Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This week I watched an excellent movie called “The Imitation Game,” which was full of ethical dilemmas!  This movie showed how a team of mathematicians and cryptographers worked together to build the first digital computer in order to break the German’s “Enigma” code during World War II.  To begin with, the team involved with the code had to lie to everyone around them regarding what it was they were working on; they had to lie because otherwise it could have compromised the mission if word had gotten out regarding the progress of cracking the code.  I think that the most significant ethical dilemma in this movie, though, occurred after the code had been broken.  The team made the decision to not prevent an attack from occurring because it would have allowed the Nazis to know that the code had been broken, in which case they would have been able to change it.  One of the teammates had a brother who was going to be killed in the upcoming attack.  The team could have prevented it, though, if they had blown the whistle; however, they were in between a rock and a hard place because this would have blown their cover and could have wasted their years of work to prevent one attack, as opposed to utilizing the information they had gained to slowly but surely win the war without making it obvious how they were obtaining their information.  The young man whose brother was going to be killed in the attack was angry that his teammates did not want to prevent this attack that they very well could prevent.   I believe that he was speaking from emotion, though, as opposed to reason.  As tough of a decision as it would have been, I think that the team made the right call, even though people had to die in the process.  One of the teammates questioned whose right it was to play God and to determine who gets to live and who dies, and this posed a great question; should we ever have that capability to decide which person has to die so that other people may live?  What if it is for the greater good, like it was in this scenario?  Where does one draw the line?  I believe that this poses an ethical dilemma, for sure, because there is no “easy” answer here.

If you have not seen the movie I am referring to, here is the trailer:

In my Ethics in Public Administration course this week, the focus shifted from individual-centered ethical approaches to institutional ethical approaches.  Interestingly enough, though, the same ethics triad that was applied to the individual’s decision-making process last week can also be applied to an organizational approach to ethics (if you did not have a chance to read my blog post from last week, I thoroughly explained this triad there).  Between oaths, creeds, value statements, codes of ethics, and much more, ethical standards are a fundamental component of organizations, whether people realize it or not.  Unfortunately, though, it does not take much to hurt an organization’s reputation because “bad news” tends to spread much quicker than “good news” does.

In a group project this week, my group analyzed the movie “Minority Report” and discussed the ethical dilemmas that arose throughout the movie.  While there were many ethical dilemmas to choose from, the one that stood out the most to me was the notion of giving up the freedoms of a few to benefit the greater majority.  I think that this becomes a “gray area” pretty quickly because it is difficult to determine where exactly the line should be drawn.  Some of my classmates mentioned the events that happened on September 11^th, and how basic freedoms have changed from that specific date.  While security has definitely tightened in many areas, I feel that it has been in the best interest of the American people; therefore, I am not opposed to the changes.  I would be interested to hear what you think about this, though!

Another movie I watched this week was called “Jupiter Ascending,” and the main character, Jupiter, faced a monumental ethical dilemma when she was faced with the decision to either save herself and her family or to save the people on planet Earth.  Ever since I start taking this course on ethics, I have started to notice that ethical dilemmas are seemingly everywhere.  I find it interesting to be able to watch how people make their decisions now, based on thinking back to the ethics triad that I read about in my textbook.  In many cases, it appears as though people do not think about their decisions based on anything other than the immediate emotional response, which can oftentimes lead people to the “wrong” decision.  Throughout this course, I have learned that people need to take time to think about ethical decisions, and refrain from making “snap” judgments.  If you find that you are faced with an ethical issue or ethical dilemma, I would encourage you to take some time to figure out what is the best answer for you and to make sure that you consider multiple aspects, as opposed to just a singular one.  Thank you for visiting my blog!