Sir Gawain Online Activity #2

[Andrew Burton]

*** Your Scenario ***

Describe a scenario that places someone in a dilemma due to a conflict
between social convention (e.g. being polite) and morality (e.g.
obeying the law, doing what is right, etc.). Please be respectful of
your classmates – do not post anything that is offensive or
insensitive.

Your scenario must be posted by midnight Sunday February 26th.

*** Your Response ***

Each student must respond to the posting of another student. First,
state what social conventions and moral imperatives are in conflict.
Second, suggest one or more ways to resolve the situation without
transgressing either social convention or morality. Third, suggest
one or more ways to make the dilemma even more keen/intolerable/
insoluable. Be sure your response is significantly original relative
to what has already been posted. Be courteous and keep your comments
focused on students’ writing/ideas. Only respond to a student who has
not yet received feedback.

All responses must be posted by midnight Friday March 2nd.

[William Shakespeare]

At La Ronde, an attractive acquaintance gestures for you to join him/
her in the middle of the Bateau Pirate lineup. However, some people
further back in the line have noticed and are glaring at you.

[Andrew Burton]

1. I’d say there’s a conflict between the social convention of
accepting invitations and the quasi-moral-legal imperative to not line
jump.

2. In order to not refuse the invitation (which would jeopardize your
chances for a date) and yet not line jump:
a) Through gestures, inform your acquaintance that your mother is
calling you and that you have to run (although on another level this
strategy is counterproductive)
b) Shout “FREE COTTON CANDY BY THE ORBITE!”; wait until the line
disperses and then join your acquaintance
c) Get your acquaintance to join you at the back of the line

3. To make the dilemma even worse:
a) Your acquaintance is about to get on the ride, making the time
pressure acute
b) You know that your acquaintance was scarred for life by a public
social rejection in elementary school
c) A large sign declares that “Line jumpers undermine social order”
d) Just last week, a man was killed in an altercation at La Ronde
caused by line jumping
e) Your grandmother and fifteen of her elderly lady friends are lined
up directly behind your acquaintance

On Feb 21, 8:25 pm, William Shakespeare <andrewelbur...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

[Jessi Lau]

You have been assigned a group project and all together your group
decides to go to the library on thursday. The project ends up taking
longer than you thought and in order to finish it, everyone has to
pull an all-nighter (the project is due friday). However, that same
night you have been invited to a friend's 18 birthday party at Time
Supper Club, what do you do?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Chuong Trinh]

You have just passed the trials and have become a true jedi knight.
Now, you must choose a padawan and take him or her under your wing.
Just before your jedi master's death, you made an oath to teach a
young pod-racing, robot-building slave from Tatooine. When you discuss
the padawan of your choice to the jedi council, they object, deeming
the student a potential danger to the balance of the force: "Hmm.
Clouded this boy's future is", states the wisest of the jedi masters,
weary of the true nature of the young boy.
On one hand, it is discourteous to act against the will of the jedi
council, while on the other hand, you owe your life to your jedi
master, since he dedicated his life to teaching you and died
protecting you from a sith lord. What do you do?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Victoria Sayko]

1. The social issue is the fact that you have an obligation to attend
your friend’s 18th birthday party, and the moral issue is that you
have an obligation to do your part of the assignment.

2. Solutions

- Speak to your teacher in order to get an extension on the project
- Promise your friend to do something on another day to celebrate her
birthday
- Work on your project that night, and plan a surprise 2nd birthday
party to make it up to your friend
- Speak to your teammates and see if they can help you with your part
so you can go out with your friend

3. To make the dilemma worst:

- The project is worth 50 % of yours and your teammates final grade
- The teacher already gave an extension on the project
- The friend is your best friend and has been your best friend since
you were young
- You have just recently made up with your friend for bailing on past
plans
- Your friend have a terminal sickness and won’t make it to celebrate
another year

> > All responses must be posted by midnight Friday March 2nd.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Debra Bruman]

You and your friend are prospectors who have found a huge gold deposit
and decided to split the gold 50-50. Unbeknownst to both of you, your
town has a law prescribing that all the gold a person finds must be
given to the Sheriff.

