Some Moral Dilemmas

The following is a list of some moral dilemmas, mostly adapted from Moral

Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992), with some additions.
Dilemmas from Grassian are given in his own words, with comments or alterations
in brackets. A number of Grassian's examples were themselves from older sources,
which he does not cite. As I discover their provenance, I will be noting it
appropriately.

For many years, I regarded the discussion of moral dilemmas like this as pointless,
mainly because they were farfetched and had little to do with the ordinary
conditions of life. However, it then struck me that they are valuable precisely by
revealing fault lines in the nature of value. Actual seismic faults are of little interest
in ordinary life; but then there are earthquakes, which reveal significant truths
about the earth. The dilemmas, however silly -- or perhaps the sillier the better (it
may not be an accident that fat men, objects of ridicule, turn up more than once
here) -- turn on significant points about right and wrong, good and evil.

Thus, the question to consider with all of the dilemmas is why they are dilemmas.
Some, however, may not seem to be dilemmas at all. Also, while it is common in
modern ethics to address dilemmas merely in order to propose theories to resolve
them, it must be considered that dilemmas may betray a structure to ethics that
means they cannot be resolved. Dilemmas are dilemmas because they are, well,
dilemmas. We're stuck with them. Most moralists or philosophers skip over the
question of why they are dilemmas, from the conviction that we all want the
dilemmas resolved and that this is the only significant issue. Such an attitude,
however, is hopeless if it turns out that the nature of dilemmas is to remain
dilemmas.

If that is so, however, dilemmas provide important data and clues for
understanding the nature of moral, ethical, and even aesthetic value. Here, I take it
especially to motivate the Polynomic Theory of Value. Analysis of the dilemmas
can be found at The Generalized Structure of Ethical Dilemmas. The discussion
provided here in some cases provides background, comparison, and may get into
some of the relevant moral issues. Otherwise, analysis is provided at the linked
page.

Although I had a lot of objections to Grassian's book, I did like its structure, which
featured dilemmas, historical theories in ethics, and then selected moral problems.
One would expect that the theories would first be used to resolve, in their own
way, the dilemmas and would then be applied to the following problems. However,
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the treatment seemed peculiar in that the dilemmas, once introduced, were never
analyzed or discussed at all. The issue that seemed the most important to
me, why they were dilemmas, was never even addressed. While Grassian may have
thought it appropriate to leave that sort of thing to the reader, or the teacher, it is
actually a matter of such significance and consequence that nothing else in ethics is
properly treated without it. Even the current popularity of "trolleyology" does not
seem to have much improved the approach of academic ethics in this respect.

1. The Overcrowded 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?

Robert Heinlein (1907-1988), The Libertarian in the Lifeboat

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2. A Father's Agonizing Choice

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?

3. Sophie's Choice, not in Grassian.

In the novel Sophie's Choice, by William Styron (Vintage Books,

1976 -- the 1982 movie starred Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline), a Polish
woman, Sophie Zawistowska, is arrested by the Nazis and sent to the
Auschwitz death
camp. On arrival,
she is "honored"
for not being a
Jew by being
allowed a choice:
One of her
children will be
spared the gas chamber if she chooses which one. In an agony of
indecision, as both children are being taken away, she suddenly does
choose. They can take her daughter, who is younger and smaller.
Sophie hopes that her older and stronger son will be better able to
survive, but she loses track of him and never does learn of his fate.
Did she do the right thing? Years later, haunted by the guilt of having
chosen between her children, Sophie commits suicide. Should she
have felt guilty?

4. Corrine's Choice, not in Grassian

On 7 January 2015 Corrine Rey, a cartoonist at the French satirical

magazine Charlie Hebdo, and known by the name "Coco," returned
from picking up her daughter from kindergarten. She was confronted
by two French Jihadist gunmen, who threatened to shoot her daughter
unless she keyed in the entry code at the door for the magazine. She
did; and the gunmen entered to murder twelve people, including two

Page 3 of 37
 policemen outside, as well as shooting eleven others. During the
attack, the shooters said that they would not kill women, but that they
needed to convert to Islam and wear a veil.

Should Corrine Rey have been willing to sacrifice her daughter and
herself rather than allow obvious murderers to enter the magazine and
possibly kill everyone? Can a mother be blamed for only thinking of
protecting her child?

Most of the murdered members of Charlie Hebdo probably would have been

willing to die rather than have Corrine's daughter killed. However, the
mother should have not been put in that position. A publication under such
threats as Charlie Hebdo was needed to have a door that could only be
opened from the inside, ideally leading into a hallway with another locked
door, and an armed and shielded guard, at the other end. The police
protection that the magazine was receiving not only was ineffective, but it
did not even prevent the murder of the policemen on the job.

On a recent visit to Vienna, I happened to walk by the local Simon

Wiesenthal center -- the "Wiener Wiesenthal Institut für Holocaust-Studien"
(Rabensteig 3, 1010 Wien, Austria). The entrance to the center was a
revolving transparent cylinder, obviously designed to prevent more than one
person from entering at a time, to allow that person to be detained while
being checked out, and to make this all obvious to anyone approaching the
building. I noticed that a nearby facility -- I don't remember what it was --
had a single police guard out in front -- something that would be of hopeless
and tragic ineffectiveness, as at Charlie Hebdo, in an actual attack.

5. The Trolley Problem, not in Grassian.

Suggested by Philippa Foot (1920-2010), daughter of Esther, the daughter

of President Grover Cleveland, but of British birth because of her father,
William Sidney Bence Bosanquet.

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five
people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher.
Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down
a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied
to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

This is a classic "right

vs. good" dilemma.
By acting, one person
dies instead of five.
So the Utilitarian has

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no problem. However, by acting, that one person who is killed would not
have died otherwise. That person is as innocent as the others, so by acting
one is choosing to kill an innocent person. Their family is not going to be
happy about your actions. In fact, any deaths will be morally due to the
actions of the "mad philosopher." Yet choosing to kill the one person, in
isolation from the mitigating circumstances, clearly would be a wrongful
homicide.

The Economist magazine, in its September 24th-30th 2011 issue, has an

article discussing the investigations of psychologists into peoples' reactions
to dilemmas like the Trolley Problem.

One of the classic techniques used to measure a person's willingness

to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology. The subject of
the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway
railway trolley or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which
leads to people's deaths. For example; there are five railway workmen
in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed
unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does
something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next
to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own
body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the
stranger onto the tracks, the stranger's large body will stop the train
and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.
[p.102]

The Economist reports that only 10% of experimental subjects are willing to

throw the stranger under the train. I suspect it would be less, if the subjects
found themselves in a real situation, instead of a pretend experimental test.
The further result of the experiment is that these 10% of people tend to have
personalities that are, "pscyhopathic, Machiavellian, or tended to view life
as meaningless." Charming. The Economist does then admit that the focus of
Bentham and Mill was on legislation, which "inevitably involves riding
roughshod over someone's interest. Utilitarianism provides a plausible
framework for deciding who should be trampled." Since politicians
constitute far less than 10% of the population, perhaps this means that now
we know why, psychologically, they are the way they are.

There are, however, peculiarities to this version of "trolleyology." Without

the "mad philosopher" who has tied the victims to the tracks, how is the
subject supposed to know that "the men will surely be killed"? In most
railroad accidents with victims in the way of trains, there is a good chance
that people will be killed or badly injured, but no certainty about it --
especially if one of the workers notices the trolley approaching. The
slightest uncertainty vastly reduces the value of throwing a stranger off a

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bridge. Also, in a real world situation, how is the subject going to be
"informed" that the stranger's body would stop the carriage but not his own?
And again, having selflessly decided to sacrifice someone else to stop the
carriage, how is the Woody Allen subject going to be able to throw the "big,
heavy stranger" off the bridge?

The reluctance of test subjects to sacrifice the stranger may in great measure
involve resistance to credulously accepting the unrealistic premises of the
dilemma. It is far more likely that someone walking across the bridge, who
happens to see people on the tracks in front of the rolling carriage, will
simply shout a warning at them rather than suddenly become convinced that
the homicide of a stranger will save them.

Psychologists or neutrologists who enjoy running "trolleyology"

experiments seem to like the idea that subjects willing to throw a swtich but
not willing to push the stranger off the bridge do so because of
the difference between rational evaluation and emotional
response. The rational side of a person, presumably, does the
Utilitarian calculation, while the emotional side of a person
recoils from the intimacy of the shove. What they tend to ignore
is that some will refuse to throw the swtich because of a moral
scruple about actively effecting an innocent death, while others
will refuse to shove the fat man because of the uncertainties and unrealistic
nature of the described situation. We see something of the uncertainty in the
recent (as it happens) Woody Allen movie Irrational Man (2015), where a
morally debased Existentialist college professor (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to
shove a woman, his now inconvenient student and lover (Emma Stone),
down an elevator shaft. He does this is in a clumsy way and falls down the
shaft himself. Also, psychologists may leave out the characterization of the
fat man as a "fat man," considering that this is demeaning or politically
incorrect, and may prejudice the subject against the fat man, since his
weight may be seen as a moral failing, which makes him unsympathic and
thus perhaps deserving of being pushed. However, if we have a "large man,"
or the "big, heavy stranger" of the Economist example, instead, the Woody
Allen movie reminds us of the problem of whether he can successfully be
shoved.

