Dilemmas for Adults

Condensed versions of dilemmas are printed below. Longer versions are accessible using the “Learn More” buttons

Finding the thread

Sheila is a twenty-seven-year-old working actress. Sheila has been involved with the theater since she was eight, and she says she would never consider leaving the profession. Acting has helped her work through depression and through some other major challenges. She even had what she described as a “spiritual experience” during a summer spent with the Willamstown Theater Festival. Sheila explains that she had had recurring dreams throughout her whole life “with these very particular sort of mountains in them.” As she performed the lead in Princess Turandot that summer in Williamstown, she looked out over the Berkshire Mountains and realized that they were the mountains she had been seeing in her dreams. Sheila explained that it felt like she “had lost the thread and found it again.”

A life worth living

Dr. Bernard Lown is a cardiology professor and practicing cardiologist in his seventies who lives and works in the Boston area. Years ago, Lown had a patient who was an artist, a painter, who Lown felt needed an operation. The operation was extremely successful, and Lown considered the case resolved. However, when his patient came in for a follow-up appointment, it turned out that, as a result of his surgery, this man had lost the use of his right hand. He could no longer paint, and now “life wasn’t worth living.” Years later, Lown remembered the painter when he met with another patient who had been told by her other doctors that she needed a risky heart operation Lown asked her what she wanted to do with the rest of her life; she was a professor, and she quickly responded that she wanted to summarize her life’s work. He encouraged her to pursue her writing in the time she had left, and to avoid the operation. She lived six more years, and completed her writing in that time. 

Excellence at risk

Katie is a young woman who has been teaching ninth grade English at a large high school for the past six years. Katie goes out of her way to communicate with parents about students’ work in her classroom. Unfortunately, Katie’s interest in staying in contact with parents created a very difficult situation in her second year of teaching. She received two death threats in the mail and ultimately found out it was a student whose parents she had contacted because the student had been missing a great number of classes. As a result of Katie’s phone calls, the student’s parents took disciplinary action, and the student seemed to have responded by sending her teacher threatening messages. Although Katie did not feel a great deal of support from the school administration, she decided to press charges, because she thought that the student would be more likely to learn from the experience as a result.

A stereotypical problem

Meg is a twenty-five-year-old Asian-American actress, who chose acting in part because she felt that Asian- Americans were underrepresented, and stereotyped, in theater. Several years ago, Meg landed a leading role in a play, and took the role despite the fact that it depended on a superficial stereotype of Asian women. She agreed to do the play in part because she knew that the director was well-known and well-connected in the theater world. She felt that if she gained influence through working with this director, she would then be in a better position to undermine racial stereotypes. Meg felt condemned by the Asian-American community for her decision to take the role, but she viewed it as a compromise that would allow her to take a more principled stand in the future.

Typecast?

Chris is a thirty-two-year-old African-American actor whose specialty is Shakespeare. Chris attended a conservatory, and during his last year there, he was cast in the role of Dull in a production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost because, the head of the school told him, “he had no vision of an African American [playing] any role in the play but a character named Dull.” (The character of Dull is a “bumbling police officer,” who, in this particular production, was to be dressed in a fat suit.) Though the head of the school’s behavior was unacceptable, Chris worried about confronting him, not knowing who he could report him to and that doing so would just end up with him blacklisted from future work on the stage. Even though performing the role of “Dull” was an incredibly painful experience for him, Chris stuck with the role, hoping it would be worthwhile for his career. He made a few important connections as a result of the production, which eventually led to his being able to work with a prominent Shakespearean actor at the Globe Theatre in London.

Looking good

Ray is a middle-aged history teacher at a new pilot school. Ray believes that kids need to enjoy themselves to learn. At the same time, he is a firm believer in holding students accountable: he expects them to be on time, to complete their work, and to not settle for a mediocre grade. As an individual teacher, holding students accountable is a real challenge. The school is a pilot school, and so it “might not be around in two or three years.” In order to help the school “succeed” and make it “look good,” many teachers at Ray’s school teach “down” to students and also inflate grades so that it appears that the students are thriving academically. Although Ray is part of a tight-knit community at the school, he often feels isolated when confronted with the issue of grading.

