LAW & MORALITYA person's standards of behaviour or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.

Moral Dilemmas – What Do You Do? "A trolley is headed toward five people, and the

only way you can save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley away from the five and onto a side track, but if you turn it onto the side track, it will run over one person.“

"This time, you're on a footbridge, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. And next to you is a big person wearing a big backpack. And the only way you can save those five people is to push this big guy off of the footbridge so that he lands on the tracks. And he'll get squashed by the train; you sort of use him as a trolley stopper. But you can save the five people."

However, many laws are based on the agreed upon morals of a society.

THINK ABOUT IT•How might this explain why laws are different in different places and in different times?•How might this explain one reason why some laws are controversial?

Luckily for us, we don’t often have to face moral dilemmas in real life!

Assignment Instructions

Copy the following into your notes. Read “Law and Morality” on page 14 (old text)/

16 (new text) Write down the topic of each example given in

the reading (for example – the first is assisted suicide).

On the sticky note provided, write your name and choose a controversial issue that you feel strongly about (it can be one not discussed in the book). Write whether you agree or disagree with the current law. – HAND THIS “Exit Pass” in (be sure to put your name on it!).

Questions for Discussion

How did the Jim Crowe Laws reflect the morals of the American South at the time (early to mid 1900s)?

Explain the following quote by Martin Luther King Jr. :

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is, in reality, expressing the highest respect for the law.”

References

Slide 1 picture & Slide 2 Moral Dilemmas: Vedantam, S. (n.d.). Why Mental Pictures Can Sway Your Moral

Judgment : NPR. NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR. Retrieved February 4, 2013, from http://www.npr.org/2012/09/20/161440292/why-pictures-can-sway-your-moral-judgment