Moral Education – More Dreadful Moral Dilemmas
By Dr Bill Robb

Moral education, by definition, has to confront people with difficult moral choices. The more difficult the choice, the more moral education forces people to draw on their own innate human wisdom on what is the right thing to do. We humans have become so used to relying on socio-religious-legal rules (which become morals) often without thinking. This is one reason why dreadful things have happened in the past (the Holocaust, for example).

Moral education aims to have people think about why something is good or bad and therefore help people do what is right even in rare instances when a religious rule or a law clearly hurts other people. In a previous article I gave four moral dilemmas. There are another four – perhaps even tougher ones – that can be used in a moral education class. 

Steal or die

Unfortunately, your aeroplane has crashed in the desert and only you and another mother have survived. You each have a baby of one-year old. Through sheer hard work and searching the other mother finds two oranges – just enough to keep her and her baby alive for two days until help arrives. If your baby does not get liquid soon he will die. Would you attempt to steal one of the oranges? If you were the mother with two oranges would you give one to the other mother, not knowing whether help will arrive tomorrow? 

Protecting others but risking injury

You see a young girl about to be raped at knifepoint. You have called the Police but it will take 30 minutes for them to reach you. The rapist is much bigger than you. Would you step in and try to fight off the rapist? 

Helping others but risking your life

Two drunk men are messing about in a rowing boat in the middle of a harbour. For the past 30 minutes or so people have been watching a Great White shark circling the harbour. One of  the men falls into the water and he can’t swim and his mate is too drunk to help him get back into the boat. There are no life buoys and the rescue services will take 30 minutes to get there. The man is drowning. You are a strong swimmer. Would you jump in to save the man? 

You are a resident in Germany during World War II. You are not Jewish. Two young Jewish children come to your door – they have escaped being rounded up and sent to certain death at a concentration camp. The penalty for hiding Jewish people is the death penalty. Would you hide them in your house? 

These terrible situations which we hope no human being has to face, bring home the ultimate human values. We know what we should do but the consequences of doing right are so serious we might decide not to be moral – and we have to live with that. When moral education includes discussions on these topics it puts into perspective the minor inconveniences we have to sometimes face when doing the right thing. 

It would be interesting in a moral education class to see if children of different ages could come up with other moral dilemmas and what heir answers would be. Have a read of the e-report, What is values education and so what? for greater insight into how a values education approach to moral education would help deal with moral dilemma discussions in a class. 

Dr Bill would be delighted to talk at your next conference or event and give more details on how moral education would be more effective if approached from a values education perspective. Contact him on bill@valueseducation.co.uk

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