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.
12 comments:
This situation reminds me of the phrase, “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.” If the dog cannot learn to stay away from the pool it is not the professor’s responsibility to save it. Where is the owner of this dog? If the dog continues to escape, why aren’t they doing something about this problem? Although it is morally right to save the dog, the rescues continue to become more and more inconvenient for the professor. If the professor knew he had to save the dog each day, he should have left earlier to ensure that he arrived on time. Despite this, the professor’s plan appears to be rational. There are other people to save the dog. If the professor is continuously late for class because of the rescues, then he cannot save the dog every day and other people must take the burden of responsibility upon themselves. If all people had morals, then they might see the struggling dog and save it instead. Of course, the professor’s plan has flaws, mainly because the dog dies and he did not help it, but it was not his responsibility in the first place, so his rescue was due to compassion. No plan can be perfect because most plans involve ethics and making the right decision. Even though the dog dies, the professor is being paid to teach classes, not save dogs, so he made the right choice is alerting a custodian to deal with the problem and continuing on to his class.
The flaw is in the Professor and his students, if the students cared more about the puppy and less about the money, the puppy would not have died that day. They saw that since there professor was late that it didnt benefit them and was costing them money. They didn't learn from the situation, like they could have. Instead of getting frustrated with the teachers lateness, they should have looked deeper into it. Why did this puppy end up in the pond twice in a row? how did it get in there?
And the professor wasn't considering these matters either, you're a philosophy teacher, how do you teach or instruct others to think deeper and to understand what can't be understood. He let his morals get influenced by the morals or lack there of his students. Even if he told the janitor about the dog thats extra minutes that he could have used to rescue the dog and save his life. ALso if getting to class was so important, was the change of clothes really needed. you save an animals life and you have other duties, dont change go straight to work. Therefore making it the professors at fault because it wasn't truly rescuing the dog that made him late it was the fact that he had to change his clothes, so what he would have to go to class with wet pants and socks and squishy water filled shoes. He saved the dog and he'd arrive on time, he was teaching a class not impressing a lady friend. The dog could have been unlucky but the professor was definately flawed.
The flaw is in the teacher and the class’ reasoning. Years of scientific research has proved that humans are the most logical and reason-minded beings on the planet. Dogs are not men; they are man’s best friend. The professor’s approach to the problem was all wrong. I like to look at the old adage about a man and a fish. If a man is given a fish, he will eat for one day, but if he’s taught how to fish, he will never be hungry again. As already established, the dog is NOT a man but it seems to apply to this situation.
Yes, the professor should’ve saved the dog on the first day, and the attitude was correct. The second day as well, the professor should’ve saved the dog. If he realized that it was the same dog, shouldn’t the professor have done something to prevent him from falling again. If the professor truly cared about the dog, he would’ve had a fence built around the pond to prevent the dog from ever jumping again. I believe the professor was looking at the situation from a pure self-consequential perspective, like we talked of Aristotle in class on Friday (subtle hint mentioning that the professor was reading philosophy), because he would’ve felt guilty if he had let the dog drown.
The students were all wrong too. They considered the situation from a selfish, consequential view like the professor. They felt that the money that they have spent should be better spent through getting their money’s worth instead of tackling an ethical dilemma head on. The students shouldn’t even be LEARNING philosophy if the goal isn’t to become a free intellect. They were too selfish and not adapting to circumstances.
BAD STUDENTS & BAD PROFESSOR.
R.I.P. BELOVED POND DOG.
This is a very interesting story. Not just because it has a dog that is drowning but also because it has a professor that keeps back up clothes in his office. I think that the class and the professor are right in what they were thinking but again, I come back to the professor being wrong because even from the first day he saved the puppy, why did he just save him and leave him to hang around again? Where does this puppy belong? And where did the professor put that dog when he saved him the first and second day? This is thinking with the “what if” technique; but, now that the problem already happened, I think that what they did was right, because the professor can not just risk the class that contains hundreds of students and his job and their grades which might effect their lives to save a puppy that never learned from two mistakes.
The fault clearly lies in the hands of the professor and the students; to the professor because he didn’t care enough to seek a remedy for the dog, and the class for being biased against the dog for “wasting” their valuable time. First of all, the students were extremely immoral by declaring the dog’s state as unimportant. Any time that is spent on avoiding something life endangering is usually more important than the time spent on something that can always be done the next day. Since once a life is gone there is no possible known way to bring back a life. So, the students were being biased against the dog. And, it seems very obvious that if the same dog was to drown itself every week, there must have been something mentally wrong with it. Animals don't usually endanger their lives by attempting to drown themselves. For it to do so was a clear sign that the dog needed help. Also, on the very first week, the professor should have sent the dog to the ASPCA or any other animal protection organization to check for pneumonia (since nobody really knows how long the dog was in the water). The dog would've been kept there and taken care of. By the second week, the professor, being the learned individual, should have noticed by then that something was amiss regarding the dog’s condition. He should have sent the dog for a screening or treatment. Just because the dog can’t verbalize the way we do, does not mean nothing is going on. A human who does anything unusual does not go unnoticed for long, so how is it that the dog’s unusual behavior is unworthy of any treatment. Hence, the dog's downfall was caused by the professor's and the students’ poor judgment and bias.