News of your discovery spreads through the town. The Sheriff comes up
and says at 5:45 pm sharp, you must meet them at the Sheriff’s Office
to give them the gold. Frightened, you say you’ll meet them.

Half an hour before you need to meet the Sheriff, your friend comes up
to you with two tickets for the Great Train. Your friend says that you
can catch the train together at 5:55 pm, get off at a random station,
and escape back east with the gold. What do you do?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Evelyne Shousha]

Your friend has a potentially terminal illness. He is in grave pain.
This pain is known to be alleviated by marijuana, but the hospital has
run out of the legal medicinal version. It is expecting a new delivery
in two weeks. Your friend has a prescription for the said substance.

This morning, when you visited him, you learned that he had run out of
the drug and was in terrible pain. You happen to have an acquaintance
of obscure background who could sell you some illegal marijuana by
tomorrow. Would you take this risk in order to help your friend?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Julia Altmann]

You and your best friend both have a research paper due tomorrow.
Since you have a good work ethic, do well in school and manage your
time well, you finished your paper two days before the due date and
now have a free night. That night (night before paper is due), your
friend, who is on the verge of failing the class, frantically calls
you and while crying says she didn't have time to do the paper and
begs you to do it for her. Should she be a good friend and do the
paper for her (Plagiarism/Cheating) and save her from failing, or
should she not do the paper and obey the rules?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Debra Bruman]

1. The social issue that you are facing is being a good friend and the
moral issue is obeying the rules.

2. In order to still be a good friend and still obey the rules:
- Help your friend brainstorm of possible paper topic ideas and/or
points she'll make in the paper
- Go to your friend's house to pull an all-nighter to help her write
her paper, but let her come up with the topics and points on her own
- Suggest to her to ask the teacher for an extension tomorrow

3. To make it even wose:
- This is her last chance to be able to pass the course
- Both you and your friend's computer crashed and your friend's
printer is not working, so neither of you will be able to write the
paper at all
- If she fails the course, she won't be able to get into the
University program of her choice
- Your friend's parents won't let her pull an all-nighter to write the
paper
- Her parents have warned her if she doesn't pass the course she'll
have to switch schools
- The teacher won't allow an extension because she has been late with
assignments in the past
- She has already asked for an extension from the teacher but they
refused.

[Xu Zhang]

You have just learned that one of your friends found a very expensive
phone in the school’s bathroom; she pulled out the SIM card from the
phone and replaced it with her own. All of your friends know this
story, yet no one urges her to return it. On one hand, you want to
help the person who has lost his/her phone. On the other hand, you are
afraid that if you do so, people will think that you are a nosy
person. What should you do?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Spiro Xiradakis]

It is Friday, you promised your cousin from New York you would like to
go with him to Disney on ice, you get a phone call from your
girlfriend saying that she wants to be with you today, because it is
your 2 year anniversary, and she wants to see "White Chicks" On one
hand he is your family who you haven't seen in a long time, and it is
going to be really fun, on the other hand it is a big moment in your
relationship and the movie is really funny. What do you do?

[Spiro Xiradakis]

1. The two issues you are dealing with is one, you do not want to be a
snitch and be and outcast because you opened your mouth, and two , you
do want to do the right thing and give the person back their phone.

First way to resolve the situation is to talk with your friend and
tell her that what she is doing is wrong, and if it happened to her
she would want the person to give her phone back.
Second way is to secretly steal the phone back with your ninja skills
and give it back to the person in a way you cant be identified.
Third way is to higher a team of trained professionals that would go
on the hunt to find the person who lost the phone, retrieve the stolen
phone from your friend, and then give it back to its rightful owner.
Fourth way is to buy the same exact model of phone for the girl and
let your friend keep the other phone.
Lastly, play a game of Russian roulette with your friend, use a Nerf
gun not a real one, if you win you get the phone, if you lose you are
able to deal with it because you did everything in your power to help
the girl

