Karen C.

Mercado
CG 196

Post conventional morality

 Stage Description
 Social contract and human rights
Examples of moral reasoning favouring Heinz's theft.
- the theft is justified because the law is not set up to deal with the circumtances in which
obeying it would a human life.
- It is not reasonable to say that stealing is wrong because the law should not allow the druggist
to deny someone access to a life saving treatment.
 Examples of moral reasoning opposing Heinz's Theft.
-You can't really blame him for stealing the drug but such extreme circumtances do not justify a
person taking the law into their own hands.
-He should'nt steal the drug because eventually he would pay the price of loss of self respect for
disregarding the rules of society.
 Universal Ethics principles
-He must steal the drug because when a choice must be made between disobeying a law and
saving a life one must act in accordance with the higher principle of preserving and respecting
life.
-He is justified in stealing the drug because if he had failed in this action to save his wife he would
not have lived up to his own standards of conscience.
- He must consider the other principle who need the drug just as much as his wife. By stealing the
drug he would be acting in accordance with his own particular feelings with utter disregard for
value of all the lives involved.
-He should not steal the drug because through he would probably not be blamed by others,he
would have to deal with his own self condemnation because he did not live up to his own
conscience and standards of honesty.