Roper wrote:

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Kohlberg's classic Heinz dilemma:

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should the husband have done that? Why or why not?

What if he didn't really love his wife?

What if it wasn't his wife, but an acquaintence?

What if it was a stranger?

- roper

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We did this back in college if I remember correctly and how you answer is supposed to indicate your level on a scale of where you are mentally or some such nonesense.  My answer then got me dinged but I stand by it as the best answer.  Heinz did the right thing by stealing the drug.  You cannot fault a man for stealing bread to stop someone from starving.  It really doesn't matter who it was.  That got me top points but then I fell off the chart by saying he should then turn himself in afterwards and subject himself to the punishment of the law.  This way both mercy and justice were served.  My college prof. told me that Heinz should not do that because he was justified in his actions.  I countered that for the good order of society he must turn himself in.  I was told my mental development wasn't mature enough yet.  That was probably over ten years ago.  I guess I'm still mentally challenged.

I think the answer depends upon what happens to the man who committed the crime.

If the man allows himself to be put in prison after he saves his wife's life, until he can pay recompense, then I would think his actions are justifiable.

I think the druggist demonstrates some culpability... but we'd probably get him in civil courts! ;) Heheh.

--Ray  

bokbadok wrote:

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I thought I posted on this thread, right after Jason's first post. What happened to it?

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Ya know, I hate these sort of discussions personally.    Not that they aren't interesting or thought provoking, but probably because I never had a philosophy class in my life and therefore am probably too idealistic to intelligently take part in these sort of discussions. 

The scenario is presented in such a way I see it much like an expirement in a closed system, like within a exothermic or endothermic reaction within a perfect foam cup or thermos in a vacuum chamber...

Clearly the philosophical model does not base itself on revealed truth.  What we as members of the church know is that regardless of whether the wife gets the medicine or not (be it obtained by legal purchase or by means of theft), the wife's life is ultimately in the hands of something outside the foam cup of this scenario... In other words, The Lord.  So, how does this knowledge affect how we react to the scenario?

I don't know that I would get a passing grade in a class based on what I would say.  We need to remember that the scenario says the drug may help the patient, but it does not promise to cure.  I would indicate that it is wrong for the man to steal the drug, because even if the wife lived, the end does not justify the means.  He must still answer to what he has done to the authority within as well as outside the foam cup.

The druggist who will not sell the drug unless his price / profit margin is met also will have to answer to the outside authority, and potentially the internal cup authority if the man feels the druggist failed to fulfil a duty to him and the patient.  Particuarly, if it can be shown the druggist's actions are truely without any sense of compassion and a case can be made that the druggist or the doctors implied a promise of cure existed by use of the drug.  There are actions the pharmacist could do that would accomodate both his need to make the $2000.00 and the need of the man to procure the medicine for his wife he loved / didn't love / relative / acquaintance / stranger.

The assumption is that the druggist / pharmacist can only accept $2000.00 cash on the barrel head before the transaction can occur.  The assumption is that there is either a limited market for the drug, or that the market demand is high and the supply of the medicine is low.  None of these assumptions are supported entirely by what is presented in the scenario.  Therefore, through these assumptions, the inference is that the druggist does not see long term benefit in promoting the use of his discovery by providing it free of charge or at cost in this instance to show how well it works, and thus increasing the demand and desireability of use of the drug, thus expanding his market and growing overall profit with increased incremental revenue.

The conditions put on the foam cup of this expirement are too artificial in my mind.

palmon wrote:

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Sigh... I don't understand the concept of a 'foam cup'.

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Sorry, I'm thinking back to a concept from high school chemistry class and labs where kids are taught that the ideal situation for an expirement where the goal is to show reaction with no influence from outside the "system" within which the reaction is occuring.  The reaction is purely from the contents of the system.  The perfect "containment field" (e.g. the foam cup or thermos bottle) prevents the transfer of heat or cold from outside the "system".  But, the reality is that even in those items (a foam cup or a thermos bottle), there will be some influence on the reaction of the contents of the system (if nothing more than some heat transfer), because the system includes the item that is being used to isolate it from the rest of the universe.  And the point here is that the vessel that is being used to isolate the "system" from the rest of the universe is in turn being influenced by the environment it is in.  And so on and so on.