To make things worse,
- the girl who got her phone stolen is moving back to Uzbekistan
forever and she needs her phone because her ticket is on it.
- Your friend is really poor and could only afford the SIM card so
when she found the phone it was like a message from God for her to
keep it.
- Your friend called finders keepers losers weepers.
- Your friend made you TRIPLE pinky swear not to tell anybody.
- The girl who got her phone stolen is also your mother
- You have become a mime and swore you could not speak so you wouldn't
be able to tell the girl who stole her phone
- The girl has all her assignments saved on her phone and she needs it
back or else she will fail everything

[Sophie Watts]

You are a swimming lessons teacher. You are at your before last class
where you're supposed to be evaluating your students. One of your best
students, who you intended to pass, is having a bad day and is
swimming poorly. Your supervise walks by and states that you should
make that child redo the level.

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Sophie Watts]

The moral issue is that possession of marijuana is illegal. However,
you see that your friend is in great pain and it is a social
convention to help out a friend.
This could be resolved by having the sketchy friend bring the
marijuana to your friend or have your friend go get it him/her self.
This is because selling, buying and possessing illegal substances is
illegal but consuming them is not. This scenario would be even better
if the sketchy friend were feeling generous and gave the drugs free of
charge to your sick friend. (you might want to also consider getting
new friends).
Also, you could get the drugs and anonymously drop them in the
hospital. Although I don't know if the hospital would buy it.
This situation could be worse if the drug dealer was your little
brother or sister.
Also if you were a cop, that would be bad too.

On Feb 23, 10:23 pm, Evelyne Shousha <evelyne17soc...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

[Yichi Zhang]

You are in the province of Sichuan, China and you want to visit the
temple of Confucius. Your very nice friend decides to bring you there
with his shiny Ferrari. On your way there, however, this friend, who
has been drinking a while ago, hits a pedestrian who was trying to
cross the countryside road. Sadly, you guys decide to run, as you both
know that it is practically impossible for a police to catch you. Yet,
your friend sees that this pedestrian is trying to enter your car
number on his cellphone. Alerted, he moves back and drive towards the
defenseless man. As your friend is on the verge of hitting him again,
you see that you can turn his wheel to avoid collision and a murder.
Judging by his clothing, he seems to be a local villager, which mean
that his family should not have too much power. You also know that
your friend made his best choice: in China, it is far less expensive
to pay the price for the pedestrian's life than to take care of his
life and pay his medical fees. Should you follow the social standard
of killing this man or turn the wheel, but condemning your friend to
take care of the unfortunate pedestrian?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Ryan McHugh]

It is Monday morning and you got up late and have to rush to catch the
train to go to work and attend an early meeting with your boss. You
rush through your morning routine and are able to get to the train
station just as the train is pulling into the station. As you are
running to catch it, you remember that you have to swipe your OPUS
card. However, you decide not to because if you ran to the OPUS
machine you would miss the train. You just make on the train, take a
seat and notice that the AMT Security is checking everyone's OPUS to
see if they scanned it. As the security person comes to you and
notices that you haven't scanned your OPUS; what would you do? Do you
lie to get out of the situation by saying you did scan it, and as a
matter of fact the machine made the noise, or do you follow the honour
system and tell the truth, therefore get a ticket.

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Yichi Zhang]

The social issue of holding the promise you made with your friend,
which is to split the gold with your friend and escape with him and
angers the Sheriff and townspeople, conflicts with the moral one of
splitting your gold among the people of the town according to the law,
meeting the Sheriff and risking to sentence your friend under the
town's punishment.

To resolve this conflict, one can gives all his gold and claim that
this amount is both his and he and his friend's findings; he can speak
to the Sheriff in order to use the gold to fund a project related to
the town, like using gold to construct a new bank, a bar; he can try
to convince the town that these news are false rumors; or he can
convince/pay someone to do that for him.