A clothes call

Li is a journalist in her forties who works for a New York newspaper. She chiefly covers immigration issues. Recently, Li wrote a story on “people smuggling,” and interviewed a man who had been smuggled into the United States. He eventually landed a contract with a clothing company, and opened a factory in New York City. When Li visited the factory for the interview, it quickly became clear that, for all intents and purposes, this man was actually working in a sweatshop. The footage from the interview was sure to embarrass the clothing company, and Li was afraid it could be enough to lose this man his contract. Li’s producer ended up using the footage, and, sure enough, the clothing company called to complain.

The Hardy hedgehog

Eliza is an occupational therapist at a hospital as well as at a state-run mental health facility. As a medical practitioner, she feels responsible to patients’ physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Eliza has been able to bridge her interest in nature, animals, and art with her medical knowledge and skills, and in the state mental health facility, she brings plants and animals to the patients. Eliza works with young students, many of whom are mentally unstable and some of whom are suicidal, and she brings the natural world and animals to these children in order to work on issues of safety, trust, and caring. One of Eliza’s patients, a young boy with a history of violence who also struggled with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), gained a sense of motivation and purpose through his encounter with a hedgehog that Eliza had brought into the center. The experience with the hedgehog turned out to be a major turning point for him.

food for thought

David is the CEO of an international fast food restaurant chain. David struggles with the decision of whether he should sell food that contains genetically modified material and organisms (GMOs). He wants to ease customers’ concerns about GMO products in their food, but he also believes there is no harm in GMOs and that it is important to be supportive of research being done in this area. “As a business,” David says, “we have no ethical obligation to lead a fight for some social issue that’s beyond our competence... We’re not scientists and we’re not environmentalists... We’re business people.”

Does excellence always equal success?

Carol Marin is a highly respected investigative reporter for a CBS affiliate in Chicago and a contributor to “60 Minutes II,” the national weekly television news magazine. In 1997, during the time that Marin worked for NBC-owned Channel 5, the channel hired Jerry Springer to do a series of commentaries for Marin’s nightly news show. Marin objected to the management’s decision to hire Springer, the nationally syndicated host of a salacious talk show, because she felt that his approach violated essential journalistic standards. After some soul-searching, Marin resigned. In the aftermath of the Springer incident, the goodwill that Marin had gained among the Chicago public opened up an opportunity for her to serve as the anchor for a major local station’s 10 p.m. news show. Under her direction, the show produced a string of probing, in-depth stories, the equal of which have rarely been seen on local news. Unfortunately, Marin’s seriousness of purpose and admirable public-mindedness did not translate into market success, and the station canceled the show at the end of its eighth month.

Money troubles

Felicia is the twenty-eight-year-old founder of a national nonprofit organization that works with schools, families, and volunteers to help create safe schools and communities. Some years ago, Felicia needed to raise money quickly. She talked with a potential funder about doing a challenge grant: if Felicia could raise $20,000 from other sources, this funder would give her an additional $20,000 Felicia and her coworkers at the nonprofit sent in a proposal, and then raised $20,000 from other sources under the premise of the challenge grant. Then the funder who had offered the challenge grant called to say that she had “changed her mind.” Felicia was faced with an ethical decision: should she tell the other funders the challenge grant had been reneged on, or should she keep quiet and keep the money?

“Good” Censorship?

Daniel Schorr was a veteran reporter and news commentator who worked as a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR). As Schorr was traveling “somewhere in the eastern corner of Poland, near the Soviet border,” during his work for CBS in the 1950s, he came upon a group of people who told him that they “were going to Israel.” Schorr was intrigued, and he interviewed them on camera. When he returned to Warsaw, Schorr told the Israeli Minister in Warsaw about the group of people he had met on their way to Israel. The Israeli Minister explained to Schorr that an agreement had been worked out with the Soviet government that would allow people to be “repatriated” to Poland from the Soviet Union, at which point they would make their way to Israel in secret, because the Soviet Union was at that point not allowing any emigration to Israel. Schorr had interviewed these people on camera, and he felt some pressure to adhere to the standard journalistic principle of uncensored reporting. However, this conflicted with his most basic humanitarian instincts: if he aired the film, these people would no longer be able to leave the Soviet Union for Israel.

