to carry. The lifeboat he’s
in is sitting dangerously low in the water – a few inches lower
and it will sink.
The seas start to get rough, and the boat begins to fill with
water. A group of old people are in the water and ask Doug to
throw them a rope so they can come aboard the lifeboat. It
seems to Doug that the boat will sink if it takes on any more
passengers.
Should Doug refuse to throw the rope in order to save himself
and the other lifeboat passengers?
The Hospital Ventilation
Carrie is a doctor working in a hospital. Due to an accident in
the building next door, there are deadly fumes rising up
through the hospital’s ventilation system. In a certain room of
the hospital are four of her patients. In another room there is
one of her patients. If she does nothing the fumes will rise up
into the room containing the four patients and cause their
deaths.
The only way to avoid the deaths of these patients is to hit a
switch that will cause the fumes to bypass the room containing
the four patients. As a result of doing this, the fumes will enter
the room containing the single patient (against her will). If she
does this, the woman will die, but the other four patients will

live.


Should Carrie hit the switch in order to save four of her
patients?
The Concentration Camp
You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is
about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to
pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he
will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as
well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says.
What should you do?
The Unfaithful Wife
You are an emergency worker that has just been called to the
scene of an accident. When you arrive you see that the car
belongs to your wife. Fearing the worst you rush over, only to
see she is trapped in her car with another man. He is obviously
her lover, with whom she’s been having an affair.
You reel back in shock, devastated by what you have just found
out. As you step back, the wreck in front of you comes into
focus. You see your wife is seriously hurt and she needs
attention straight away. Even if she gets immediate attention
there’s a very high chance she’ll die. You look at the seat next
to her and see her lover. He’s bleeding heavily from a wound to
the neck and you need to stem the flow of blood immediately.


If you attend to your wife, her lover will bleed to death, and you
may not be able to save her anyway. If you work on the lover,
you can save his life, but your wife will definitely die.

Who should you choose to work on?
The Incriminating Email
You are the network administrator for a rather large company.
You have a young family and need your job to support them.
Part of your responsibility as a network administrator is to
monitor the emails for the organization. Usually this just means
occasionally allowing through emails for staff members that
have been accidentally blocked by the spam filters.
One day you get a helpdesk request from a staff member
asking for an email to get released. Normally it’s standard
procedure, except this time the request has come from the wife
of a very good friend of yours. You recognize the name on the
helpdesk request so quickly attend to the problem. As part of
the procedure you need to manually open up the email to
ensure that it isn’t actually spam. You find that it turns out to be
an email to your friend’s wife from her lover. You scan the rest
of the contents of the email and there is no doubt that she has
been having an affair for some time now.
You release the email, but you can’t decide what to do now.
Your initial reaction is to call your friend up and tell him about
the email, however you quickly realize that company policy is


very strict about revealing the contents of staff emails, and you
will certainly lose your job if your boss finds out.
In any case you know that revealing this information presents
great risk, because even if you don’t do it directly, there is a
good chance that the dots will be joined somewhere along the
line and you will be found out. However you feel that by not
telling your friend you are helping his wife to get away with

adultery and this troubles you greatly.
What should you do?

The Pregnant Lady and The Dynamite
A pregnant woman leading a group of five people out of a cave
on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time
high tide will be upon them, and unless she is unstuck, they will
all be drowned except the woman, whose head is out of the
cave. Fortunately, (or unfortunately,) someone has with him a
stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the pregnant
woman loose without using the dynamite which will inevitably
kill her; but if they do not use it everyone else will drown.
What should they do?
The Drowning Children


You and your family are going away for the weekend. Your
daughter is 7 and is best friends with your niece, who is also 7.
Your families are very close and your daughter asks if your
niece can come with you on your holiday. You have been on
holidays together before and don’t see any problem, so you
agree.
You arrive at your holiday destination and the house you are
staying at backs onto a beach. The girls ask if they can go for a
swim. You tell them that they have to wait until you have
unpacked the car, but they can play on the sand directly in
front of the beach. They run down to the sand, and you begin to
unpack the car. After about 5 minutes, you hear screaming
coming from the direction of the beach and it sounds like the
girls.