To make matter worse, one can be in great debt to a powerful man/
organization and absolutely needs gold since the deadline to pay is
close; he could be working for his friend, who is or has connection
with a powerful man/powerful men; he loves his friend; his relatives
live in the town; he is sick and need a lot of gold to go to a
hospital; his friend is his soul mate; his friend has the power to
blackmail him; he may be under a deadly poison of which the antidote
can only be made by his friend.

[Kathy Liu]

You and your significant other are celebrating your first year
anniversary (and I mean dating, not marriage!!). He/she has prepared
something special for the evening and you promised you would make some
time for the occasion, even though it is midterm week. He/she is
overjoyed and tells you he/she will call you to give you directions on
how to get to the planned location (which he/she is keeping secret
until the last possible second). Since your classes end before his/
hers, you decide to spend the remaining time in your English teacher’s
office asking questions about the upcoming essay. Unbeknownst to you,
your significant other’s last class was cancelled, and he/she is now
calling you to lead you to the surprise. Your phone rings while you
are talking to your teacher. Should you answer your phone or should
you decline the call?

[Mark Tartamella]

You are a hard-boiled but honest man of action in the Hong Kong police
force (listen up John Woo you'd be so proud). You and your partner of
ten years are tasked with possibly the biggest sting operation of your
careers in order to bring down local gun smugglers at a tea shop. The
night before the big bust you decide to take a walk on the street when
you pass by an alleyway with a familiar face. There he is, your
partner, shooting heroin into his arm right in front of your eyes. You
confront him about it right away and he tells you "It takes the edge
off, it's always how I do my job so well." He speaks truth, as he is
the best on the force (next to you). You have always been one for
bending the rules a bit and helping friends out but this is a highly
serious offense that could get your partner and best friend kicked off
the force and possibly thrown in jail. Do you go against the
conventions of the now stained badge? Or do you risk the loss of your
own badge by keeping this a secret, as well as to successfully
complete the sting the following day?

[Alexandra Belanger]

You are travelling to London alone on a six-hour plane ride. You had
so many assignments to complete before this trip that you only got two
hours of sleep and now feel very weak and tired (you were hoping to
catch up on sleep on the plane ride!). Unfortunately, the seat you
were assigned is in the middle of two young and noisy children. To
make matters worse, the elderly stranger sitting in front of you
decides to incline their seat to the maximum (which takes away most of
your space). You ask the flight attendant if there are any extra
seats, but she informs you that the plane is completely full. Do you
sit uncomfortably for six hours? If not, what do you do?

[Emma Taline Noradounkian]

Your friend has recently started seeing a guy who she feels is “Mr.
Right”. She would like you to meet him, so she invites you to dinner.
Your friend politely excuses herself to go to the washroom. She leaves
you alone with her boyfriend, and he openly admits that he is very
attracted to you. You feel extremely uncomfortable. Before you even
have the chance to say something, she shows up to the dinner table.
She doesn’t realize that there is a growing tension between you and
her boyfriend throughout the rest of the night. The following day, you
friend calls you to ask you what you thought of her boyfriend. What do
you answer her?

On Feb 21, 8:23 pm, Andrew Burton <a.bur...@marianopolis.edu> wrote:

[Ryan McHugh]

The general dilemma in this situation is that you made a promise to
two people, one being your cousin and the other your girlfriend.
One way in which you can resolve the problem is by bringing you
girlfriend to see the Disney on Ice show with your cousin. This could
be a good solution because your cousin can meet with the girl you have
been seeing for two years and Disney on Ice is an entertaining show.
Another possible solution is to see the movie "White Chicks" with your
girlfriend the next day because it you made a promise to your cousin
to see Disney on Ice. You probably don't see the cousin to often
because he lives in another country and you see your girlfriend very
often. Furthermore, you can make for the situation with your
girlfriend by taking her out to dinner and then watch the movie. In
addition, it seems that the anniversary movie seemed pretty sudden
because you just were told about it on the phone and the day of the
ice show and you must have planned for the Disney on Ice show a few
weeks in advanced. Therefore, the obligation you have to your cousin
is more important.
This situation would be even worse if a few weeks earlier you made the
plans for a nice anniversary evening during the day, you get home and
get a call from your cousin saying he will be in town for only one day
and really wants to hang out with you, and that day is the same day as
your anniversary. What would you do then?