The more ridiculous the situation, however, the more it reveals about the
structure of dilemmas. Like the following "Fat Man and the Impending
Doom," we see an intellectual exercise, with "mad philosophers" and other
improbabilties, whose sole purpose is to structure a "right vs. good" choice.
Once we understand that structure, we no longer need ridiculous and even
silly circumstances and can instead simply address the meaning of the moral
independence of action and consequences. This doesn't solve the dilemmas
of real life, but it does mean that we don't need to characterize Utilitarians as
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 those who are "pscyhopathic, Machiavellian, or tended to view life as
meaningless," or even that they are simply more "rational" than those who
only react emotionally (so which is it? "psychopathic" or "rational"?). In
life, people tend to go for the best outcome, other things being equal. This is
called "prudence."

Would You Kill the Fat Man?, by David Edmonds

6. The Fat Man and the Impending Doom, with parts cut out in the 2nd
edition; they seem to have gotten removed to avoid unintentionally
humorous overtones. However, Grassian is not responsible for the somewhat
ridiculous nature of the dilemma. It goes back to Philippa Foot.

A fat man
leading a group
of 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 he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose
head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has
with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose
without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do
not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

Since the fat man is said to be "leading" the group, he is responsible for their
predicament and reasonably should volunteer to be blown up. The dilemma
becomes more acute if we substitute a pregnant woman for the fat man. She
would have been urged by the others to go first out of the cave. We can also
make the dilemma more acute by substituting a knife for the dynamite.
Hikers are not likely to just happen to be carrying around a stick of
dynamite (federal authorites may be interested in this), and setting it off in
the cave could just as easily kill everyone, or cause a cave-in (killing
everyone), than just remove the fat man. Instead, one of our explorers or
hikers is a hunter who always carries a knife, and who is experienced with
dismembering game animals. The other hikers may not want to watch.

7. The Tortured Child, not in Grassian.

Dostoyevsky, who has in these pages come in for comment in relation

to Existentialism and atheism, imagines a classic right vs. good dilemma:

Page 7 of 37
 "Tell me yourself -- I challenge you: let's assume that you were called
upon to build the edifice of human destiny so that men would finally
be happy and would find peace and tranquility. If you knew that, in
order to attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature,
let's say the little girl who beat her chest so desperately in the
outhouse, and that on her unavenged tears you could build that
edifice, would you agree to do it? Tell me and don't lie!"

"No I would not," Alyosha said softly. [Fyodor Dostoevsky, The

Brothers Karamazov, 1880, translated by Andrew H. MacAndrew,
Bantam Books, 1970, p.296]

This could stand as a reductio ad absurdum of Utilitarianism; but

Dostoyevsky himself cites one innocent person who is indeed sacrificed to
build an "edifice" of "peace and tranquility," namely Jesus Christ. Jesus
went to his fate willingly, unlike the little girl of the example here; but those
who sent him there had something else in mind. Dostoyevsky's thought
experiment was developed into a science fiction short story, "The Ones Who
Walk Away from Omelas" [1973], by Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin,
however, originally credited the device to William James, having read it in
James and forgotten that it was in Dostoyevsky.

8. The Costly Underwater Tunnel

Compare:  112 men were killed during the construction of Hoover Dam on
the Nevada-Arizona border (the "official" number was 98, but others had
died from causes more difficult to identify -- or easier to ignore -- like by
carbon monoxide poisoning):  The first to die was a surveyor, J.G. Tierney,
who drowned on December 20, 1922, and the last was his son, Patrick
Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1935 -- 13 years to the day after his
father. The working conditions in the summer down in the canyon involved
temperatures hitting highs of 119o, with lows of no less than 95 o (familiar
numbers to those who have visited the cities of Needles, Blythe, or Yuma in
the summer).

In 1931, about the time that Hoover Dam, a federal project (with private
contractors -- the whole project was "stimulus" spending conceived by
Hoover to alleviate the Depression), was begun, the Empire State Building,
a private project, was completed. Although the rule of thumb had been that
one man would die for every story built in a skyscraper above fifteen, which
would have meant 105 dead for the Empire State Building, in fact only 5
men died in the whole project. By comparison, in the earlier (1908-1913)
building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct by William Mulholland (d.1935), it
was also the case that only 5 men died (though when Mulholland's St.
Francis Dam, in Francisquito Canyon, collapsed in 1928, it killed over 500

Page 8 of 37
people). The Golden Gate Bridge cost 14 lives (or 11 -- the rule of thumb
there was one life for each $1,000,000 of the project, with the bridge costing
$35,000.000 -- workers who fell and were caught by nets joined the "Half-
Way to Hell Club" -- but one day the nets failed). The Alaska oil pipeline,
built in the 1970's, cost 31 lives. The Tunnel under the English Channel,
built in the early 1990's, cost 11 lives. When the Gateway Arch in St. Louis
was being planned, the prediction was that 15 workers would die, but none
did. Similarly, though much earlier (1927-1941), no one died during the
carving of Mt. Rushmore (though workers may have died later from the
effects of breathing dust from the carved rock -- this used to be a serious
problem for miners, before they began flushing drill points with water, and
in fact Gutzon Borglum provided breathing masks for the Mt. Rushmore
workers, some of whom didn't like wearing them). Even earlier, the Chrysler
Building, finished in 1930 at 77 stories, and briefly the tallest building in the
world (before the Empire State Building topped out), was completed without
any loss of life.

Even with such progress over time, the John Hancock Building in Chicago
(1970) cost 109 lives, or, indeed, about one per floor, as predicted for the
Empire State Building -- perhaps the infamous wind of Chicago made for
more hazardous conditions. While it is usually ordinary workers who suffer
in construction accidents, it isn't always, as was the case with the Brooklyn
Bridge, whose designer, John Augustus Roebling, died from the effects of a
ferry accident in 1869 while surveying the site. His son, Washington
Roebling, suffered such a severe case of the bends, working in a pressurized
caisson in 1872, that he supervised the rest of the construction crippled in
bed, first from Trenton and then from Brooklyn, sending instructions
through his wife, until the bridge was completed in 1883. Overall, 27 died
on the Brooklyn Bridge, 3 from the bends (though, as with Hoover Dam,
this may not count them all). Workers on the caissons were paid wages of $2
a day, a lot of money in the 1870's, but there was a turnover of 100 workers
a week, out of work gangs that were less than 300 men to start with. There
was also the problem that the caissons were dark, wet, claustrophobic, and
nasty. It was many years before it was known what to do about the bends.
Workers were still suffering from the bends when the Holland Tunnel was
built in the 1920's. The chief engineer of the tunnel, Clifford Milburn
Holland, died suddenly in 1924, aged 41, suspiciously of "exhaustion." The
tunnel, opened in 1927, was then named after him.

The first tunnel under the Hudson was begun in 1874. Construction was
abandoned in 1891 because of deaths (one blowout alone in 1880 killed 20
workers), restarted in 1903 by Alexander J. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, and not completed until 1908. All such bridges and tunnels
eliminate the need for ferry boats. Even in recent years, ferry sinkings and
accidents are common, 
Page 9 of 37
and they still sometimes result in the deaths of
hundreds of people at a time. Even New York's
famous Staten Island Ferry (started by Cornelius
Vanderbilt) is not immune. On October 15, 2003,
the pilot on one of the Ferry's ships passed out (he
was diabetic), and it crashed into a pier at Staten
Island. Eleven people were killed and 71 were
injured, some with severed limbs. I had just ridden
the Ferry that summer, and I noticed that many
people stand right on the edge of the vessel as it
approaches the dock. That was not a place to be in
the accident. The captain of the ferry, who was not
at his required station, in the pilot house, at the time
of the accident, subsequently committed suicide. On the Staten Island Ferry,
Then in 2010, there was another accident with this June 2003
ferry, in fact with the very same ship. On May 8, the ferry crashed into the dock on
Staten Island, as in 2003. This time, however, the problem looked like a
mechanical rather than a human failure. 40 people were taken to the hospital,
fortunately with mostly minor injuries.

In 1954 a typhoon sank 5 ferries in the Tsugaru Strait between the Japanese islands
of Honshu and Hokkaido, killing 1430 people. A tunnel was begun in 1964 to
eliminate the ferries, although it took 25 years to complete. The idea for the tunnel
under the Hudson may have been inspired by the St. Gotthard Tunnel in
Switzerland, which was begun in 1872. It was only a mile under the Hudson, while
the St. Gotthard would be 9.25 miles long. Nevertheless, the St. Gotthard tunnel
was finished in ten years, though at a cost of 310 lives. In 2001, a truck collision
resulted in a fire in the tunnel, which cost 11 lives. It turned out that the safe rooms
provided by the side of the tunnel for refuge in just such cases were simply turned
into ovens, killing the occupants. Because of that, the rooms have been given back
doors, leading to a newly cut escape tunnel.

