Case Study 1: Ethics
Your spouse died unexpectedly in a motor vehicle accident. You know it was his or her wish to be an organ donor. Your spouse had officially registered as an organ donor and discussed it with you many times. You don't have strong feelings one way or the other about organ donation. The parents of your spouse are strongly opposed to it, though, and ask you not to go through with it. Hospital staff tell you that you don't have much time to make up your mind, and obviously it is a very difficult time in your life to make major decisions. Do you follow your spouse's wishes? Do you follow the feelings of his or her parents, thinking that your spouse would not want to cause them any additional suffering? Do you weigh the potential value to the people who would receive the organs and to their families against what might be temporary feelings of the parents? What do you do?
Case Study 2: Social Media and Privacy
When should we get involved, and when is it not our business or our problem? You are "friends" on Facebook with a coworker. He routinely posts information, on his personal Facebook page, related to your workplace. Sometimes, he makes negative statements about your boss and about the company. You are concerned that his statements might create problems for your company by depicting it publicly in a negative way. You suspect he is making some of these posts during work hours and perhaps using company equipment, although you do not use Facebook on your company computer or during work hours. Do you "unfriend" your coworker and tell him why you did it, or do you just "unfriend" him without explanation? Is it your responsibility to call the situation to the attention of your boss and risk getting your coworker into trouble? Is there any way that this could make you look bad or cause you problems at work? Do you just ignore the situation and hope it goes away? What do you do?
Case Study 3: American Education
The public schools in the area where you live have been low-performing for a long time. A new superintendent came in 2 years ago and promised to make some big changes. The local newspaper just published a series of articles about how much the standardized test scores have improved in your district. Your district has moved from a state rating of "D" to a state rating of "B" in only 2 years. You know that the state rating will increase property values in your neighborhood, and the rating might help your child get into college-if the reputation of her school improves. Your daughter and her friends have been telling you and other parents, however, that they were given the correct answers for the standardized tests by some of their teachers and they saw some of the school staff checking answers on the test papers before they were submitted to the state. You are very concerned that widespread cheating has occurred at your child's school. You aren't sure whether to ignore the situation altogether; to trust your child and take action; to assume your child is wrong and take no action; to call it to the attention of the new superintendent (who might or might not be involved); or to call it to the attention of the newspaper or State Department of Education. What do you do?
Case Study 4: Mental Health
You think that one of your son's best friends might be suffering from clinical depression. The youth is 15 years old and used to spend a lot of time in your home and with your family. Lately, though, he has become more withdrawn, and you seldom see him. He told your son that he has considered suicide. Your son didn't know how to handle the situation, came to you for advice, but he asked you not to tell anyone-especially the parents of his friend. You know the friend's parents pretty well through school functions, although you are not close friends. Do you respect your son's wishes and do nothing? Do you decide to speak to his friend yourself to better assess the situation? Do you determine that maintaining your son's confidence is not as important as intervening on behalf of his friend, and so you tell his parents what is going on? What do you do?
Case Study 5: Multiple Consciousness
For one day, choose to walk (figuratively) in the shoes of another person. Of course, such a transformation cannot happen completely, because you can't just decide to change your gender or your race and expect that to happen. You can, though, spend the day actively considering how it would feel to be a person of a different gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, or other such characteristic. In every choice you make (e.g., the way you relate to other people, the way you assess how other people relate to you, how you react to each situation that occurs), remember that you are not "you" today. You are going through your day as if you are an entirely different person-someone whose reality, daily struggles, joys, and limitations might be quite different than yours. At the end of the day, how did you find that your own life is different and similar to that of the other person? How might your own behaviors and thought patterns change based on this experiment? What did you learn?