GECETH-18 - ETHICS

Second Semester 2021 – 2022

Dr. Ronnie Bouing
Section: 3AR – 1

ASSIGNMENT 1

Joson, Joshua C.
 Ethical Dilemmas, To Choose or Not To Choose

We face complex ethical dilemmas throughout our lives, therefore we propose a laboratory

experiment to explain what a dilemma is. Imagine an autonomous car driving down the road and

the breaks fail and it must choose between running over five pedestrians crossing or changing lanes

and crashing head-on into a car with two passengers. You, the expert who has to decide how the

autonomous car should act in that situation. What would you do? You are faced with an ethical

dilemma that is a situation in which you have to make a difficult decision in which there are only

two options. Both alternatives cause irreparable harm are mutually exclusive and are equally

defensible and reprehensible. Making a decision is complex because no solution is without its

weaknesses. If a dilemma is an ethical one, any solution contained an element of injustice. What

do you do when faced with an ethical dilemma?

In order to identify the most ethically sound option, there are different criteria proposed in

situations like this such as the “Utilitarian ethics” which states that there should be little harm as

possible. Hitting neither of the choices you decide would cause to harm to anyone or further

problems because you decided for yourself to do no harm under this course of action.

Deciding on not harming anyone but only keep moving forward would not only keep the vehicle

running as a fast rate but it will only prolong the dilemma that you will have to face and for the

people you will involve in it too. Instead, it would be more likely to crash head-onto another

vehicle because this would harm less people apart from the five people crossing. Most would say

that this would be the most ethically sound conclusion in this situation, However this would still
harm people using them as a blockade to solve your dilemma is unethically right unless an

alternative arises in this difficult decision making.

Another way is that the vehicle could crash to the hard shoulder of the car so that only that one

passenger could be harmed. As soon as the vehicle crashes to the side of the car this could slow

down the moment the vehicle has accumulated until it stops or pinned. However, people may tend

to react differently in the same situations by considering the “human errors” this scenario would

have not gone as expected in the first place.

Finally, causing lesser harm for the better good of the life of the driver having a dilemma and for

the passengers in the car that has crashed onto. The other five people would be crossing the road

safely with no harm prevented by the fact the vehicle had crashed rather to the side of the car to

minimize any harm. This way the problems may only cause financially and less complicated

medical attention required for each person inside the car compared to possibility to lose five lives

of innocent people crossing.

References

NA. 2021. What is an Ethical Dilemma? [Universidad de Gusto]. Retrieved from: What is an ethical

dilemma? - YouTube

E. Moss. 2019. The Ethical Dilemma at the Heart of Big Tech Companies. [hbr.org]. Retireved

from: The Ethical Dilemma at the Heart of Big Tech Companies (hbr.org)