This is adapted from Martin Cohen’s 101 Philosophy Problems:
A professor (of philosophy—what else?) is sitting in his office reading Aristotle. But when he looks up from his book and sees the time, he exclaims, “Oh no! I’m going to be late for class!” He runs out the door. As he hurries across campus, he stops because he hears a whining sound coming from somewhere.
The professor follows the sound and realizes that there is a puppy in the middle of the campus pond—so he wades into the water and saves it. Then he goes back to his office, changes his clothes (he keeps spares for just such an occasion) and then runs back to his classroom.
Naturally, his students are very irritated. But the professor explains what happened and all the students change their tunes. “It was a real exercise in applied ethics,” says the professor. “Did I do the right thing?” Everyone laughs, says, “Of course,” and the class begins (although far past its planned starting time).
Next week, on his way to the same class, the professor sees the same dog—again it’s stuck in the pond and, again, the professor wades in to save it. He is late for class (again), but this time the students are not so understanding. Half of them say that the dog should have been left to its own devices (especially in light of what the students are paying for tuition).
The following week—you guessed it—there’s the dog again, whining and distressed, struggling to get out of the pond. “Oh no,” says the professor. “I can’t be late again!” He leaves the dog whimpering and reports the situation to a custodian before beginning his class. He tells his students what happened, who largely agree that the risk to the dog is outweighed by the certain knowledge of the inconvenience (and financial waste) that the professor’s tardiness is causing them. “And this,” says the professor, “is exactly what ethical decision-making is all about.”
Alas—by the time the custodian reaches the pond, the dog has drowned.
Was there a flaw in the professor and the class’s reasoning—or is the dog just plain unlucky? Try to examine the core of the ethical situation at hand.
5 comments:
The Professor and the class’s reasoning for not saving the dog the third week is reasonable but could also have handled it differently and probably saved the dog. The professor should have told the custodian quickly after the second incident and explained his situation so that the custodian would have a better understanding of what was actually happening and the urgency of it. If the professor did this, the custodian would have gotten to the dog quicker and most likely saved its life while allowing the professor to get out of class on time. Another way the professor and his class could have handled this was to find out the correct owner of the dog, find an owner or return it to a safe place on campus. This would have ensured the safety of the dog and wouldn’t have angered the students since the professor would be on time. Despite this, their reasoning is reasonable because the students are paying to be at that class so if the professor keeps arriving late to the class they are wasting money. The professor would also earn a bad reputation as someone who arrives late constantly and he would also look like a bad teacher if they kept falling behind each class. Overall, the professor and student’s reasoning for not saving the dog wasn’t too flawed and the dog was unlucky that he kept going into the pond and that the custodian was late.
The professor's action isn't directly flawed however there could have been other ways to handle the situation.To begin with, just like Matthew's point, the professor could have given a explanation of the situation and explain the urgency. However there is some fault on the dogs end as well. After multiple times of being in a lake and having almost died multiple times, the dog should have realized that maybe doing whatever the dog was doing to get stuck in the lake in the first place was not a bright idea at all. Also maybe after the first time the dog was rescued, the professor could have let the custodians know that a dog was stuck in a lake so at least they can be aware that the situation has been happening so that way when the professor called the custodians again they will already know where to go and what the situation is exactly since there is already a report of the incident. There is fault on the custodian as well since he was late to rescue the dog in the first place. When someone says that there is a dog in a lake and he needs help, there should be a sense of somewhat emergency for the dog. The custodian should have been quicker to the scene or have gotten someone who was closer in the area if the custodian was too far away. Overall, the professor did the best he could so his students will not be upset he was late again and the dog was unlucky that he didnt get saved again.
I do not think there was a flaw in the professor and the class’s reasoning. There certainly is a point in which helping college students outweighs trying to save a dog. Or at least once he realizes leaving a dog unattended leads to the same thing happening next week (and therefore he is not really saving the dog). “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. A different approach was needed or it would have kept happening. If I were the professor I would have brought the dog with me to class so I both save the dog and show the class I’m not making stuff up.
Although the dog died, risk analysis is about chance and is not supposed to predict stuff with complete accuracy. There was a 100% chance that the students would be angry if the professor was late, but there appeared to be a low chance that the dog would die after he called someone else to do the job (Obviously in hindsight there’s a 100% chance that something that has happened will have happened). Multiply probability by the impact for the expected risk.
First time:
Impact(be late) = 25*100 + 100 = 2600 (25 is guessed number of students, 100=reputation loss for professor)
Impact(don’t save) = 10000 + 2*3000 = 16000 (dog death = 10000, approx 2 owners = 3000 each)
Last (3rd) time:
Impact(be late) = 20*500 + 1000 = 11000 (20 is guessed number of students (I lowered this for arguments sake / students losing faith but not mean enough to report him), 1000=job loss for professor (not a selfish thing, how can he teach philosophy if he is jobless?))
Impact(don’t save) = 9000 (dog itself=9000 (lowered because the dog is probably used to pain at this point), and dog is probably being neglected so 0 owners)
Since I chose negative impact, bigger number means worse impact and it is the one that should be acted upon. We don’t even have to multiply by the perceived probability to see what’s more important, but the 1st time it was justified trying to save the dog, while the 3rd time it was justified to call someone for help and go to class.
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