Question

This week, you will complete the "Decision Making Dilemma" assignment. This assignment asks you to imagine that you are a captain of a ship that is sinking. All but one of your passengers can escape on the lifeboat. You and one other passenger will sink with the ship. You have to decide which passenger will die with you on the ship. Note that this decision does not need to be based on the perceived value of a life, but could be based on considerations of who stands to lose the most or least by dying, whose death would cause the most and least suffering to others, who has a special obligation to remain on board, and so on.

What kinds of considerations would inform your decision about who should remain on board? E.g. does the age of the passenger matter? Does his family status matter? Does his form of employment matter?

1) Create a list of considerations that you think are important, and rank them from least important to most important.

2) Offer a defense of your choice for the most important cons

Answer 1

(1.) The list of considerations that would be important in making the decisions are:

• The health status of the passenger- If the passenger is already suffering from a critical or terminal illness or is almost on the verge of dying say advance stages of cancer then it is likely that the captain should choose that passenger.
• The age of the passenger- If the passenger is old then it’s already valid to assume that the passenger has a low expected future lifetime and will die sooner than the others anyway.
• The family status- If the passenger has a family that’s dependent on him/her then choosing such a passenger would affect the family.
• Parents - It will desirable to avoid choosing a passenger who is a parent to young children or babies or if the passenger is a pregnant women.
• The employment of the passenger- If the passenger is employed in a very valuable position such as consider a scientist or a noble le aureate then we would avoid choosing them because they are valuable.

(2.) The reason I said critical illness or terminal illness should be chosen as the first criterion is because a person suffering from such a condition will expire sooner than the others anyway. Assuming that expected future lifetime is the criterion for deciding which passenger should be chosen first choosing a terminally ill person will help us save other healthy lives who would have probably been the choices later on based on other criterion.