Making the right decision is not always the most popular option
Last week’s “Quick, decide!” was an eye-opener in more than one ways. The flood of so many interesting well-thought-out responses was overwhelming; so much so, that we had to refer them to a clinical psychologists to get a macro-view of them respondents. 
(See “Accept the guilt’ below)
Most people chose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. I thought the same way initially, because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was a rational decision most people would make, morally & emotionally.
But, have you ever considered that the child on the disused track had, in fact, made the right decision to play at a safe place? Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.
This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority has often been sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how far sighted and knowledgeable the minority.
The great critic Leo Velski Julian, who originally posed this question, said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the children on the operational track should have known very well that the track was still in use, and should have run away if they heard the train’s sirens. (An ideal alternative suggested was to grab the attention of these playing children while manning the track-changer)
Julian pointed out that the other track was not in use probably because it was unsafe. If the train was diverted to this track, it could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake. And the attempt to save a few children by sacrificing one child, could end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.
Next week we move further into the realm of decision-making.
The two ethical dilemmas posed in Open Mind last week...
DILEMMA 1
A group of children is playing near two railway tracks, one still in use, the other disused. Only one child is playing on the disused track, the rest on the used one.
Suddenly you see a train coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would mean the one child playing by the disused track may die. Are you ready for that... or would you rather let the train go its way?
DILEMMA 2
This one was posed by Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) a well-known theorist in the field of moral development.
Scenario 1
A woman is suffering from a unique kind of cancer. There is a drug that might save her but it costs $4,000 per dose. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, goes to everyone he knows to borrow the money and tries every legal means to do so, but he can collect about $2,000. He asks the scientist who discovered the drug for a discount or let him pay later. But the scientist refuses.
Dilemma: Should Heinz break into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Scenario 2
Heinz breaks into the laboratory and steals the drug. The next day, the newspapers report the break-in and theft. Brown, a police officer and a friend of Heinz remembers seeing Heinz the earlier evening near the laboratory and later that night, running away from the laboratory.
Dilemma: Should Brown report what he saw? Why or why not?
Scenario 3
Officer Brown reports what he saw. Heinz is arrested and brought to court. If convicted, he faces up to two years in jail. Heinz is found guilty.
Dilemma: Should the judge sentence Heinz to prison? Why or why not?
What kind decisions would you take in Dilemmas 1 and 2?
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Thought for the Week
“There is no dilemma compared with that of the deep-sea diver Thought for the Week
who hears the message from the ship above,
“Come up at once. We are sinking.”
Robert Cooper
(British Diplomat)
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Accept the guilt
(GUEST ARTICLE) 
analyses readers’ responses to the two dilemmas posed in last week’s Open Mind
A favourite line that I often say to my patients is, “A decision can never be wrong”. Any decision made by an individual in a given situation is a product of their intelligence, personality, past experience with a similar situation, their moral environment, socio-cultural influences and various other factors, at that point. Within their capacities then, they make the best decision available to him. It is only in hindsight that decisions appear wrong and inadequate, when initially unrevealed factors or undesired consequences come to the fore.
So none of your responses can be called ‘wrong’.
Hence, the attempt here is not to analyse the personalities of those who responded but to analyse the responses themselves and the important and broader factors leading to them.
One of the main factors, when making decisions, is identification. Broadly speaking, identification can be explained as ‘that aspect of the decision-making situation that an individual feels mostly deeply connected or concerned with’. This aspect, with which the individual identifies, will then shape his or her decision.
For instance, in Dilemma 1, responses like: ‘It is worse to have many children killed than to have one killed’, ‘the needs of many outweigh the needs of few’ clearly indicate that the aspect that concerns the person most is the loss of a larger number of children and more families suffering.
Responses like: ‘I would not like to punish the single kid for doing the right thing by playing on the unused track,’ involve identification with the single child who did no wrong. The situation is seen from his perspective.
Dilemma 2 saw three basic kinds of responses. In the first, the identification was with Heinz throughout the three scenarios. The story was seen from Heinz perspective and with feeling and concern for him. The responses were: he should steal; the police officer should not report the crime and the judge should not pass a strict sentence.
In the second kind, the identification was with the law — that it could not be manipulated for individual needs. Obviously the decisions were: Heinz shouldn’t steal, the officer should report him and the judge should pass the required sentence.
The third set was perhaps the most interesting; in each scenario they identified with the person then in control. In Scenario 1, the situation was viewed from Heinz’s perspective, in the second from the officer’s and the third, from the judge’s. So the most common response was: Heinz should steal since he had little option left; the officer should report him as he was duty bound to; and the judge should forgive Heinz or give him a minimum sentence on humanitarian grounds.
One important factor is the ‘locus of control’, which can be understood in terms of a continuum. At one end is an internal locus of control, where individuals believe they have the control to effect a change and are driven to action. At the other end is an external locus of control, where they believe they have little control over a situation and are, as a result, driven to less action. Most people do not have a completely external or internal locus of control but may tend towards one side or another.
In Dilemma 1, those choosing the option of changing of track are, generally speaking, displaying an internal locus of control — they believe their actions will make a difference and are disposed to act.
Those unwilling to change the track may be disposed to taking control in other situations but in this particular one, are functioning from an external locus of control. They would like to let fate take its course, or hope that the children on the used track will run off and be saved anyway.
So too, in Dilemma 2 those who believe Heinz should wait for destiny to unfold or supernatural powers to heal are functioning from an external locus of control. Here, other factors in the environment are seen as more capable of controlling the situation than oneself.
Upbringing and culture-specific factors play a role here and a strong belief in fate, destiny, or a supernatural power can clearly affect an individual’s locus of control.
Guilt, another important factor, is associated with the undesirable consequences of a decision; it is that uneasy feeling that makes one feel responsible for what has gone wrong and leads to regret — which as Kahlil Gibran says, is “the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement”. Guilt is not an easy feeling to wriggle out of and what we often do to alleviate it is rationalise our decisions so strongly that there isn’t space for guilt to creep in.
For instance, in Dilemma 1 those who felt the single child on the unused track should not be punished alleviated the guilt of being responsible for the deaths of many children by putting the situation into a right vs wrong moral frame and supporting the right. In Dilemma 2 those who felt Heinz should steal, came up with reasons like, ‘He had no other option’ or that saving a life was superior to the law. This kind of rationalisation is often overused to justify a decision one has made and important aspects of the actual picture are overlooked, because they do not fit into this guilt-free decision.
A take-home here is that when taking decisions, if you deliberately attempt to identify with other aspects of the situation that concern you less, a clearer picture will emerge.
Ultimately, it is more important to make informed, clearer decisions, accepting the guilt that they bring along as inevitable, rather than making less informed, guilt-free ones.
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First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times
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