[Kevin Hua]

Your best friend and you plan to go see a concert sometime next year
for your favorite band. You buy the tickets months in advance and have
everything planned out. The week of the concert finally arrives.
Unfortunately, the teacher gives a group project to do, and the only
possible day that you can all work on it (group of people that is not
your best friend) is the day of your concert. Your friend has been
really excited, as have you, about the concert and have talked about
it almost non-stop for weeks now. The dilemma is do you fulfill the
promise you made to your best friend and go to the concert, letting
down your entire team, or do the group project and let down your best
friend.

[Cindy Yang]

During Activity Period, you're studying in the library study lofts for
an upcoming midterm. A group of students around the table in front of
you are whispering very loudly and thus distracting you. You look
around for another seat however the place is packed. Do you endure the
noise? Or, do you stand up and tell them to keep quiet?

[Xiya Ma]

There is a zombie apocalypse on February 31rst (Notice the fictional
date) in your city and survivors (about 200 people) have been
quarantined in a shopping mall in downtown. You, surprisingly, are
immune to the spreading disease due to some supernatural antibody
unique to your body (i.e. you are a natural host of the zombie virus,
therefore you cannot become a zombie). As the only "available" person,
you have to stop the zombie invasion from spreading. There are only
two routes the zombies can take: the first one leads to downtown and
the second leads to the suburb of the city. If you lead the zombies to
the suburb, the 200 survivors will have enough time to escape from the
city by airplane, and it will allow reinforcements to come and
eliminate all zombies. However, the few surviving suburb homes (about
30 people), especially those who read the book "How to survive a
zombie attack" and own shotguns, will perish, which includes your own
house with your parents, your sister, your grandmother, your cat and
your two goldfish. If you lead the zombies to the city, you will have
the time to flee the city along with your family and the rest of the
suburb people. Reinforcements will still come, but the survivors will
not survive.

Will you sacrifice the "small group" for the "greater good"? Or will
you save your family and pets?

[Max Renner-Rao]

A good friend of yours is getting married and asks you to be his best
man/woman immediately after his engagement. You gladly agree, but just
a week before the wedding there is an unexpected death in your family,
and it is impossible for you to attend both the funeral and the
wedding. Since you were well acquainted with the deceased during his
lifetime, your family expects that you attend and give a eulogy.

[Alexander Ness]

Your sibling has planned to go to his /her best friend's 18th birthday
party for the past month. She/he does not have a license and requires
you to drive them to the party. Your sibling also has never been to a
party before, and finds that this is a great way to make new friends
in this rare opportunity. However, the night before, your friend
invited you to party at the same time as the other one, where there is
going to be a person you are attracted to. The two parties are on
opposite sides of the island, making it impossible to go to one party
and then the other. What do you do?

[Pamela B.Girard]

As you are a very good friend, you have made plans to spend a day with
a close friend of yours whom is in desperate need of company as he/she
has recently undergone a devastating breakup. However, about an hour
before meeting this friend of yours, an equally close friend from out
of town but that rarely visits lets you know that he/she will be in
town only for the day. This friend and the one you are supposed to
meet cannot stand each other. What do you do?

[Luohan Wei]

Say we are 12 months into the future, the 2012 U.S. presidential
elections have past in a chaotic flurry, and without knowing how, you
have won the elections even without being a U.S. citizen or having run
a campaign! The people were sick of politicians and wanted someone who
wouldn't have any conflict of interests so they picked you the most
normal canadian they could find. Congratulations Mr. President! As you
are enjoying your new fat 3 million dollar per year paycheck, a
message swoops in your office the one devoid of corners. The message
is from the head of the C.I.A and contains the Nuclear launch codes
with this message: "Iran has acquired nuclear technology, and they
have launched a jihad against the United States of America, there is
no question that they will strike the U.S., the only way to save
millions of innocent U.S. civilians is by preemptively nuking the
Iranians with the use of the nuclear bases stationed in Israel,
starting a Third World War in the middle east but at least protecting
temporarily protecting the U.S." The button to launch nukes is laid
out in front of you, do you press it Mr. President?