Does that help? 

palmon wrote:

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Here's what it seems you are saying: if there is a choice between a person who has means to pay for a drug and a poor person - the poor person should be given the drug, because he is poor. Oh, that's right - you didn't say give it to the poor, but that the poor should steal it.

Who has means: 1. Someone unreasonably rich 2. Someone who works hard and saved for a rainy day. 3. Someone that chose employment that gives access to insurance.
Who doesn't: 1. Someone who has never worked 2. Someone surviving on the lower end of employment 3. Someone down on their luck 3. someone in the middle class and squeezed out of insurance

Who has greater right or need of the medicine? Should the poorer steal what they need? Should it be given to the poor just because they are poor? Should the person that prepared for the emergencies be allowed to keep it?

It almost sounds like the same dilemma and arguments about national disasters and food storage. The arguments I've heard there are that those that prepared have the right to fight off, by lethal means, those that haven't. I'm just guessing, but isn't that where you stand on that issue?

Your assumption that the price means there is a demand and that someone else will necessarily die if it is stolen to save a life is flawed.

I don't think it is flawed. It's basic economics. Products are valued at what the demand will pay. If there is no one that will buy the product at $2000, the price will fall to where the demand will pay. Since he IS selling it at $2000, it implies the market is there.

-- Edited by palmon at 15:53, 2006-11-21

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Huh?  Dude, no offense but your logic is way out of my league on this one.  We are not talking an X-Box or PS3 here.  The price of the drug is really not the issue.  If it were $200, $2000, or $20,000 it doesn't matter.  The framework of the dilema never states that the drug is limited or one of a kind.  $2000 may not be much to one person but may seem like 20 million to another person.  In this dilema the price is irrelevant.  The supply and demand factor cannot be determined based on the scenario.  We do know that it costs $200 to make the drug as the creator is charging 10 times what it cost to make it.  It doesn't say why and actually that point is not important for the decision.  If the druggist was selling it for $50 and the man couldn't afford it then he still cannot afford it.  The framework of the dilemma also does not say anything about others demanding the drug.  We cannot assume that anyone else in the entire world needs the drug based on the information given.  This is why your supply vs demand argument in this scenario is flawed because the constructs do not specify.  In this situation where you have a Monopoly there is no pressure on the seller to adjust price anyway.  He doesn't have to because there is no competition and demand is fixed by a necessity not a want for the latest gadget.  But that is immaterial anyway.

The basic question is this:  If you know someone is dieing and there is a means of stopping it do you feel that there is an obligation on your part to do so even if the only way to do so would be to steal.  Your answer if I am understanding this correctly is that stealing is always wrong and Heinz should not steal the drug to save his wife, neighbor, or stranger.  If you go to http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm you can understand Kohlburg's moral reasoning scale and where you would fall under it.  I believe your view falls under stage 4:

"Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order. Stage 3 reasoning works best in two-person relationships with family members or close friends, where one can make a real effort to get to know the other's feelings and needs and try to help. At stage 4, in contrast, the respondent becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole. Now the emphasis is on obeying laws, respecting authority, and performing one's duties so that the social order is maintained. In response to the Heinz story, many subjects say they understand that Heinz's motives were good, but they cannot condone the theft. What would happen if we all started breaking the laws whenever we felt we had a good reason? The result would be chaos; society couldn't function. As one subject explained,

I don't want to sound like Spiro Agnew, law and order and wave the flag, but if everybody did as he wanted to do, set up his own beliefs as to right and wrong, then I think you would have chaos. The only thing I think we have in civilization nowadays is some sort of legal structure which people are sort of bound to follow. [Society needs] a centralizing framework. (Gibbs et al., 1983, pp. 140-41)

Because stage 4, subjects make moral decisions from the perspective of society as a whole, they think from a full-fledged member-of-society perspective (Colby and Kohlberg, 1983, p. 27).

You will recall that stage 1 children also generally oppose stealing because it breaks the law. Superficially, stage 1 and stage 4 subjects are giving the same response, so we see here why Kohlberg insists that we must probe into the reasoning behind the overt response. Stage 1 children say, "It's wrong to steal" and "It's against the law," but they cannot elaborate any further, except to say that stealing can get a person jailed. Stage 4 respondents, in contrast, have a conception of the function of laws for society as a whole--a conception which far exceeds the grasp of the younger child."