You run down to see what the matter is, and you discover that
they hadn’t listened to you and have gone for a swim. There is
no one else on the beach and the girls are caught in a rip tide.
The girls are really struggling, particularly your niece who isn’t
as strong a swimmer as your daughter is. You swim out quickly,
but when you get there, you realize that there is no way you
will be able to get both the girls back to the shore on your own.
You need to decide which of the girls you will rescue first, you
have enough strength and energy to rescue them both, but you
can only do it one at a time. You look at the two girls, and your


niece is really struggling to hold her head above water and you
know if you take your daughter back first, there will be little or
no chance that she will survive.
Your daughter is struggling also, but is much stronger in the
water and you estimate that if you take your niece back to
shore first, there’s probably a 50% chance that your daughter
will be able to stay afloat long enough for you return, but you
simply don’t know how long she will hold on for.
Who should you save first?
The Bali Drugs Charge
You are on holiday in Bali with your wife and 18 year old son.
You have been there for a week and are ready to head home.
All three of you are at the airport getting ready to board your
plane, when an armed officer comes around with a sniffer dog.
You have all your bags on a trolley, and the dog sniffs at both
your wife and your bag, and passes over them, however when
he gets to your son’s bag, he begins to get a bit more active.
You look over at your son and he’s looking a little nervous. You

know he’s smoked a little marijuana in his time, but generally,
he’s a good kid, and you certainly didn’t think he’d actually be
stupid enough to bring it back on the plane with him. At first
you feel angry that he would do such a thing and start planning
your responsibility lecture, but then you realize that you are in
Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning


your son could be jailed for life, or worse, executed, if he does
have some illicit materials in his bag.
You look at your wife and realize she has come to the same
conclusion and has gone pale with fear.
The armed officer accompanying the dog is beginning to look
more stern with every sniff the dog takes and looks directly at
you and asks you to open to the bag.
You do, and as the officer begins to take things out of the bag,
you see to your horror that there is a small quantity of
marijuana stashed in with your son’s belongings.
The officer looks at you and asks “Whose bag is this?”
You realize you have to answer, but the answer won’t be easy.
You see your wife in the corner of your eye, and she is about to
step forward and claim it as her own.
What should you do?
The Mad Bomber
A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in
crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has
already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in
a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. The
authorities cannot make him divulge the location of the bombs
by conventional methods. He refuses to say anything and

requests a lawyer to protect his fifth amendment right against
self-incrimination. In exasperation, some high level official
suggests torture. This would be illegal, but the official is sure
that it will make him tell the truth in time for you to find and
defuse the bombs.
What should you do?
What if you know that the bomber can withstand torture
himself, but would talk if you were to torture his innocent wife
instead?
The Sinking Lifeboat
You are going on a cruise. 2 days into the cruise your ship
experiences technical difficulties and the captain says it needs
to make an unscheduled stop. A couple of hours later the
captain makes another announcement that the ship’s hull has
been breached and that you will all need to start heading to life
rafts and abandon ship. The ship’s life rafts are lowered as
people begin to pile in and you get on board one of the life
rafts.
As it is lowered however, it hits the side of the ship, putting a
hole in the side of the raft, and when it hits the water it begins
to sink. There are 10 people in the boat and to prevent it
sinking, you quickly work out that by having 9 people working
for 10 minutes while 1 person rests you can bail the water out
with their hands, quickly enough to keep the water at bay and


preventing it from sinking, but you have to continually keep it
up to ensure that the boat doesn’t sink. By being able to rest

one person you are greatly able to increase the length of time
you can keep the boat afloat, however if the rescue team
doesn’t turn up you calculate that within 5 hours the boat will
sink and you will all die.
While taking your break, you glance over to another boat and
notice that a friend of yours whom you met on the boat is there
and has noticed your predicament. He is signaling for you to
come over and join them on their boat so you don’t have to
continue bailing water out. There is only just enough room for
one more person. You also notice that their boat is moving
away rapidly with the current, but your boat can’t keep up
because the hole is affecting its buoyancy.
You estimate that if you jump ship, you will force all 9 remaining
crew members to bail water continuously, which will reduce the
total time they can stay afloat to just 2 hours, but will ensure
that you will be able to live long enough to be rescued.
If you stay aboard, you will not have another chance to jump
ship, and there’s no guarantee that the rescue will arrive in 5
hours, meaning you will all drown, however by staying you give
everyone a better chance of survival.
As you watch the boat with your friend drift away, you realize
you have about 30 seconds to make a decision.