In New York, subsequent to the first railroad tunnel were the tunnels to
bring water into the City. From the Hillview Reservoir, just outside the
Bronx, the New York City Water Tunnel No.1 was completed in 1917 and
the New York City Water Tunnel No.2 in 1935. The rule that developed for
these projects was a dead man for every mile. Water Tunnel No.3, begun
in 1970, has not involved anything like this kind of mortality, and none
since 1997. Nevertheless, as of 2018, 23 workers, and one 12-year-old boy
(who wandered into one of the sites), have lost their lives in the project,
which is not due to be completed until 2020. Although by then 50 years will
have passed, there was some urgency to Tunnel No.3, because the older
tunnels have never been closed, inspected, or serviced. After some time had
passed, the authorities began to fear that the aging and rusted valves, if
closed, could not be easily reopened, costing the City half its water supply.
Page 10 of 37
 This will finally be done when Tunnel No.3 is completed. Similar urgently
needed public works projects around New York, like new railroad tunnels
under the Hudson (Cassatt's Tunnels, as well as being a century old, were
damaged by seawater from Hurricane Sandy), seem to suffer from similarly
casual pacing, part of which is due to political squabbles over financing.
Alexander Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad didn't have such problems.
Quite the opposite. The Railroad bought land for Pennsylvania Station in
secret, without the use of eminent domain, not only because public
knowledge would have driven up the prices, but
Railroad Safety
because the infamously corrupt local politics of
New York City would have required payoffs fatalities
billions of
per billion
and deals. It is not clear that things have really year passenger passenger
miles
changed all that much in the meantime -- yet miles
New Yorkers reelect politicians that 1890 11.8 24.2
they know are corrupt [note].
1900 16.0 15.5
In the table we see the rate of fatalities on American 1910 32.3 10.0
railroads over time. The 230,000 deaths between 1890
total deaths,
and 1917 averages out to about 8500 per year -- for 1890-1917:  230,000;
instance in 1897 there were 6500 deaths, 1700 of them during World War I, the
railroad workers, but most of the rest from people railroads were run by the
being hit on the tracks (something that still happens, Federal Government
with four killed when a train it hit a truck, for some
1920 47.4 4.8
reason delayed at a railroad crossing, carrying
wounded veterans in a Veterans Day Parade in 1930 26.9 2.3
Midland, Texas, on 15 November 2012). This toll 1939 22.7 1.8
seems excessive and appalling, and obviously much of
1943 87.9 3.2
it a function of the railroad tracks not being separated
from other traffic and public access, but we might deaths increase during
compare it with recent traffic fatalities for World War II with the
automobiles, which have been above 40,000 per year temporary return of
obsolete equipment
for every year since since 1962, except for 1992.
Between 1966 and 1974, deaths were actually above 1950 31.8 0.6
50,000 a year. This constant absolute rate of fatalities 1970 10.8 0.07
nevertheless reflects improvement, since the
population of the country has grown greatly during the
period, and the vehicle miles travelled have increased from 805,000 in 1963 to
2,880,000 in 2003. So the rate of fatalities has fallen significantly.

The industry of mining anthracite coal in Pennsylvania cost 30,000 lives between
1869 and 1950. This averages out to about 370 deaths a year or more than one
death a day. Such a rate actually seems low compared to railroad deaths or modern
highway deaths; and although today there are still deaths from mining, even in
Pennsylvania, most modern coal mining, which used to employ thousands of men
underground, now is handled by a couple dozen men working open pit mines in the
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air-conditioned cabs of giant trucks and shovels. Fatalities are rare under
those circumstances.

The worst loss of life in an American railroad accident was 101 killed on 9
July 1918, at a place called "Dutchman's Curve" in Nashville, Tennessee.
Lest we chalk this up this horror to the corporate indifference and greed of
the railroads, the accident took place during World War I, when the Federal
Government had taken over the railroads and was running them. The Fed
did not do a good job of it -- Dutchman's Curve may be an example of that --
which is one reason why no such takeover occurred during World War II,
despite the record of hostility for business of the Roosevelt Administration
(the President may himself have begun losing patience with the ideologues
around him, including Eleanor). Nevertheless, the rate of fatalities did
increase during World War II, when the level of traffic required that
obsolete equipment be returned to service.

Meanwhile, railroad fatalities have become rare -- although the occasional

wreck can be spectacular -- I was visiting Boulder, Colorado, in 1985 when
two Burlington Northern trains collided head-on under a freeway overpass,
which was destroyed, just outside of town. The engine crews were killed,
although I don't think this amounted to more than four persons. Part of the
reduction in fatalities is the circumstance that the number of
railroad employees has fallen from some 2 million in 1920 to only 177,000
in 2004. A train that used to require a large crew (including multiple
brakemen) now may only be driven by two (with one recent fatal wreck, in
the San Fernando Valley, caused by the lonely engineer ignoring red lights
because he was texting -- although in that case the loss of life of passengers
was significant).

Lest we think that in its time the railroads were unusually dangerous, of
linemen working on the new electrical systems in the 1890's, no less
than half of them were killed on the job, generally from electrical shock.
This is still a very dangerous business, although fatalities now do not seem
to be common.

An underwater tunnel is being constructed despite an almost certain

loss of several lives [actually, all but certain]. Presumably the
expected loss is a calculated cost that society is prepared to pay for
having the tunnel ["society" doesn't make any such calculation]. At a
critical moment when a fitting must be lowered into place, a
workman is trapped in a section of the partly laid tunnel. If it is
lowered, it will surely crush the trapped workman to death. Yet, if it
is not and a time consuming rescue of the workman is attempted, the
tunnel will have to be abandoned and the whole project begun anew.

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 Two workmen have already died in the project as a result of
anticipated and unavoidable conditions in the building of the tunnel.
What should be done? Was it a mistake to begin the tunnel in the first
place? But don't we take such risks all the time?

We can get some clarity about this example by asking what the police would
do if they are informed that the work foreman has authorized the deliberate
crushing of a worker. I suspect that he would immediately be arrested for
murder.

With these tunnels and bridges, the moral principle involved with the deaths
is a simple one:  because of the projects, fewer people die later. Thus,
while workers know that the projects are dangerous, and they are willing to
take the risk for better wages or pride in the projects, there is an absolute
calculus of saved lives once the tunnels or the bridges replace the ferries, or
when a fresh water supply prevents diseases like cholera and typhoid fever,
which claimed many lives in the 19th century, including Prince Albert of
England. Contrariwise, deaths on something like a movie set do not seem
balanced by any saved lives, which means that any deaths, such as those of
Vic Morrow and others on the set of Twilight Zone, the Movie in 1982, seem
intolerable and wrongful. Thus, when Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee,
was killed in a freak accident filming The Crow in 1993, permanent changes
were made in the filming of action movies. Lee was killed by a metal
fragment of a shattered bullet casing, which proved deadly even though the
bullet was a blank. Now, it is prohibited for guns to be fired, even with
blanks, in the direction of actors. The camera angle, of course, can make
it look like the gun is directed at its target. Or, as is becoming more
common, the firing of the gun can be inserted digitally.

Other professions pose more of a moral challenge. One of the deadliest

professions of all is simply commercial fishing. Dealing with heavy
equipment, including chains, ropes, hooks, nets, booms, etc., on a wet
heaving deck, in the dark, cold, ice, etc., is an obvious formula for injury,
maiming, or death. Is this worth it just so people can eat fish? Well, the
provison of food obviously saves lives by sustaining life in the first place,
and many people think that fish is a healthier source of protein than
something like red meat. The calculus in those terms is not obvious, since
fishing is much, much more dangerous than raising cows. In those terms,
whether it is worth it may need to be left to the fishermen themselves. As it
happens, small fishermen, who run the most risk, now tend to be replaced
with factory ships, which are safer for the crews. But the small fishermen
don't like being put out of business, since they prefer their traditional way of
life for personal and aesthetic reasons -- and they would probably need to
leave their local towns to find work elsewhere. They may not appreciate the

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argument that the danger of their way of life discounts their enjoyment of its
beauty, dignity, and challenge and makes the factory ships preferable.

A similar problem occurs with logging. Lumberjacks also take pride in the
beauty, majesty, and danger of their profession. But the on-the-job death
rate is over 110 per 100,000 loggers per year -- thirty times the national
average. If the wood is used for housing, and housing saves lives by
sustaining health from the elements, then we can calculate that the cost is
worth it. But other materials are available for housing, and not all the wood
from logging is used for that purpose. So if logging is very dangerous,
which it is, this makes the proposition even more dubious than with fishing.
It may come down to the other uses of wood, which are many, and which
may be more essential to modern life, which as such preserve and extend
lives beyond what was the case when wood was more essential for housing
and energy than it is now. The need, as with fishing, should be reflected in
prices, and so also in the wages for the skilled labor involved -- with the
complication that the use, misuse, overuse, or underuse of National Forests
becomes a political issue, and a football for rent seekers and ideological
Environmentalists, that obscures what the real costs of the resource are. The
loggers, like the fishermen, may need to make their own call about the value
of what they do -- and they also may make (glamorized) money off the
"reality" shows about their work.