Because the professor continually saved the dog, I think that he should have saved the dog the third time he saw the dog drowning. I do not think it was right of him to just call someone else to retrieve the dog rather than doing it himself when he was already there. It goes to show that the professor has no heart for dogs as he passes by it struggling for its life. If he was so easily persuaded to be early to class by his students, than it shows that he does not have a mind of his own. Being early to class is not ethically correct, because it only takes maybe twenty minutes out of a two-hour lecture class to arrive. Saving a life is more important than being early to class. I also think that if a dog were to appear drowning at a college three times, the university should be smart enough to build a gate around the pond.
The fault should be put on the Professor and the students. Althought the professor was late to work as a result of saving the dog twice, he decided not to risk it the third time. As a philosophy teacher, the professor was faced with an ethical decision whether to save the dog for the third time resulting in his students being aggrevated that he was late to class, or go to class on time without saving the dog. Clearly, the right decision would be to save the dog, but rescuing this dog brings forth other important decisions to be made. After rescuing the dog, where should the professor of left him? Was it right that he did not stop to think of asking someone to take care of this dog? The morally right thing to do after saving the dog was to try to prevent it from happening again. Sitting down a few extra minutes to think about this, asking his students for advice or even calling animal control would have prevented this problem from occuring multiple times. Not only does this show how the professor did not act intelligently, but how his students were uninterested in saving the dog. The students agreed with the professor that leaving the dog behind was correct and noone offered any help. The students show disrespect to their teacher and are inconsiderate for not offering any help to the professor or the dog.
I think that the professor was right about saving the dog the first time. He should have told someone after his class what had happened to the dog. He should have gone to the janitor or aid, so they would make sure that the dog wouldn’t do it again. The students in his class were right to accept the professor’s lateness the first time. The second time, the students should have thought about what would have happened to the dog if the teacher had not saved it. They might have had a little more sympathy if they thought about the dog before themselves. The last week the professor was right to tell a custodian before class but he should have done that after the first time. The students were grateful he wasn’t late to class. The students think that this dog is causing them a lot of trouble. I think that the dog is unlucky but is not causing the teacher to be late to class.
The story involves a tricky situation in ethical decision making. The professor's choice to save the drowning puppy the first time the incident occured is morally right. Although he was already running late to class, what he did was just in saving the puppies life, and of course his students should understand. However, the second time he saw the puppy drowning he should have notified the case to a custodian. It was still right for him to dive in and save the puppy that time, but afterwards he definitly should have explained to someone the problem that was starting to repeat itself. Now, if he had done that, then its possible that the third time around the situation could have never occured and the puppy would still be alive. But since that is not what happened, it seems right that he did not once again save the puppy. He did notify somebody afterwards, and it is his responsibilty to make it to class on time. Also, it was not in his knowledge that the puppy would die before somebody else could get to it. If the professor had thought that the puppy would die, then his action would be considered wrong. Therefore, leaving the puppy was right in that case.
I think the flaw lies with the professor and his students in the end. It might be the dog's fault because it kept returning to the pond, but the professor is also to blame. The first time, the professor came across the dog and decides to rescue it, he takes responsibility for it. But what exactly does he do with the dog after he rescues it? It would be irresponsible to just let the dog go and continue to class. The professor should have alerted someone else about the dog. And there should have been a fence built around the pond’s edge to prevent this. But since the professor was worried about getting to his classroom on time, he does nothing further than rescuing the dog, leaving this to happen repeatedly until he doesn’t rescue the dog due to his students’ irritation and the dog drowns. I could maybe understand the first time why the professor didn’t do anything more as he was in a hurry and didn’t expect to see the dog again. But the second time, if he was going to rescue the dog again, then he really should have alerted someone and made sure that the dog was taken care of.
Maybe it's because I am a natural animal lover, but I would have saved the dog again. I think this sort of situation is almost representative of life, and the repetition of ethical decisions we must face. Its important not to let the constant repetition of a choice affect the choices we make. Consistency is the most important thing in ethics, otherwise there would be no ethical standards. The professor should not have let his students protests alter his choice.
But does this consistency mean that we should not learn from the decisions we make? Obviously not, because then many recurring ethical dilemmas would never be resolved. I think that people should be able to examine the circumstances leading up to the ethical decision and see if there is any way to change those. In the case of the professor and the puppy, the professor should have tried to figure out how the puppy kept getting into the pond. Maybe, he should build a fence for the puppy, or buy a cage for the dog, to keep him out of trouble. Because the professor did not make this effort in saving the dog, he made an unethical decision.
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