A Tale of Two Lawyers

Joseph is a lawyer in a large corporate law firm and, above all, values maintaining personal loyalty. Many years ago, Joseph was offered the job of representing a bank in an upcoming acquisition deal. Joseph was told that if he wanted to represent the bank, he would have to keep his involvement a secret from the other members of his firm: one of his colleagues was representing one of the bank’s major competitors. Joseph accepted the offer; however, as part of this, he was required to establish a “wall” between himself and several of his colleagues that would block them from even talking with him. Joseph felt as though he needed to tell the main partner who was being “walled off” what was going on, so he told her as much of the truth as he felt able to do. However, when news of the deal Joseph was representing broke, the partner he had “walled off” was furious, and felt personally betrayed and hurt. To this day, Joseph feels that he should have acted differently.

what’s a mentor?

Grace is in her late twenties and is in her sixth year of graduate studies in molecular biology. For the past five years, she has been working in the lab of a well-known professor, which she knows she needs to do in order to “make it” in her field. However, Grace is not completely sure that she wants to follow the academic career route. This is in part because she feels that the life of a postdoc is difficult, and in part because she has difficulty with her current lab advisor’s very “hands-on” managerial style. Grace feels that because of her advisor’s style, there is hardly any collegiality in the lab. In addition, because she is in her sixth year of graduate school, Grace is switching from working for her advisor to working for herself, which means that she is a potential competitor with her advisor. Now, Grace believes, the relationship with her advisor is tense because of this competitive situation. 

divided loyalties

Sara is the executive director of a national nonprofit that represents the concerns of America’s independent workforce, including freelancers, consultants, part-timers, and the self-employed. Sara’s grandfather was vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and although she never met her grandfather, she has been very much influenced by his work as a union organizer. Soon after being recognized as one of a group of outstanding social entrepreneurs, Sara was invited to the World Economic Forum (WEF), a meeting of leaders of governments and corporations from around the world. Because the WEF gathers so many powerful individuals together, there are often protests of one form or another, and Sara was forced to cross a picket line in order to attend the WEF. In this case, she felt torn between a loyalty to her roots in the labor movement and a responsibility to her role as a successful social entrepreneur.

Empathy: how much is too much?

Linda is a twenty-seven-year-old professional nurse at a respite unit at Boston’s Health Care for the Homeless. As a child and young adult, Linda faced many challenges within her family: her parents were divorced and her mother and sister were both mentally and emotionally unstable. By helping her mother and her sister, she learned to “reach out and help others.” Linda firmly believes that “pain brings empathy.” At the same time, Linda acknowledges that over-empathizing with people can be risky, because you can lose balance, or take on too much of a patient’s “sorrow and sadness.” Linda believes that it is important to have “balance” and “empathy” and “to know your limits” at the same time. 

in pursuit of excellence

Alfred Bloom was the President of Swarthmore College from 1991-2009, a small liberal-arts college. In order to improve the long-term quality of the college’s athletic program, he and the college leadership decided to reduce the number of intercollegiate sports teams at Swarthmore from twenty-four to twenty-one. This move included ending the football program, which was an extremely controversial decision, and it received a great deal of notice in the press. Bloom explained that the decision was motivated “by a desire to… give students across sports a sense of quality of play, a sense of accomplishment, and a chance of actually being successful in competition… it was really about providing excellence. In athletics—because of the degree of specialization that’s taking place—if you want to have excellence, you have to have actually fewer teams.” In other words, because having good sports teams means admitting students based on that talent, President Bloom decided that Swarthmore should focus on a wider set of student interests and pursue excellence among a smaller set of teams.