Part of traditional logging was floating the cut logs down rivers to sawmills.
There might be so many logs in a river that they could jam, creating a log
dam and the potential for all kinds of trouble and damage. To keep the logs
from jamming, or to break up jams, was the job of the log rollers. It is said
that for every lumberjack who died in the forest, ten log rollers died on the
rivers. It is not hard to imagine the peril of their jobs, walking around on
logs that roll under their feet, where falling between the logs could quickly
mean being crushed by them. Fortunately, most logs are now trucked out of
forests rather than floated down rivers. Log rolling is reduced to a fun and
humorous event at fairs or woodcraft competitions. This is progress. Of
course, now the Federal Government wants every logging road treated with
all the same permit requirements and regulations as Interstate highways. The
rivers may come back into use.

There seems to be one other profession that, like fishing and logging, is
more dangerous than being a policeman. That is roofing. Roofers fall off of
roofs. It is not hard to imagine the danger of this. It is also not hard to see
the benefit in social welfare from roofs. Even if fishing was stopped, and
homes and furniture were no longer made of wood, houses would still need
roofs. A "roof over your head" is pretty essential to human well being.
Safety harnesses exist for roofing, as for work in high-rise construction; but,
since roofers are often independent contractors, the only people at some
Page 14 of 37
 pains to see that harnesses get used would be their insurance companies,
who will not always be on site. Otherwise, roofers might not want to bother
and may indeed exult, like fishermen and loggers, in the danger of their job.

9. The Miners, which was cited, but not originated, in paper I saw presented at
the 2019 Rutger's Epistemology Conference, 4 May 2019, "Perspectives and
Good Dispositions," by Maria Lasonen-Aarnio, of the University of
Helsinki.

Miners. 10 miners are trapped in one of two shafts (shaft 1 or shaft

2), and floodwaters are rising. You must decide which shaft to block
before finding out where the miners are. They are no more likely,
given your evidence, to be in 1 or 2. You are able to block the water
from reaching one of the shafts, but you don't have enough sandbags
to block both. If you manage to completely block the shaft where the
miners are, they are all saved; if you block the other shaft completely,
they all drown. If you do nothing, letting both of the shafts fill
halfway with water, one miner will drown in any case. [reference to
Regan, Utilitarianism and Cooperation, 1980]

Lasonen-Aarnio says that the "core norm" here is to "manifest good

dispositions." We might take this as modern academic jargon for an
Aristotelian principle, "practice virtue." However, whether it is "good
dispositons" or
Aristotelian virtue,
neither would be
relevant in this
case. In dilemmas,
one can easily
have good
dispositions and
virtues, and
"manifest" them,
by some
conscientious
behavior, and yet do the wrong thing. Similarly, one may have a bad
disposition, or be vicious, and yet do the right thing. These could also be
cases of the failure of good intentions, or the paradoxical better result of bad
intentions. Thus, Lasonen-Aarnio's principle does not take into account the
polynomic independence of the categories of value involved -- especially the
venerable maxim that the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. This
may be an artifact of the epistemological focus of the paper, rather than on
the metaphysics of value, coupled with some of the tangled obscurantism of
modern academic philosophy.

Page 15 of 37
Consequently, Lasonen-Aarnio's paper actually seems to be missing a real
analysis of the dilemma. If we are supposed to do the right thing, what is
involved in that, in this case? The interest of the dilemma may be the role of
the uncertainty about the location of the miners. Actually, this seems
unrealistic. The supervisors of the mine certainly would know, or should
know, where the miners are working. They would have sent them there. If
there are deaths or injuries here, because the supervisors neglected to keep
track of their miners, lawsuits about negligence would follow.

Setting that aside, it is not clear that the form of this dilemma is of the "right
vs. good" kind. Either action, in isolation, would be wrongful; and allowing
either shaft to flood completely, in isolation, would not even be
considered. The
closest we get to
an action resulting
in a positive harm
or evil is
that inaction in the
case will result in
a death. Actually,
this seems
unrealistic also. If
half flooding the
shafts will result
in one death, how do we know that? especially when we don't even know
where the miners are? Probably a scenario could be imagined where one
miner would be vulnerable to death in either shaft, perhaps because of the
nature of his job (locked, prone in a cage?), but his addition to the dilemma
here looks to be made only to make it a dilemma, with no thought to how
this situation would be possible.

Without the questionable death, there is no dilemma. No responsible person

will block either shaft, with a 50/50 chance it will kill all the miners. So
blocking a shaft is only an issue when inaction would result in a death. So
we must balance the death of one against the 50/50 possibility of saving, or
killing, everyone.

Lasonen-Aarnio imagines a coin toss to decide about the action. However,

there would need to be two coin tosses, first to decide between action and
inaction, and second, if action is indicated, which shaft to block. However, a
coin toss in deciding about inaction does not seem to be appropriate. Doing
nothing will result in a death, but it will also certainly save the other nine,
while trying to save all through a sort of game of chance will just as easily
kill all. Nor does the coin toss help in deciding between shafts, where any

Page 16 of 37
decision will be arbitrary, and a coin toss would be an attempt
to avoid responsibility where responsibility cannot be avoided anyway.

Lasonen-Aarnio gives us a further dilemma, which I will only consider in

part:

Another Mining Disaster: You often find yourself in situations

involving mining disasters. To prepare, you spend your evenings
analyzing particular scenarios, and calculating the expected values of
various actions. You now find out there has been another accident.
Luckily, just last night you calculated the expected values of the
available actions in the very situation you now face. But alas, you
have forgotten the exact results of those calculatons! There is no time
for calculations -- if you don't act quickly, all miners will die with
certainty...

I won't proceed with the rest of Lasonen-Aarnio's problem, because I am

offended by the unreality, if not the absurdity, of this set-up. If these
frequent "mining disasters" are at the same mine, I don't know why the
authorities have not closed it. In any case, "you" have obviously thought it
prudent to prepare for more disasters, and you have considered "particular
scenarios." But you don't seem to have written down the relevant
information and instructions. Ordinarily, such plans would go into an
"emergency procedures" handbook, which would probably be required by
company policy or local (or national) law. The idea that you have done the
"calculations" for a particular situation, without even committing your
"calculations" to paper is preposterous.

The dilemmas I consider here often have absurd or unlikely features (e.g. the
"Fat Man and the Impending Doom," or even some forms of the "Trolley
Problem"). But they are of interest if they involve a moral or practical
principle that we should analyze for realistic situations. If they get too
ridiculous or too unrealistic, and don't highlight a useful issue or principle, I
don't see the point. With the initial Miners dilemma, the important feature is
the uncertainty about the location of the miners, however unlikely or
criminal this might be in real life. The result complicates our moral
judgment, but not as much as in purer "right vs. good" dilemmas. An action
that can easily kill all the miners I would regard as unacceptable, whether or
not a single miner is certain (?) to die. But a certain kind of person might
take the chance. If he saves all the miners, he's a hero. But if he kills all the
miners, there would be no end to recriminations, moral and legal. The very
real possibility of the latter would give any sober and conscientious person
pause. If the "hero" has gambled with the lives of the nine miners who
would certainly be saved through inaction, this would seem to make for a
questionable moral principle.

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Page 18 of 37
10.Jean Valjean's Conscience, with some comments; see the 1998 movie, Les
Miserables, with Liam Neeson, Uma Thurman, and Geoffrey Rush.

In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, the hero, Jean Valjean, is an ex-

convict, living illegally under an assumed name and wanted for a
robbery he committed many years ago. [Actually, no -- he is only
wanted for breaking parole.] Although he will be returned to the
galleys -- probably [in fact, actually] for life -- if he is caught, he is a
good man who does not deserve to be punished. He has established
himself in a town, becoming mayor and a public benefactor. One day,
Jean learns that another man, a vagabond, has been arrested for a
minor crime and identified as Jean Valjean. Jean is first tempted to
remain quiet, reasoning to himself that since he had nothing to do
with the false identification of this hapless vagabond, he has no
obligation to save him. Perhaps this man's false identification, Jean
reflects, is "an act of Providence meant to save me." Upon reflection,
however, Jean judges such reasoning "monstrous and hypocritical."
He now feels certain that it is his duty to reveal his identity,
regardless of the disastrous personal consequences. His resolve is
disturbed, however, as he reflects on the irreparable harm his return to
the galleys will mean to so many people who depend upon him for
their livelihood -- especially troubling in the case of a helpless
woman and her small child to whom he feels a special obligation. He
now reproaches himself for being too selfish, for thinking only of his
own conscience and not of others. The right thing to do, he now
claims to himself, is to remain quiet, to continue making money and
using it to help others. The vagabond, he comforts himself, is not a
worthy person, anyway. Still unconvinced and tormented by the need
to decide, Jean goes to the trial and confesses. Did he do the right
thing?

11.A Callous Passerby

Roger Smith, a quite competent

swimmer, is out for a leisurely
stroll. During the course of his
walk he passes by a deserted
pier from which a teenage boy
who apparently cannot swim has
fallen into the water. The boy is
screaming for help. Smith
recognizes that there is absolutely no danger to himself if he jumps in

Page 19 of 37
 to save the boy; he could easily succeed if he tried. Nevertheless, he
chooses to ignore the boy's cries. The water is cold and he is afraid of
catching a cold -- he doesn't want to get his good clothes wet either.
"Why should I inconvenience myself for this kid," Smith says to
himself, and passes on. Does Smith have a moral obligation to save
the boy? If so, should he have a legal obligation ["Good Samaritan"
laws] as well?

