Patty has been put in a traumatic and difficult situation of having to deal with her kidnapping and battery and then being asked to do something against her will for her safety and her family’s. However, her tragedy does not make her actions morally acceptable. By participating in the robbery, she did something that the society deems to be unacceptable in terms of moral standards. In this point, it will not matter if there is threat in Patty’s safety or even that of her family’s.
The shooting of a security guard while the robbery is in progress made matters worse. If Patty was the one who shot the guard, whether or not she eventually killed him, that makes her a willing instrument in the robbery. Thus, she is no longer a victim being forced to do the deed. By helping his captors execute the robbery with all the assistance she can give, including shooting the guard, she has become a primary part of the criminal act. This makes it sensible to say that Patty’s association and aid to the kidnappers/robbers is immoral.
Given a similar situation, there are plenty of things that Patty could have done to help herself and try to avoid indulging in the whims of the kidnappers. First, the robbery gave her a chance to escape, if not call the attention of others in the area to help her escape. Secondly, given that Patty can be disoriented or defenseless, if she really did not want to join the robbery she should have shown that she is a passive participant. Clearly, killing a guard denied that Patty is in this state of mind.
Morality dictates that between two evils, one must choose that where there is the least number of people affects. Patty has choices, and so in the end she is no longer a victim but a conspirator to her own crime. For Situation No. 2 Given that I hired this classmate, that gives me the right to fire this classmate too. Still, it is worth to give him another chance. I will talk to him and tell him that what he is doing is theft and that it is unacceptable to me and to the business. Despite making him stay on the job, he will be under probation.
I will be keeping an eye on him and if there are other people working in the store I will tell them to keep an eye on each other without specifying the person or the situation to avoid embarrassing my classmate. When things still fail for him, then he needs to leave the retail store. However, I need some concrete evidence before taking him off the job. It may be a photo, a video, or another witness who will vouch for my claims. The probationary period is the best time to secure this. With evidence in hand, I can speak to my classmate and tell him that I need to find another person for the job.
I will also explain to him that theft is inexcusable even if the owner had insurance and even if no one is being hurt by the act. He will also need to know that friends do stick together, but not in these cases. Firing him will have a lot of repercussions. I will be loosing him as a friend, but between that and loosing my job because of her wrongdoings leaves me no choice but to fire him. He may spread lies about me and even tell these lies to the manager. The manager may even be displeased when he hears what happened.
Yet, proper documentation on him and his case will leave me clean and out of the gray area. These are moral actions and they are what I am supposed to do for the benefit of more people more than my friend and myself. For Situation No. 3 There are many considerations in this scenario. First, being a rookie cop leaves me defenseless. When I tell the superiors about what the Field Training Officer did, he may say I am a liar and make up excuses instead which will leave me as the bad guy. Secondly, the Field Training Officer evidently gave me a favor so he is expecting me to do the same of him.
If I say anything, I will be reprimanded—something that the Field Training Office shielded me from. On the other hand, staying silent is not a wise idea. At the onset, I will point out to him that I made an improper disposition of a traffic accident and so he needs to point this out in the evaluation. When he refuses and states that it is okay and that there is nothing to worry about, I will insist and explain to him that I need to be properly evaluated so that I will have an accurate measure of the improvements that I need to work on.
Making him give me an honest evaluation will remove the pressure in me to cover up for him. As for the drinking spree during work hours, I will calmly ask him in a friendly manner if he always does it and if he is not afraid of getting caught. I will also point out that rookie cops like me look up to seniors like him. This will make him realize that he is being a model. If he does not realize this, I will not speak to other seniors about what he did but I will never give in on covering him up in exchange of a good evaluation.