- Heinz dilemma
The Heinz dilemma is a frequently used example in many ethics and morality classes. One well-known version of the dilemma, used in
Lawrence Kohlberg 's stages of moral development, is stated as follows::A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the
radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of thedrug . The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told thedruggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.:Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?cite book |last=Kohlberg |first=Lawrence |title= Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development |publisher=Harper & Row |Location=San Francisco, CA |year=1981 |id=ISBN 0-06-064760-4 ]
ee also
*
Dilemma
*Hobson's choice
*Kohlberg's stages of moral developmentReferences
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