12.The Last Episode of Seinfeld, not in Grassian.

The cast of Seinfeld, Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer, have a

layover in a small New England town. They witness a robbery in
broad daylight. The robber has his hand in his pocket, and the victim
shouts that the man has a gun. As soon as the robber runs away, a
policeman appears on the scene; but instead of pursuing the robber,
he arrests Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer for having violated the
new "Good Samaritan" law of the town. Since the four of them spent
the time of the robbery making fun of the victim, who was fat, their
role in the matter doesn't look good, and at their trial everyone who
has ever felt wronged by them in the course of the television series
testifies against them. They are convicted. Is this just? What were
they supposed to do during the robbery? Should they have rushed the
robber, just in case he didn't really have a gun?

Note that this would be an improper "Good Samaritan" law, which generally

are laws written to protect those (from liability) who attempt to render aid,
not require people in what may be questionable circumstances to render aid.
Laws requiring aid exist in some places and may be thought vulnerable to
the abuse evident in this case.

13. A Poisonous Cup of Coffee. Grassians uses "Tom" and "Joe" as the killers,
so the whole example here is restated with Jane and Debbie substituted for
the sake of gender equality. However, Grassian is not responsible for this
dilemma either. It goes back to Judith Jarvis Thomson of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. She has "Alfred" and "Burt" intentionally and
incidentally poisoning their wives, respectively. The principle here, as in the
previous two or three dilemmas, turns on the difference between wrongs of
commission and wrongs of omission. This is a pure example of the issue
since both actions are wrongful and the consequences are of equivalent evil.
Our concern is the degree or nature of the wrongfulness. See discussion
under "Generalized Structure."

Tom, hating his wife and wanting her dead, puts poison in her coffee,
thereby killing her. Joe also hates his wife and would like her dead.
One day, Joe's wife accidentally puts poison in her coffee, thinking

Page 20 of 37
 it's cream. Joe has the antidote,
but he does not give it to her.
Knowing that he is the only one
who can save her, he lets her
die. Is Joe's failure to act as bad
as Tom's action?

Jane, hating her husband and

wanting him dead, puts poison
in his coffee, thereby killing him. Debbie also hates her husband and
would like him dead. One day, Debbie's husband accidentally puts
poison in his coffee, thinking it's cream. Debbie has the antidote, but
she does not give it to him. Knowing that she is the only one who can
save him, she lets him die. Is Debbie's failure to act as bad as Jane's
action?

Note that poison is a "gendered" instrument since the gender stereotype is

that it is a "woman's" weapon since it requires no strength to use and can be
employed secretly. This may be why Judith Jarvis Thomson used "Alfred"
and "Burt" in the first place, as contrary to the stereotype.

14.The Torture of the Mad Bomber

Compare:  the use of torture in Clint Eastwood's movie, Dirty Harry (1971),

somewhat comically in Sin City (2005), and then in extended, serious, and
graffic fashion, conducted by Denzel Washington, in Man on Fire (2004). In
2009, there is also Liam Neeson, Qui-gon Jinn of Star Wars, who uses
torture to rescue his kidnapped daughter in Taken -- he even shoots the
"innocent wife" of his former French spy friend to get information from
him. Definitely a different kind of Jedi. After 9/11/01, we have the case of
terrorist suspects who may know of planned operations that could cost the
lives of thousands. The otherwise four-square civil libertarian and Harvard
Law Professor Alan Dershowitz actually suggested legalized torture to deal
with such people. This early complacency about torture seems to have been
followed mostly by objections that some kind of torture was used by U.S.
forces in Iraq and by U.S. allies (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.). Indeed, there is a
saying, that if you want information from someone, send them to Jordan, if
you want them hurt, send them to Syria, and if you want them killed, send
them to Egypt.

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

Page 21 of 37
 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, of
course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to
do in this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also
be morally justifiable to torture the mad bomber's innocent wife if
that is the only way to make him talk? Why?

In the judicial system of Imperial China, torture was technically illegal but

tolerated because no one could be convicted without a confession. Torture
could then be used with these provisions:  (1) Questioning could only be
done in open court. Since torture would then be administered in public, the
public should agree, from the evidence, that the suspect is probably guilty. If
it appeared that an innocent person was being tortured, a riot might result.
The Judge, who was also the Magistrate of his administrative District, would
be held responsible for the civil disturbance. (2) Punishment would be
mitigated in proportion to any suffering inflicted by torture. And, most
importantly, (3) if it turned out that an innocent person was convicted, the
punishment he suffered could be imposed on the Judge. This was

called  , "reversed judgment." I think that this is a fine legal principle

-- where with us misbehavior by judges, prosecutors, or police is generally
not liable to criminal sanction. A person not even under oath lying to a
federal agent is guilty of a crime, but prosecutors can lie in court and the
police can lie to suspects (in the United States but not in Britain) with
impunity. The Chinese legal system is discussed and illustrated by the Dutch
diplomat and scholar Robert van Gulik in his Judge Dee books.

War, Terror, and Torture

The Curious Case of  Zero Dark Thirty

15.The Principle of Psychiatric Confidentiality. Note that confidentiality

applies to all doctors, lawyers, priests, and those hired as agents by them.
See the confused treatment in the 1997 movie, The Devil's Advocate, and the
clever use of the principle in the 1993 movie, The Firm, both of which
involve confidentiality between lawyers and clients. Curiously, the original
book version of The Firm, by John Grisham [1991], did not involve the
confidentiality device that resolves the action in the movie.

You are a psychiatrist and your patient has just confided to you that
he intends to kill a woman. You're inclined to dismiss the threat as
idle, but you aren't sure. Should you report the threat to the police and
the woman or should you remain silent as the principle of

Page 22 of 37
 confidentiality between psychiatrist and patient demands? Should
there be a law that compels you to report such threats?

See the discussion of such issues under under the "Generalized Structure of
Moral or Ethical Dilemmas." Note how the ethical codes of such
professionals complicate what otherwise might be simple moral questions.

16.The Partiality of Friendship

Jim has the responsibility of filling a position in his firm. His friend
Paul has applied and is qualified, but someone else seems even more
qualified. Jim wants to give the job to Paul, but he feels guilty,
believing that he ought to be impartial. That's the essence of morality,
he initially tells himself. This belief is, however, rejected, as Jim
resolves that friendship has a moral importance that permits, and
perhaps even requires, partiality in some circumstances. So he gives
the job to Paul. Was he right?

Features of this question are discussed at the Generalized Structure.

Otherwise, we should consider the moral dilemmas that arise when loyalty
to friends, or to family, conflicts with other obligations. Thus, in the great
Indian epic the Mahâbhârata, the figure Karna realizes that he is on the
wrong side of the conflict and that he will be fighting the people who
represent the right and the good. Krishna even offers Karna the leadership of
the good side and the throne of the Kingdom in dispute. Karna, however,
determines to remain loyal to the villain, Duryodhana, because Duryodhana
was kind to him when everyone else was insulting and dismissive (because
he did not appear to be a Kshatriya, although in fact he was). The offer of
someone like Krishna looks motivated less by concern for Karna and than
for the people he will be fighting. Karna's loyalty, although he knows it will
lead to his own defeat and death, ends up seeming noble and admirable in its
own right, but it also seems tragic, perverse, and pointless than so much
carnage should result when Karna knows that his cause is wrong.

A similar, and perhaps stronger, issue arises when loyalty to family is

involved. Thus, in the Analects, at XIII:18, Confucius says that in his
country, "A father will screen his son, and a son his father," after being told
about a son who informed on his father for theft. We also find a similar
standard assumed by Socrates in the Euthyphro, where Euthyphro thinks
that it is pious to prosecute his father for murder. Socrates expresses
astonishment, since this is a major breach of Greek piety, for a son to act
against his father. The issue also turns up in the review of "The Impiety of
Socrates," where M.F. Burnyeat misses the nature of Euthryphro's impiety
in this. With both Confucius and Euthyphro, there is a conflict and a

Page 23 of 37
 dilemma between filial piety,  , the duty to protect parents, and

righteousness,  , the duty to see that justice is done.

17.The Value of a Promise

Compare with the role of David Cash in the 1997 murder of Sherrice
Iverson by Jeremy Strohmeyer. Under Nevada law, Cash was not charged
simply for concealing knowledge of Strohmeyer's crime. To be an accessory
after the fact, he would have needed to have done something (a wrong of
commission) to otherwise help Strohmeyer. Later, when he was admitted to
the University of California, there was protest over his moral suitability.

A friend confides to you that he has committed a particular crime and

you promise never to tell. Discovering that an innocent person has
been accused of the crime, you plead with your friend to give himself
up. He refuses and reminds you of your promise. What should you
do? In general, under what conditions should promises be broken?

In October 1990, Jeffrey Cain was killed in a road rage shooting in

Anchorage, Alaska. When George Kerr informed on the friends who had
done the shooting, he said, "I usually wouldn't rat out my friends, but this is
just so severe I got to do it." "Just so severe" is the issue. After their
conviction, the "friends" arranged from prison, in a conspiracy including the
pregnant sister of one defendant, to have a bomb sent to Kerr's house. Kerr
wasn't home, and the bomb killed his father. All the conspirators, including
the sister, were convicted of the murder. This does not encourage one to
believe in the goodness of human nature.