playing hardball

Mark is thirty years old and is in his fifth year of graduate study in genetics. One of the projects he is working on is geared toward the development of a tool that will allow molecular biologists to sift through the abundant data generated by the human genome project. In his work on this project, Mark came across an organization that was producing flawed data, and he sent a statement of his objections concerning the faulty data source to the “second in command” at the organization. To support his argument further, he included his own, unpublished data. A few weeks later, his contact at the institution posted Mark’s data set on a website without asking permission and without giving proper credit. His advisors counsel him not to write a letter of complaint, as the individual who stole his data was in a higher position of authority, and could ruin Mark’s career. The incident disappointed Mark: he did not receive appropriate credit for his work, and the incident made Mark question his scientific beliefs and values.

valuable investments: ethical values in business

Lauren is in her late forties, and is the president and CEO of an Internet startup company. Lauren argues that strong values and business success are intimately related, though she acknowledges that this understanding may not be the norm in the business world. During a previous job with a different company, Lauren made the choice to move a company meeting from Colorado to California “at a time when Colorado had passed legislation that was very anti-gay and lesbian,” even though they had already put deposits down on hotels in Colorado. She upset at least one other employee with her support of the gay and lesbian population, and this employee quit the company as a result. The company certainly lost money because of Lauren’s decision, and she may well have lost customers as well.

the meaning of grades

Stephen is a professor of engineering. He recognizes the importance of teaching in his work as a professor, and he tries to use techniques that require students to take chances and try new things that will help them to grow in both intellectual and personal ways. However, Stephen faces a major dilemma in his work with respect to grading. Like other professors at his college, Stephen has a strong commitment to the meaning of grades, and he refuses to inflate them. As a result, students from his department have traditionally had difficulty gaining acceptance into their desired post-graduate engineering programs: their grade-point averages are not as high as those of competing students from colleges where grade inflation is commonplace. Though Stephen recognizes that his students are at a distinct disadvantage as a result of his school’s relative lack of grade inflation, he wants to approach grading fairly.

firm about “flim flam”

Gail has served as a criminal defense attorney for twenty-three years, and she was appointed a federal district court judge in the mid 1990s. She is a highly principled person, and she feels that her values shape her decisions in her professional life. Early on in her career, when she was having trouble finding cases, she was approached with a request to represent a woman charged with “flim flam,” which was basically an elaborate scheme to steal money. After Gail initially agreed to represent the woman and received full payment on the spot, she changed her mind and returned the money. Although many would argue that Gail had a responsibility as a lawyer to represent anyone who needed it, she said that the woman clearly had resources with which to locate and hire other legal representation, and she said that there was nothing the woman had done with which she cared to be involved. Despite having made a decision that felt in line with her values, she still questions whether she made the correct professional decision.

Interest in Religion

Adam is a 30-year-old man residing in the United Kingdom with his wife and young child while completing his postgraduate work in psychology. Adam is Muslim and is committed to his religion. At times, life in the United Kingdom clashes with his religious beliefs. Adam describes a time when he tried to lease a car, only to find out that the built in interest he was required to pay by the bank was at odds with his belief that “riba” is impermissible. Adam describes having to decide between the benefits of having an amenity such as a car at his and his family’s disposal and his loyalty to his religious beliefs.

Selling the Gift

Sofia, a 34 year old Mexican woman living in Nicaragua, runs a social program on emotional education. As the head of her program, she has faced many challenging decisions. In difficult times, she is compelled to reflect on her personal values of “integrity, honesty, responsibility, resilience, growth mindset, and spirituality”. Sofia describes a time when she was approached with a business deal to sell expensive equipment--which had been given away as donations--to local hospitals. The deal was lucrative, but in sharp contrast to her stated values. Sofia ultimately turned down the offer and held steady in her convictions.

Discriminating Decisions

Renee is a 38-year-old American working towards a post-graduate degree abroad. Renee spent the past 12 years of her career working in international education. Before leaving her post to pursue her own education, Renee served as Director of Study Abroad at a mid-sized public research university in the US. Renee describes a time, early on her career, when she was instructed by her superior to block a student with disabilities from study abroad. At the time, Renee reached out to others, including the human resource department at her university, but was met with silence. Ultimately, the student did not go abroad. Renee was deeply troubled by the experience and has dedicated her energies to advocating for student rights ever since.