Law And Morality

Law and Morality

It is not an everyday occurrence that someone must decide the fate of another's
life. The dilemma of making a decision that someone must die in order for the
others to survive, can obviously be troubling. The process in which the
termination of one's life may be easy to make, but to justify that decision is
the most difficult one. This paper is given a situation in which a decision of
taking one's life is essential. The situation is that a nuclear war has occurred,
which has destroyed most of the centres of civilization. There are five people
that are that have escaped death by finding their way to a nuclear bunker. These
five people consist of a pregnant woman; an old man, who is a retired judge; two
teenagers - a fourteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl; and a young and
healthy woman who is a doctor. They all have been there for fifteen days and
they must remain there for an additional fifteen days before they can be rescued.
The problem is that although there are five of them in the bunker, there is only
enough food for four people to survive for the remaining fifteen days. Rationing
the food will not be of any use, because all will die with such a plan. The only
way for most of the survivors to live for the next fifteen days is for one to
die. Somehow they have contacted an outside source to advise them on the
questions of "Who shall die?", and "How should the decision of choosing the
person be carried out?" These are all very difficult question...

Law And Morality

Login

Join