From your response I would say you are in this stage and possibly moving to stage five.  I would characterize my response as a strong stage 5 or stage 6 under this scenario.

"Stage 6: Universal Principles. Stage 5 respondents are working toward a conception of the good society. They suggest that we need to (a) protect certain individual rights and (b) settle disputes through democratic processes. However, democratic processes alone do not always result in outcomes that we intuitively sense are just. A majority, for example, may vote for a law that hinders a minority. Thus, Kohlberg believes that there must be a higher stage--stage 6--which defines the principles by which we achieve justice.

Kohlberg's conception of justice follows that of the philosophers Kant and Rawls, as well as great moral leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. According to these people, the principles of justice require us to treat the claims of all parties in an impartial manner, respecting the basic dignity, of all people as individuals. The principles of justice are therefore universal; they apply to all. Thus, for example, we would not vote for a law that aids some people but hurts others. The principles of justice guide us toward decisions based on an equal respect for all.

In actual practice, Kohlberg says, we can reach just decisions by looking at a situation through one another's eyes. In the Heinz dilemma, this would mean that all parties--the druggist, Heinz, and his wife--take the roles of the others. To do this in an impartial manner, people can assume a "veil of ignorance" (Rawls, 1971), acting as if they do not know which role they will eventually occupy. If the druggist did this, even he would recognize that life must take priority over property; for he wouldn't want to risk finding himself in the wife's shoes with property valued over life. Thus, they would all agree that the wife must be saved--this would be the fair solution. Such a solution, we must note, requires not only impartiality, but the principle that everyone is given full and equal respect. If the wife were considered of less value than the others, a just solution could not be reached."

"Theoretically, one issue that distinguishes stage 5 from stage 6 is civil disobedience. Stage 5 would be more hesitant to endorse civil disobedience because of its commitment to the social contract and to changing laws through democratic agreements. Only when an individual right is clearly at stake does violating the law seem justified. At stage 6, in contrast, a commitment to justice makes the rationale for civil disobedience stronger and broader. Martin Luther King, for example, argued that laws are only valid insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. King also recognized, of course, the general need for laws and democratic processes (stages 4 and 5), and he was therefore willing to accept the penalities for his actions. Nevertheless, he believed that the higher principle of justice required civil disobedience (Kohlberg, 198 1, p. 43)."

 

I believe that the law in this case is unjust and like Dr. King I believe that the higher principle of justice requires civil disobedience.  In this case stealing the drug.  It is my supposition that it would be immoral to not steal the drug based on the variables presented.  There is no supply vs demand component to this other than the one you added to the scenario.  Also, I am not going to make moral judgements based on simple supply vs demand.  Obviously we have a certain obligation to protect our families.  In a situation of a natural dissaster acts such as price gouging, rackateering, piracy, hording take place.  Would it then not be ethical to use the threat of arms to stop such action?  It would not be ethical to steal from someone who only had enough for themselves or their family just as it would not be ethical or morally right to hold back more than you needed from someone who was in need in a time of dissaster.  In the Heinz dilema one could make the argument that it would be wrong of Heinz to steal the drug if it was already intended for someone else's use such as the inventor, his family, his neighbor, or someone else in the world but the scenario never says this.  The drug is there, it is not currently being used nor does the scenario say it is intended for someone else.  Just because one person can afford it and one cannot should have no bearing.

Ropey... I wanna know what you thought of my response... :)

--Ray

rayb wrote:

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Ropey... I wanna know what you thought of my response... :)

--Ray

I think the answer depends upon what happens to the man who committed the crime.

If the man allows himself to be put in prison after he saves his wife's life, until he can pay recompense, then I would think his actions are justifiable.

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Hmmm...on the surface, this seems to be based on "the ends justify the means" type of reasoning--actions can only be determined morally right or wrong by virtue of the morality of the outcome.  That works from a third-person past-tense perspective--the perspective of a judge, for instance.

The agent making the decision may not have that perspective, and therefore choose based on factors immediately apparent.

Naaah.  We discussed Kohlberg's theories in one of my graduate courses as part of a unit on moral development in children.  On this forum, I might appear to be fairly liberal on some issues.  In my classes, I'm usually the only conservative voice.  I just wanted to get some perspectives on moral reasoning that are grounded in the same beliefs I have.

Sister Roper once had a pet rat named Guinevere.  I suppose you could be Lancelot, if you really wanted to