[Jenine Burt]

You're a high school student at a friends' house for her birthday
party on the weekend. While a group of girls are sitting around, they
begin to talk badly about a friend of yours who was not invited to the
get together. Feeling caught in the middle between your two friend
circles as your loyalty is being challenged on both sides, you sit
still and listen to the conversation. Should you say something on your
absent friend's behalf or sit down and feel accepted with your present
friends since you were invited?

[Pamela B.Girard]

1. You are expected to honour your prior engagements, but the
unexpected events are equally important to both your eyes and the eyes
of your family. Thus you are bound to honour both engagements that
take place at the same time. You have to choose which one you deem is
more important that you attend.

2. - Attend the funeral, give the eulogy and excuse yourself to leave
for the post-wedding celebrations which are usually as important as
the wedding itself since most personal speeches are given at that
time. Of course, inform the groom/bride beforehand, death is still
pretty understandable.
- Hire someone that looks like you to attend the wedding so that it
looks like you were actually there on pictures, attend the funeral,
give the eulogy and excuse yourself to leave for the post-wedding
celebration. The choice of whether to inform the groom/bride of this
or not depends on the level of resemblance between you and your
double.
- Attend neither. Pretext some highly contagious - but nonetheless
curable - disease and enjoy a day off to do as you please. I would
still suggest keeping a low profile to avoid someone attending either
events seeing you well and healthy.

3. The bride/groom has revealed him/herself to be a "groom/bridezilla"
whom will not stand any changes of plans concerning the ceremony and
the deceased left you a big and valuable chunk of his possessions in
his will, you are aware of it and so is your family. Not to attend
either will cause great turmoil, either you endure severe reprobations
from your family or you cease the friendship with the bride/groom.

[Julia Ros-Larocque]

1. Social convention are to follow the law and what you were teach, so
tell your boss or protect your friend and don't say anything therefore
breaking the law.

2.What you can do is
a) offer the guy help, as he needs to get clean even if he wouldn't be
in the police force, drug is not good for you.
b)You can go to your bost and suggest a drug test to the whole crew
just to make sure everyone would be in control.
c)Treathen to tell his wife, or other members of the family.

3. To make thing worse:
a) your friend has four kids to support, so if you tell to your boss
that you know he is doing drugs he won't be able to support his
family.
b) your friend asks you to join him, if you say no he'll treathen you
and say you used with him if you bring him down.
c) You can speak because you are actually doing drugs yourself, and he
also knows...

[Jenine Burt]

1. In this scenario, the social convention is being loyal to your
friend, while the moral imperative would be not to lie.
2. To resolve this issue:
-You tell your friend that she could to so much better and she
shouldn't settle for certainty at such a young age (there are many
fish in the sea/being single, wild and free)
--Find her another guy instead
3. To make this situation worse:
-Your friend has a bad history with men
-While sitting at dinner, you realize that your friend's new boyfriend
is your past ex!
-You are also attracted to the boyfriend

On Feb 26, 12:32 pm, Emma Taline Noradounkian

[Iline G]

1. There is a conflict between the social convention of saving one’s
own family and the moral imperative of saving the greatest number of
lives as possible.

2. In order to not cause your family to die and to not sacrifice 200
lives as well:
a) Alone, lead the zombie pack in an empty field or on the bridge
between the suburbs and the city to allow both the citizens and your
suburban family to escape, at the expense of your own life.
b) Escape with the 200 citizens through the underground metro
(assuming there is one), reach suburbs through same subway tunnel,
acquire shotguns from the suburbans and fight a fair war against the
assailants.
c) Momentarily confuse the zombie pack by screaming “50% off on Frozen
Yogurt!” (It’s super effective). Lead 200 citizens to the plane, fly
to suburbs, embark 30 suburbans, leave for another country.

