In this podcast, you’ll improve your listening skills and widen your vocabulary. We speak about some moral dilemmas and try to justify why it might be ok to eat your dog!
Warning: Although there is no swearing in this episode, the moral dilemmas we speak about could shock people and this episode may not be suitable for young children.
A voice message from Wessel from Brazil.
Moral dilemmas
Morality is defined as the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.
A dilemma is a difficult situation in which you have to choose between two or more alternatives.
- The Trolley Problem
- A trolley (a train carriage) is speeding down a hill on train tracks and it’s out of control.
You are next to a lever and if you don’t do anything, the trolley goes to the left and kills 5 people.
If you push the lever the other way, it goes right and only kills one person.
You push the lever to the right and it kills one person. Have you done something wrong? Have you done evil to bring about good?
You’re a surgeon and you can remove 5 organs and save 5 lives but at the same time killing the patient. Would you kill one person to save five?
2. The flag
A woman is cleaning out her closet. She finds an old (British?/Spanish?/American?) flag. She doesn’t want it anymore.
She cuts it up into pieces and uses the rags to clean her bathroom. Is that morally wrong? Why?
3. The dog
A family’s dog was killed by a car in front of their house.
They had heard that dog meat was delicious so they cook and eat the dog.
Is that morally wrong? Why?
4. The siblings
A brother and sister like to kiss each other on the mouth. When nobody is around, they find a secret hiding place and kiss each other on the mouth.
Is that morally wrong? Why?
5. The chicken
A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a dead chicken. But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it. Then he thoroughly cooks it and eats it.
Is that morally wrong? Why?
In the above scenarios, what law or moral principle is being violated?
This feeling, the strong sense of wrongness while being at a loss for a moral argument, is called “moral dumbfounding.”
Is there more to human morality than just care and harm?
Is “the big picture” more important than the small details? Does the end justify the means?
Should Ethics be taught in schools?
Where do our human morals come from?
Corruption, which is morally wrong in nearly everyone’s opinion, exists everywhere but it seems to be a fact that it is more prevalent in some parts of the world than others. Why is that?
Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind (recommended by Wessel)
suggests 6 foundations to human morality:
- care/harm (the human aversion to suffering and distress)
2. fairness/cheating (the human sense of justice in socio-politico-economic collaborations)
3. loyalty/betrayal (the human sensitivity towards an individual’s commitment towards a larger group such as a family, community, or nation.)
4. authority/subversion (our sensitivity towards the people of higher (or lower) positions of authority)
5. sanctity/degradation (a moral immune system that inclines us towards ideas like purity and piety and repels us against taboos such as racism, facism and communism.
6. liberty/oppression ( the human urge to rebel against bullies and tyrants and value an individual’s freedom or a group.
The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. What’s your opinion about the moral dilemmas we’ve mentioned? Why do they feel wrong?
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The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’