18.The Perjured President, not in Grassian.

Note that the issue here, although the politics is somewhat dated, is over the
use of sexual harrassment laws. The support of the Paula Jones lawsuit by
Catherine MacKinnon -- "When Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton, male
dominance quaked" -- seemed merely to result in the
marginalization of MacKinnon from elite opinion -- her earlier
Stalinism and anhedonic political moralism had not been sufficient.
Clinton continues to be treated as a serious political influence,
appearing extensively in television promotions for
California Proposition 87 in the 2006 election. That the proposition failed
should cause some enthusiasts to reevaluate Clinton's influence.
Nevertheless, he continues to act and be regarded as a venerated elder
statesman [note].

Page 24 of 37
 A long time Governor of a Southern State is elected President of the
United States on a platform that includes strong support for laws
against sexual harassment. After he is in office, it comes out that he
may have used State Troopers, on duty to protect him as Governor, to
pick up women for him. One of the women named in the national
press stories as having been brought to the Governor for sex felt
defamed because she had actually rebuffed his crude advances, even
though he had said that he knew her boss -- she was a State employee.
She decides to clear her name by suing the now President for sexual
harassment. The Supreme Court allows the suit to proceed against the
sitting President. Because the sexual harassment laws have been
recently expanded, over the President's own signature, to allow
testimony about the history of sexual conduct of the accused harasser,
the President is questioned under oath about rumors of an affair with
a young White House intern. He strongly denies that any sexual
relationship had ever taken place, and professes not to remember if he
was even ever alone with the intern. Later, incontrovertible evidence
is introduced -- the President's own semen on the intern's dress -- that
establishes the existence of the rumored sexual relationship. The
President then finally admits only to an ambiguous "improper
relationship." So the dilemma is: Is it hypocritical of the President
and his supporters to continued to support the sexual harassment and
perjury laws if they do not want him to be subject to the ordinary
penalties for breaking them? Or, are the political purposes of the
President's supporters in keeping him in office more important than
this?

19.The Dilemma of Silence, not in Grassian.

Silence is a 2016 move based on the 1966 historical novel of the same name
by Shûsaku Endô, himself a Japanese Christian. The story is loosely based
on the life of Giuseppe Chiara (1602-1685), who was a Jesuit missionary in
Japan in 17th century, after the Japanese, under the Tokugawa Shoguns, had
prohibited Christianity and begun actively persecuting Japanese Christians
and European missionaries. The movie was a personal project of director
Martin Scorsese, long in the works.

In Portuguese Macao, the Jesuit Superior, Alessandro Valignano

(Ciarán Hinds) receives news that Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam
Neeson), in Japan, has renounced his faith. Sebastião Rodrigues
(Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), students of
Ferreira, cannot believe this; and they journey to Japan to find him.

After meeting hidden Japanese Christians, Rodrigues and Garupe are

captured and discover that, after a period of executing Christians, the

Page 25 of 37
 Japanese decided that it was better to demoralize them by forcing the
Jesuit missionaries themselves to renounce their faith and become
apostates. Ferreira himself was tortured to the point where he was
broken. Garupe himself drowns while trying to help Japanese
Christians who are being drowned. Rodrigues, as the new strategy is
politely explained to him, is forced to watch as the Christians he has
known personally are horribly tortured, even though they themselves
have obeyed the requirement to step on images of Christ or the Virgin
Mary.

Rodrigues is required to step on an image of Christ to save his

parishioners. As it happens, Christ in the image speaks to him, tells
him to step on the image, and explains that this is the kind of sacrifice
that Christ himself would do. Although told that this symbolic
renunication is of no real significance, after Rodrigues does it, he is
not allowed to practice Christianity ever again, even in private, is
closely monitored, and is compelled to help expose Japanese
Christians for the rest of his life.

In the movie, but not in the book, we are shown that at his burial, the
Japanese wife of Rodrigues, whose sympathies we do not know,
surreptitiously buries a cross with him.

The dilemma of Rodrigues is of a "right vs. good" form. Unlike the "A
Father's Agonizing Choice," Rodrigues is not being asked to kill anyone.
Instead, with his impious act, he saves the lives and ends the suffering of his
Japanese Christians. It is
not right, of course, that
he is being coerced into
renouncing his faith; and
the Japanese authorities,
like the Nazi guards,
cannot honestly claim
that they are
being forced to torture or murder innocent people. It is all their choice.
Nevertheless, Rodrigues must weigh the suffering of the Christians against
his outward adherence to his faith.

At first, he seems to be asked less than the Christians persecuted

under Diocletian. They were not told to renounce their faith but simply to
pour a libation, an act of pagan worship. They regarded this as the
equivalent of apostasy. Under threat of torture and execution, many did, but
afterward, when the persecution was over, they then returned to Christianity.
There was intense controversy over whether such people should hold
positions of honor or authority in the later Church. In North Africa, the

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 "Donatists" never accepted that the temporary apostates could return to
authority, and in general they decided that the value of the Sacraments
depended on the righteousness of the priests administering them. They were
declared heretics for this, beginning in the reign of Constantine, who called
a council at Arles to deal with it; but they continued holding to their doctrine
until the Islamic Conquest.

The Japanese persecution did not end; and, as noted, Rodrigues was required
to renounce any overt practice of his religion. We should be sensible of the
legal principle that no contract executed under duress is valid. For
Christians, martyrdom under such circumstances may be admirable, but it
cannot be morally required of anyone. And, of course, Rodrigues does not
face conventional marytrdom, but it is the innocent Japanese Christians who
suffer in these circumstances. The sacrifice of Rodrigues is of a spiritual
nature; but, as expressed, as we see, by Christ himself, this is not so
different from the foundational sacrifice on the Cross. Rodrigues may
endanger his soul, but this will save the others from suffering.

The "silence" of the title of book and movie seems to have two meanings.
One is the silence of God, which is truly broken for few believers, even as it
nevertheless actually is for Rodrigues. But the other silence is that to which
Rodrigues himself is condemned, as he is prohibited, despite the apparently
assurances of the authorities, from ever expressing his faith again. The
dilemma of Rodrigues is acute enough, but we cannot forget that is
decisively resolved, and properly so, by God himself (unless Rodrigues is
hallucinating), albeit at the cost of remaining silent for then on.

When the Meiji Government, at European insistence, legalized Christianity,

communities of Japanese Christians, silent for three centuries, revealed their
existence. From the movie, it is hard to believe that they survived, but they
did. Although required to step on Christian images every year, they believed
that they could be absolved for these acts. The Catholic Church disagreed,
but it should not have. Repenting an act done under duress is morally not the
same thing as repenting an act done freely. I repeat, no Christian can
be required to be a martyr.

20.The Dilemmas of Passengers, not in Grassian.

Passengers is a 2016 science fiction movie directed by Morten Tyldum.

The colony ship Avalon is on its way to a distant star and the planet
"Homestead II," with a crew of a couple hundred and 5000 passenger
colonists. The passage will take 120 years, all on board are in
hibernation, and the ship is under the automatic control of its
computers.

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Thirty years into the voyage, the ship passes through an
unrealistically dense field of asteroids and its defenses are
overwhelmed. The ship is holed by a meteorite, which inflicts serious
damage on its operating system. However, the computers are
programmed with the assumption that the ship is invulerable to such
impacts. The diagnostics are unable to recognize the damage, which
sets off a slow cascade of malfunctions, which soon take down the
diagnostic system itself. Meanwhile, the first sign of trouble is that
one of the hibernation pods wakes up its sleeper, just as though the
end of the voyage were approaching. This sleeper is
(helpfully) a mechanical engineer, Jim Preston (played by
Chris Pratt). The computers have also been programmed
with the assumption that the hiberation pods cannot
malfunction, which leaves Preston ignorant of what has
really happened or what can be done about it. Wandering the ship
alone, his only companion turns out to be a robot bartender, "Arthur"
(Michael Sheen), who also initially denies that a pod can malfunction
or that anything can be wrong. Thus, we see serious design flaws in
the construction of this ship; and it is hard to believe that future
engineers have really forgotten Murphy's Law, which is that anything
that can go wrong will go wrong.

Preston descovers that he cannot awaken any of the crew and cannot
access the command decks or operating system of the ship. For a
year, he wanders about, slowly losing his sanity, falling into the
habits of a naked hermit, aware that no one else will be awakened for
90 years. However, he has noticed one of the other sleepers, Aurora
Lane (Jennifer Lawrence of the Hunger Games movies). Looking at
her and able to review her application videos, he is soon infatuated.
He is tempted to
awaken her. This is
our first dilemma.
Preston is clearly
aware of the
wrongfulness of
waking her, and
thus condemning
her, with himself, to a long, miserable life and ultimate death on
the Avalon. On the other hand, he also feels that the only alternative is
suicide. This is a case where wrongful action leads, not to a greater
good, but to something that is really only good for him -- which is
generally the motive already for less outlandish kinds of wrongful
action.

