In Justice by Michael Sandel chapter nine talks about the moral dilemmas of loyalty and that

every person belongs to specific type of group. In the first case the bulger brothers it is about two

brothers who grew up in a housing project. The youngest brother got a law degree while the

older was a high school dropout who committed crimes. Whitey the older brother became the

leader of the Winter Hill Gang and was placed on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. The

dilemma William the younger brother was faced with was to help the authorities find his brother

or keep his mouth shut. William has loyalty to his brother and dose not to help anyone who will

cause harm to him. He was asked “you felt more loyalty to your brother than you did to the

people of Massachusetts” and responded by saying “I do have loyalty to my brother …I hope

that I’m never helpful to anyone against him and I don’t have obligation to help anyone catch

him”[CITATION San09 \p 238 \y \l 1033 ]. I believe that William thinks he owes his brother because

Whitey might have gone through the criminal path in order to take care of his brother when no

one else did. He might have given up his opportunity to an education for his brother’s wellbeing.

Morally that is the right thing to do, but they didn’t have much support. The second case the

Unabomber it’s about two brothers a domestic terrorist and a social worker, both were educated.

David the social worker read the manifesto and figured out that the person behind the bombings

was his brother Ted. David contacted the FBI and agreed to help arrest him if they did seek death

penalty. Ted was not happy with his brother while David became a spokesman for an anti-

punishment group. David stated “brothers are supposed to protect each other”[CITATION San09 \p

240 \y \l 1033 ]. The dilemma that David was faced with was that he wanted to protect his

brother, but at the same time he wanted to do the right thing by turning him in. Both William and

David had a similar dilemma and chose handled the situation differently. For William family

came first and was loyal to his brother as of for David it was the opposite, he could not deal with
the fact that if another person dies due to his brothers actions it will be in his conscious. It is a

difficult decision to make when you turn someone in for committing a crime, but morally it’s the

right thing to do even if loyalty is a factor.