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This was a really indepth summary including comments from all group members and wonderful examples. It highlights how these issues are not just academic excercises based on hypothetical dilemmas but are very real and around us all the time.A lot of thought went into this discussion and summary and it really shows.


We really enjoyed dealing with this web site. It gave us cause to think about moral and ethical issues. We did not find that that the "ethical" responses were clear. For example one of our classmates sd that the ethical response was not to steal the drug, but is it ethical to let someone die when there is any posibility of saving someone's life? Also one could argue that the clear ethical response would have been for the druggist to sell the drug at cost, and not making a hidious profit on peoples' lives. All sorts of things influence apersons responses: age, upbringing, culture, socioeconomic class. Also personal experiences such as dealing with a loved one's illness, dealings with medicine, and your dealings with the law also influence your responses. Kohlberg found that there is a positive correlation between your responses and
your moral views, which we know varies from culture to culture. It was also brought up that the law
plays a large influence in decisions like these. A parallel to this is cases of assisted suicide. Sue
Rodriguez was a Canadian suffering from a deliberating terminal illness who did not have the capability of ending her life on her own. She went to court, but the Supreme court of Canada upheld the law that prohibits assisted suicide (if I remember correctly she died before the result)(you can find some information here: http://www.rights.org/deathnet/rodriguez_en.html ) There have been a few other cases in Canada as well, the Latimer case, but this really brought up the
issue of compasion vs law. Did Sue Rodriguez have the right to ask someone help her die? According to Kolberg's theory a ten year old would have responded according to stages 2(mostly) and 3. i.e.: Self interest exchanges: you need to bargain to get want you want, understanding that there is a trade off to saving Heinz's wife will influence their desison. and
Interpersonal accord and Conformaity: living up to other's expectation, whether the relationship to
the wife is more important than the relationship to the community(how they would feel about stealing). It is also interesting to note that most of us (in the class) took into consideration all the things that Kohlberg would have expected us to by our general age group: Stage4 Law and order Morality: duty to wife and duty to society as a whole(Heinz and the cop). Stage 3 (described above) and most took into consideration of Stage 5 :Human rights and social welfare morality ie:
most felt that the druggist had the real problem here and that Heinz should steal the drug because of that.