ethical dilemmas

We’ve had several “ethical dilemma” posts here on The Daily Mind, and we hope you find them as thought-provoking as we do.

While we haven’t done them on a regular basis, here’s one for the week.

The good son

Your teenage son can be described as a “good boy”. He does well in school. He has a group of friends all of whom you know. He does get into harmless mischief now and then (boys will be boys), but he is obedient and has a good heart.

One night, he gets mixed up with the wrong sort and has too much to drink. Due to peer pressure, he drives home under the influence of alcohol, which on its own is a punishable offense. On the way, he hits a pedestrian on a late-night jog. Your son panics, and since there is no one around to see what happened, he drives away, straight home.

He tells you what happened. Now, what do you do?

You have three options.

1. Do you decide to turn him in, have him face the consequences of his actions, and immediately get hold of a criminal lawyer?

2. Do you decide to think things over? Maybe find out more details, like who the victim as and how he/she fared? If he/she was not hurt too badly, would you try to settle out of court?

3. Do you decide to forget it ever happened? After all, your son has always been a decent kid. This one mistake should not compromise his future in any way. No one saw what happened that night. No one else needs to know what happened. It will be a secret everyone in the family will take to the grave.

You’ll notice that in providing those three options above, we didn’t take into consideration what your son has to say about the whole thing.

Now, considering that he is at the center of the whole thing, let’s take a look at two situations.

1. He wants to face the music and turn himself in. What do you do then? Will you try to convince him otherwise? Will you give him a pat on the back for doing a difficult thing?

2. He wants you to keep everything a secret. What do you do? Will you convince him to “do the right thing” and take responsibility for his actions? Will you agree with him, and keep your mouth shut?

Your turn!

The details may very well be different, but the bottomline is that a close family member has committed a crime. What would you do?

We’re interested in your thoughts. Share them with us in the comments!

Note: Needless to say, this is a hypothetical situation. Any similarities to any individual or real-life scenario are purely coincidental.

Other ethical dilemma posts:
Would You Say Something?
If Your Neighbor Has Domestic Violence Problems, Would You Report It?

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Originally posted on March 9, 2015 @ 8:30 am