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Nevertheless, he is driven to wake her up, leading her to think that
she has been revived by the same kind of malfunction that awakened
him. Thus, her initial distress is no different than what was his at the
comprable moment. After getting over that, she and Preston actually
begin to enjoy each other, taking advantage of the enterainment
features of the spaceship. They fall in love, and things become fairly
hot and heavy. However, "Arthur" then inadvertently divulges that
she was not awakened by accident, but deliberately. Naturally, she is
furious, comes close to killing Preston, and then shuns his presence.

Meanwhile, more things begin to go wrong with the ship, a process

that seems improbably protracted given the nature of the damage,
about which they of course do not yet know. However, a crew
member is finally then awakened, played by Laurence Fishburne,
of The Matrix fame. He has access to the ship's computers, discovers
how bad things are, and gets some notion of what has
happened. Unfortunately, his hibernation pod has harmed
him in the course of his awakening, and he soon falls into a
fatal decline. At least he is able to pass on his command
authorizations, so Preston and Lane have a chance to
discover and repair the damage.

The two of them are thus thrown together by necessity, and

Fishburne, who knows what Preston has done, recommends some
sympathetic understanding to Lane. After desperate, melodramatic,
and perhaps improbable adventures, Preston and Lane are able to
discover and repair the damage to the ship, which neither of them
would have been able to do alone.

Thus we
arrive at the
final dilemma
of the
story. Preston
discovers that
he can put
Lane back
into hibernation using the diagnostic pod in the medical bay. There is
only one of these, so only one them can take advantage of it. Lane
must then decide whether to use this and continue with her former
plans, which were to witness the colonization effort and then return to
Earth, after 240 years, to report on it, or to stay with Preston and live
out a life on the Avalon. She chooses to stay. At the end of the movie,
all the crew and passengers awaken normally, to find that the couple,
long gone, made a life for themselves on the ship.
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Critics apparently didn't like the idea that the previews of the movie made it
look like both Pratt and Lawrence had been awakened accidentially. Of
course, divulging that they weren't would have given away a major plot
point. Previews often do that, but it is usually the sign of a bad movie.
Feeling deceived in this respect, reviewers then dismissed the end of the
movie as an example of the "Stockholm Syndrome," whereby kidnap
victims or hostages are deluded into identifying with their kidnappers.

However, Aurora Lane is not a kidnap victim, and she falls in

love with Jim Preston with the understanding that the two of
them are in the same circumstances for the same reasons. When
she learns better, her choices are limited by their very presence
on the ship. As Samuel Johnson said, being on a ship is like being
in prison, with the chance of drowning. In this case, with the
certainty of a future death, it turns out that an earlier death looms, thanks to
the meteorite damage to the ship. Thus, if Preston had not awakened Lane,
both of them would have died anyway, as the ship would soon explode. So
quite by accident, the wrongful action of Preston waking Lane becomes
fortunate, saving, regardless of their own fate, the entire rest of the crew and
passengers of the ship.

Now, a
fortunate

consequence that results, unintentionally, from a wrongful action, does not

excuse the wrongfulness of the action, but, in our understanding of
dilemmas, it does mitigate the evil of the action. At the same time, the
wrongful action of Preston is, at least, understandable, given the alternatives
of suicide or solitary insanity. This is the sympathetic construction that
Lawrence Fishburne recommends to Lane.

The final dilemma for Lane is also understandable without recourse to the
Stockholm Syndrome. The alternatives there are a brief experience of
"Homestead
II," with a return to
a completely
unfamiliar Earth,
against what seems
to be genuine love
for Preston, with a

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life in what actually are rather comfortable circumstances in the spaceship.
Since her real ambition is to write, the Avalon is as good a place to do that
as anywhere. And now she does have a dramatic story to tell, one that saves
the life of every person on board.

This kind of dilemma, of course, is not really a moral dilemma at all. It

involves weighing the value of two kinds of life, qualified only by the
original wrongfulness of Preston awakening Lane. But then, as we see, that
turned out to be fortunate for all.

The story of a large colony ship, headed for the stars, where something goes
wrong, has a long history in science fiction. I first encountered it through a
short-lived television series in 1973, called The Starlost, written by Harlan
Ellison. This was produced in Canada and syndicated on American
television. The Earthship Ark contains colonists who are not in hibernation
but are expected to live their lives and leave subsequent generations to arrive
at their stellar destination. However, the crew is dead from an accident, and
the passengers, in their own dedicated habitats, now have forgotten that they
are in a spaceship. The story is of some colonists who begin to explore the
ship and learn the facts of its nature and purpose.

I enjoyed the shows, but Ellison dissociated himself from it after some
disagreements, and it was cancelled after its initial run. The ship had a
computer system that responded to inquiries by asking, "May I be of
assistance?" It was never much assistance (like the computer system
in Passengers), but I still like using the line.

Later I discovered that Robert Heinlein had written stories about a very

similar ship. In 1941 he produced two novellas, "Universe" and "Common
Sense," which eventually were published together in 1963 as Orphans of the
Sky. Here the colony ship is the Vanguard, and again, after most of the crew
was killed in a mutiny, subsequent generations of passengers have forgotten
they are on a ship that is travelling through space to a colonial destination.
In this case, Heinlein has our protagonists escaping from the ship rather than
restoring it to its proper function and purpose.

Neither The Starlost nor Orphans of the Sky are built around the kinds of

dilemmas or choices that are central to Passengers. But the context is a
venerable science ficiton motif. In Passengers, we particularly wonder about
the naivety or incompetence of the designers and engineers of the spacecraft
-- they certainly have not read their science fiction -- and we might also
wonder about how enterprises function when round trips to colonies take
more than a couple of centuries. Previously, in the history of the Earth, even
much less than a century produces changes that can render the place all but
irrecognizeable.

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21. The Dilemma of Kingsman, not in Grassian. A dilemma comparable to the
dilemma of Abraham being ordered to sacrifice Isaac, part of the analysis of
"Rudolf Otto in Lenn E. Goodman's   Judaism, A Contemporary
Philosophical Investigation."

The recent movie Kingsman: The Secret Service [2015] is about a

private British spy or black operation organization, the "Kingsmen,"
whose HQ, James Bond fashion, is located underneath a Savile Row
men's clothing store. The protagonist of the story, Gary "Eggsy"
Unwin (played by Taron Egerton) is recruited into the organization;
and with several other recruits, he undergoes a period of training and
testing. Only one recruit will eventually be accepted.

As part of the training, each recruit is given a dog to raise and keep.
This might get the attention of World War II buffs, since the same
thing was done in the Nazi German SS (Schutzstaffel). At
"graduation," SS recruits were instructed to kill the dog. This also
turns out to be the final test with the Kingsmen, when "Eggsy" is
handed a gun by the head of the organization, known as "Arthur" (no
less than Michael Caine -- the code names are all King Arthur
characters) and instructed to shoot the dog. He refuses to do this, and
even briefly points the gun at "Arthur." So he is rejected from the
Kingsmen. Of course, it turns out that "Arthur" betrays the
organization, and "Eggsy" is brought back in by his own recruiter,
"Galahad" (Colin Firth), before "Galahad" is killed by the villain,
played by Samuel L. Jackson. "Arthur," falsely welcoming "Eggsy"
back, actually tries to poison him. "Eggsy," however, uses his street
smarts to switch the drinks, killing "Arthur."

The subsequent adventures of the movie do not concern us here. Instead, the
choice presented to "Eggsy"
displays a familiar
problem. Why do the
Kingsmen want recruits to
shoot their dog? As it happens,
the guns are loaded with
blanks, so the dogs aren't
actually killed. But the recruits
are expected to pull the trigger, which goes a little bit further than Abraham
needs to go. The knife doesn't actually touch Isaac's throat, after all.

The German SS, of course, wanted recruits to be without mercy, sentiment,

or affection. Killing something they had grown to love would be a way of
demonstrating this. But why would the Kingsmen want something like this
of their agents? After a fashion, they don't. Loading the guns with blanks

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 means that men like "Arthur" and "Galahad" don't really want the dogs
killed. But this is dishonest. They have passed the same test themselves,
which means they were indeed willing to kill their dogs. Now they can
congratulate themselves that the test was a fraud, that they weren't really
expected to kill their dogs. But this is a retrospective rationalization; and, as
it happens, were a recruit so cold blooded, or furious, as to hold the gun
right to their dog's head, even the blank would actually kill the animal --
from the force of the expelled gasses. No congratulations in that case.

So "Eggsy" is the one to emerge morally blameless (until, of course, he

takes advantage of the Swedish princess). More blameless than either
Abraham or God. He has not demanded the commission of a crime, and he
has not jerked anyone around by only pretending to demand it. But the
movie is perhaps too clever by half. "Eggsy" has not observed the firearms
safety rules in which he certainly would have been instructed. If you acquire
or are handed a weapon, you first of all check to see if it is loaded. And in
the business of a military or paramilitary organization, you also check to see
what the weapon is loaded with, since there is a variety of types of
ammunition, with different functions and purposes. If "Eggsy" found his gun
loaded with a blank, then he could happily and easily have taken the shot at
"Arthur," to no harmful effect (if he was not too close). Truly would serve
him right.

