Morality and Ethical Dilemmas

Assignment Requirements 

Excessive spelling and grammar errors will result in a deduction of points. Your answers should be in APA format and use citations when necessary. You may use your book and outside sources are allowed. APA format is required. A minimum of one page of content is required to answer the required questions in each situation. Double-spaced paragraphs are required. 12-point Times New Roman font is required. Failure to follow these formatting instructions will result in a point deduction of a minimum of 10 points from 25 for the assignment.

Situation 1
Patty was a rich businessmans daughter. She had the best of everything all her life. Her future would have been college, a good marriage to a successful young man, and a life of comparative luxury, except that she was kidnapped by a small band of radical extremists who sought to overthrow the government by terror, intimidation, and robbery. After being raped, beaten, and locked in a small, dark closet for many days, and continually taunted and threatened, she was told she must participate with the terrorist gang in a bank robbery. If she didnt, she and her family would be killed. During the course of the robbery, a bank guard was shot.

Required questions to answer
Was her action immoral?
What if she had killed the guard?
What if the terrorists had kidnapped her mother or father, too, and told her if she didnt cooperate, they would kill her parents immediately?
What would you have done in her place?

Many readers might recognize this dilemma as the Patty Hearst case. In the 1970s, the Symbionese Liberation Army, a terrorist group, kidnapped the daughter of Randolph Hearst, the tycoon of a large newspaper chain. Her subsequent capture, trial, conviction, and prison sentence has been portrayed in books and movies and provide ripe material for questions of free will and legal and moral culpability.

Things to consider as you prepare your assignment

Example of Analysis:
Moral Judgment: Her participation was immoral.
Rules: One shouldnt hurt innocents.
One should protect innocents.
One cannot sacrifice innocents for oneself or family.
One should not break the law unless it is an unjust law.
Ethical System: Religion (thou shalt not kill)
An important point to this case is that just because behavior is understandable it isnt necessarily ethical or moral; one can never sacrifice innocent lives to save ones own. Be sure to distinguish between passivity and activity in her response.