Moral Stories

Story 41

You are part of a shipyard dock team that attaches crane cables to containers to unload the cargo ships. You and the others have just attached cables to a container and are now climbing on top of it to make sure it is unloaded properly. Suddenly the red warning light flashes indicating that the crane cable is about to fail. You see that the reason for this is a fight between two crewmembers. The container is swinging dangerously over five other crewmembers on the deck.

Question

Do you stop the swinging of the container by pushing your colleagues, which will cause the one without safety harness to fall down, so the container won't collapse onto the five crewmembers on the deck?

Majority Answer: Yes

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.60 P(No): 0.40

Is Ambiguous: True

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Beneficiary: Other-beneficial

Causal Role: Side Effect

Evitability: Avoidable

Personal Force: Personal