Although off topic for issues here of mortality, the slow pace of public works in
New York City is also evident in the story of the Second Avenue Subway project.
This was first proposed in 1929, at a time when the existing Second Avenue
elevated line was privately owned (the INT system). Although everyone believed
that public works spending would help unemployment in the Depression, as we
have seen above with Hoover Dam, work on New York's subway projects was
instead postponed. The whole Second Avenue project was delayed indefinitely in
1939.

All the subway system in New York City was taken away from private owners in
1940 -- in great measure because of scare stories that the private companies wanted
to raise the 5¢ fare (in 2018 it is now $2.75 -- a 55x increase, well in advance of
the general inflation rate) -- and the elevated Second Avenue line was demolished
between 1940 and 1942, apparently in anticipation of the existence of a Second
Avenue Subway, for which, however, there were no concurrent plans. Various
proposals popped up in the 40's, 50's, and 60's; but nothing was done about it.
Meanwhile, the Third Avenue elevated line was closed in 1955 and demolished in
1956, and subway traffic on the East Side of Manhattan was being handled by the
Lexington Avenue line alone -- eventually making it the most heavily traveled line
in the City. A Bond was passed in 1967 for the Second Avenue Subway, and
construction actually began in 1972. It was supposed to be completed by 1980. The
fiscal problems of the City of New York, however, resulted in all construction
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being stopped in 1975. After further muddles, proposals, and conflict, construction
finally began again in 2007. The first segment, up to 96th Street, was opened in
December 2016. This immediately helped crowded conditions on the Lexington
Avenue line. Promises are made about the extension of the line, which is indeed
under construction, while the existing segment doesn't go anywhere; but, as we
have seen, this is something to be believed only when it is seen.

At the same time, visitors to London or Tokyo over the last 30 years will have
noticed that new subway lines seem to get built with some regularity. The newest
lines in Tokyo are constructed at frightening depths, requiring long, long escalator
rides to get up and down. Boring machines in London thread their way precisely
between existing lines and stations, sometimes leaving only a few feet to spare. So
one might wonder: Why the contrast? Well, the story in New York is always
corruption, in great measure involving projects as sinecures for politically
connected labor unions. New Yorkers will have noticed construction workers often
standing around doing nothing -- or entirely absent from job sites, which stand
vacant at times when one might think industrious activity would be called for --
which evidently is how things are done, or not done.

And everything costs much, much more than it would anywhere else, increasing
the strain on public finances, which otherwise are needed for useless, white
elephant projects like the "Oculus" station in Lower Manhattan, which cost $4
billion for no evident benefit -- although it looks nice (Godzilla's rib cage), with a
cathedral-like, vast open space where one person has already fallen to her death off
the escalator. And the roof leaks. And then there is the actual corruption of
politicians, who grandstand on their "progressive" principles, even while they help
their friends and patrons, enjoying the full good life of the ruling class. And New
Yorkers vote for them, perhaps demonstrating the principle that people get the
government they deserve. Right now they deserve Bill de Blasio, as corrupt and
worthless a Mayor as New York has ever had, who also entertains the delusion that
anyone would ever want him for President.

People have run the numbers. Even in The New York Times, America's answer
to Pravda, where a reporter calculated that the Second Avenue Subway had cost
$2.6 billion per mile. Meanwhile, subway tunnels in Europe or Japan range
between $100 million and $1 billion per mile -- usually less than $500 million.
Even in the United States, the most expensive projects otherwise were $920 per
mile in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. In notoriously "socialist" Sweden,
three subway projects have ranged from only $150 million to $400 million per
mile. And the impression of workers doing nothing also seems accurate. It was
calculated that 200 out of 900 subway jobs in New York were unnecessary. The
answer of New York politicians to all this, of course, is to raise taxes.

On analogy with the Gibson and Pinnochio Scales, which rate general folly or

craziness and lying, respectively, here is a "Clinton Scale" for sexual misconduct.

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( ) This begins modestly, with Gennifer Flowers, who announced during the
1992 Presidential Campaign that Bill Clinton had conducted an extended sexual
affair with her. Clinton and his wife Hillary then went on national television to
deny what Flowers said. 

The Clinton Scale However, this was a lie.

In a later deposition in
Gennifer Flowers -- extra- the Paula Jones case,
marital affair Clinton admitted that
Flowers had told the
Monica Lewinsky -- truth. Thus, although
sexual encounter with there was nothing
White House Intern intrinsically wrongful
about Clinton having a sexual relationship with
Gennifer Flowers, it was adulterous, and it did
result in a blatant lie to the American people.
Paula Jones -- sexual
harrassment, exposed
himself ( ) The next level, named after Monica
Lewinsky, also involved a consensual relationship
with an adult. However, this was also adulterous,
and Monica Lewinsky was a young (twenty-ish)
White House intern. At least Clinton did not
coerce her into it, since Lewinsky had already told
Kathleen Willey --
friends that she was going to the White House
groping, sexual assault, with ambitions of seducing the President. That
mashing Clinton allowed her to do so, in a room right next
to the Oval Office, was shameful; but, as with
Gennifer Flowers, it became more serious when
Clinton denied, again, on national television, that
it had ever happened ("I did not have sexual
relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I
never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never.
These allegations are false"). But Monica had
saved her blue dress, stained with Clinton's
semen. Despite this evidence, the remarkable
Juanita Broaddrick -- rape claim was made by Clinton defenders that Clinton
had not lied because oral sex, which stained the
dress, is not sex. Polls were commissioned and
learned experts were all lined up to claim that oral
sex is not sex. Such a thing, of course, has never
been heard before or since, and all this proved
was the insincerity and dishonesty of Clinton
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apologists. But the Lewinsky affair might never have become public if it had not
gotten caught up in the Paula Jones case.

( ) The next level, named indeed after Paula Jones, ended up involving
legal issues. This began with a press report about how Clinton, as Governor, had
used Arkansas State Troopers to procure women for him. Jones realized that one of
the women mentioned in the story, from the details of the circumstances, was
actually her, and she went public to clarify that Clinton had not succeeded in
seducing her but had exposed himself and implied that what she did could affect
her job with the State. This sounded like sexual harrassment, and Clinton exposing
himself ("Just touch it"), apart from the impropriety (at least) of having
the police bring her to him, was both shameful and indecent. This was grounds for
a sexual harrassment lawsuit, which the Supreme Court allowed to go forward
against a sitting President. Details are given in the dilemma above. Eventually,
Clinton settled the lawsuit but was then disbarred for having delivered perjured
testimony. Again, the attendant circumstances of the case were revealing. A
Clinton apologist, James Carville, famously asserted that Paula Jones was the sort
of accuser that one could find by "dragging a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer
park" -- evidently relying on Jones's Southern accent to mark her as ignorant and
dishonest "white trash" -- despite Carville's own accent from his own proud Cajun
background. Carville even made personal attacks against the Special Prosecurtor,
Kenneth Starr -- something that even Richard Nixon and his defenders had never
done against prosecutors investigating him. It also came out that Hillary Clinton
had run a division of the 1992 Clinton campaign charged with suppressing "bimbo
eruptions," i.e. women, like Gennifer Flowers, who went public with stories of
Clinton's sexual affairs. Mrs. Clinton had called Monica Lewinsky a "stalker" and
mentally unstable -- until the evidence of the blue dress.

( ) The next level, named after Kathleen Willey, involved a

modest, perhaps, sexual assault. Willey, who already knew Clinton personally, had
gone to him looking for a job, since her husband had just committed suicide,
leaving her without means of support. Clinton, with his "I feel your pain"
sensitivity, decided to grope her instead. She rebuffed him, and he desisted; but she
does not seem to have gotten that job. Gloria Steinem actually excused Clinton's
boorish behavior just because he stopped when Willey said no. However, there are
overtones of sexual harrassment here, since Willey was looking for employment --
the groping may have been a "quid pro quo" job offer -- and at the very least, in the
old days, Clinton would have earned a good slap in the face, a response that seems
to have dropped out of the modern woman's defenses. It used to be that such a
man, who couldn't keep his hands to himself or made rude, suggestive comments,
was a "masher," warranting the slap. Feminists claim that traditional sex roles
made women passive; but that is not always what we see in old accounts, when
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some women, for instance Italians especially, thought that their virtue might be
worth their life.

( ) Finally, we get the case of Clinton simply raping Juanita

Broaddrick. She allowed him into her hotel room because he was the Attorney
General of Arkansas and because she was a Democrat campaign worker and
supporter. When she finally told her story, the Democrats and the Press almost
literally yawned about it -- despite telling us before and since that the mere
testimony of a sexual assault victim and "survivor" is enough to prove the
credibility, if not the veracity, of such an accusation. Broaddrick has said that
Democrat politicians have never been willing to give her the time of day.
Nevertheless, the Press and Democrat politicians and activists continue to voice
this principle ("Women don't lie") and yet also continue to ignore all of the
testimony, evidence, and admissions of sexual misconduct by Bill Clinton. And, of
course, the Clinton strategy was not just to discount or ignore accusers, but to
defame and smear them, often under the direction of Hillary Clinton. The open and
jarring hypocrisy of the Democrats in this really doesn't seem to even shame them,
and they mindlessly repeat their slogans with some sort of confidence that people
will not notice their inconsistency and dishonesty.

Source: https://www.friesian.com/valley/dilemmas.htm

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