Do you stay on your current boat and help keep it afloat as long
as possible and hope that the rescue will arrive in 5
hours, or do you go to your friend’s boat, ensuring your rescue,
but reducing the chances of the others on the boat being
rescued?
The Over-Crowded Lifeboat

In 1842, a ship struck an iceberg and more than 30 survivors
were crowded into a lifeboat intended to hold 7. As a storm
threatened, it became obvious that the lifeboat would have to
be lightened if anyone were to survive. The captain reasoned
that the right thing to do in this situation was to force some
individuals to go over the side and drown. Such an action, he
reasoned, was not unjust to those thrown overboard, for they
would have drowned anyway. If he did nothing, however, he
would be responsible for the deaths of those whom he could
have saved. Some people opposed the captain’s decision. They
claimed that if nothing were done and everyone died as a
result, no one would be responsible for these deaths. On the
other hand, if the captain attempted to save some, he could do
so only by killing others and their deaths would be his
responsibility; this would be worse than doing nothing and
letting all die. The captain rejected this reasoning. Since the
only possibility for rescue required great efforts of rowing, the
captain decided that the weakest would have to be sacrificed.
In this situation it would be absurd, he thought, to decide by


drawing lots who should be thrown overboard. As it turned out,
after days of hard rowing, the survivors were rescued and the
captain was tried for his action.
If you had been on the jury, how would you have decided?

The Tortured Child
Imagine that a powerful alien were to visit earth, with the ability
to eradicate war, famine and suffering. The alien says that he
will do this, and turn the world into a utopia where humans will

be happy and peaceful forever more, but only if a price is paid.
He demands a small child be given to him so that he can
perform hideous scientific experiments on it, causing the child
unimaginable pain.
Should you hand over the child? What if the alien demands that
you must inflict the torture on the child yourself?
The Poisoned Coffee
Tom, hating his wife and wanting her dead, puts poison in her
coffee, thereby killing her. Jane also hates her husband, and
would like him dead. One day her husband accidentally puts
poison in his own coffee, thinking it is cream. Jane realises this,
and has the antidote that could save him, but does not hand it


over and her husband dies.Is Jane’s failure to act as bad as
Tom’s action?
The Hijacked Plane
You are on a plane containing 150 people, currently flying over
barren desert. Hijackers take over, killing the pilot and co-pilot,
and sealing themselves in the cockpit. There is no way for you
to open the door, but you could damage the ventilation system
causing poisonous fumes to fill the cockpit. If you do this the
hijackers will die, but with no-one able to enter the cockpit and
fly the plane, it will crash in the desert killing everyone on
board. If you do nothing, the hijackers might land the plane
safely, or they might crash it into a civilian target killing even
more people.What should you do?
The Sick Patients
You are a skilled doctor, with five patients who all need different
organ transplants. There are currently no organs available to

give them, and if they don’t get their transplants soon they will
all die. You have a sixth patient, who is dying of an incurable
disease. At the moment you are giving him medicine to ease
his pain and prolong his life. He is a compatible organ donor for
your five other patients, but the medicine he is taking will keep
him alive just a day longer than they have left. If you were to
stop giving him medicine he would die before them, in a very


painful way, but you would then be able to use his organs to
save the other five.
What should you do?
What if the sixth patient’s disease was curable, and the
medicine you are giving him will allow him to make a complete
recovery?
The Robin Hood Robber
You witness a man rob a bank, but instead of keeping the
money for himself, he donates it to a local orphanage. You know
this orphanage has been struggling for funding, and this money
will allow the children to receive proper food, clothing and
medical care. If you report the crime, the money will be taken
away from the orphanage and given back to the bank.
What should you do?

The Plagiarised Report
You are an English teacher at a high school. One of your pupils
is a very bright and gifted girl, whom you have always enjoyed
teaching. She has always achieved A grades throughout her
school years, and is now in her final year and getting ready to

graduate. Unfortunately she has been very ill this term, and
missed several weeks of schooling. She has just turned in a
report which is worth 40% of her final grade, but you realise
that she did not write it herself – she has copied a report found
online and tried to pass it off as her own work.
If you report her plagiarisation to the school authorities it will
be entered on her permanent record and she will no longer be
eligible to attend the prestigious university that she has
dreamed of attending all through high school. If you refuse to
accept the report, her final mark will be very poor and may
harm her chances of being chosen for this university. If you
mark the paper as though you believed it was her own work,
she will do very well, and stand every chance of getting her
desired university place.
What should you do?
The Expensive Treatment
Your partner is dying from a rare disease. Luckily a cure has
recently been invented, by one druggist who lives fairly close to
you. This druggist is selling the cure for ten times the amount it
cost him to make it. You try to raise the money, but even
borrowing from friends and taking a loan from the bank, you
can only raise half the amount. You go to the druggist and offer
to pay him half now and half later, but he refuses, saying that
he invented the cure and is determined to make money off it.


You beg him to sell it cheaper as your partner will die before
you can raise the full amount, but he still refuses.
You believe you could break into his store one night after he has

gone home and steal the cure. This would definitely save your
partner, although you might be arrested for the crime.
What should you do?
What if you could only steal the cure by killing the druggist