3. To make the dilemma worse:
a) Your grandmother is only three days short of hitting her 100th
birthday.
b) The 200 citizens are very much aware of the power you hold and look
rather scary.
c) One of these 200 people is your attractive crush whom you would
like to impress with your supernatural zombie antibody genes.
d) You in fact have three goldfish.
e) The plane has to leave in twenty minutes, or else the zombies will
have reached its location, prompting you to make a choice within the
next minutes.
f) You are the only person left in the city who has piloting
experience.

[Julia Ros-Larocque]

After a long hard day at school that was non stop classes and work,
you finally get to go home. The thing is that you live about an hour
and a half away by public transportation. Waiting for the subway you
hope its not going to be filled with people because you don't feel the
be stuck like cattle in a wagon. When the subway arrives it is not
that filled so you are able to get the last seet which is on the
corner and is not a reserved seat for special case. So you are sitting
there exhausted and getting ready for a good hour on the subway. On
the most occupied station on your line, there is an old lady that
comes in and a pregnant women that seems very far along, you look
around but no one seems to notice or want to give their seats. The
issue here is do you give your seat to one of them, or do you keep it
for yourself, remember, you are exhausted and you know that if you get
up for the rest of the ride home you'll most likely faint or
something, you feel sick but you don't look sick. What do you do?

[Kathy Liu]

1. There is a conflict between the social convention of doing your
share of the team's work and the moral imperative of keeping the
promise you made to your best friend.

2. Possible solutions to resolve the situation:
a) Ask your teacher for an extension, so you will be able to do the
project with the team some other day.
b) Split the work so you can do your part individually, and the rest
of the team can carry on without you on the day of the concert.
c) Bring your laptop (which happens to be connected to the 4G network)
to the concert and teleconference with your teammates during the
intermissions.
d) Ask your twin to go to the team meeting in your place and go to the
concert.
e) Call the police and give them an anonymous tip about a bomb located
under the stage of the concert. The concert will be rescheduled while
security searches the place for the nonexistent bomb.

3. To make the situation worse:
a) The project is a presentation, and you absolutely need to meet up
with your team to rehearse.
b) Your teammates have threatened to exclude you from the team if you
don't show up, meaning you will receive a grade of 0% on the project.
c) The day of the concert also happens to be your best friend's
birthday.
d) The tickets to the concert cost you 1000$.
e) The band will be handing out free copies of their latest album
during the concert.
f) This is the last concert your favorite band will ever hold, because
they will be disbanding afterwards.

[Iline G]

War has broken between your country and many others (apparently, the
Americans have elected a Canadian as a President). Your sexist
government is asking every family to send a male member to war, but
the only eligible person in your household is your sick and old
father. You want to replace him, but you’re a girl. While you are
skilled in obscure Asian mixed martial arts, you also know that going
to the front will be extremely dangerous and goes against the law.
What do you do?

[Elaine Tat]

You’ve been working as a part-time cashier at your local pharmacy for
a month now. Unfortunately for you, your assistant manager is a real
tyrant. Just last week, she yelled at you for misplacing the peanut
snacks in the chocolate bar counter. You’ve told yourself ever since
that you should never cross her again for the sake of keeping this
job. You’re now at work, and you suddenly see your assistant manager
placing expired Pepsi on the shelf. Do you let her know of her mistake
and risk your job (let's face it, she will hate you for pointing out
her incompetence), or do you leave it to the department supervisor to
do it?

[Yu Xin Shen]

You're walking in a flee market one day and stop by the used book
store. Wanting to get a bang for your buck, you flip around some books
and see a very old manuscript nonchalantly placed under a pile of
textbooks. Intrigued, you look closer and realize with the knowledge
acquired in your English class that it is in fact an original
manuscript of Beowulf! Excited, you ask the salesperson how much
they're selling it for and he/she answers with a ridiculously cheap
price. You realize he/she doesn't know that the manuscript is an
original and hesitate to buy it and sell it later for your own profit.
However, you also know that the salesperson is in financial need with
fifteen children to feed, to clothe, and to send to school. What do
you do?

[Yu Xin Shen]

1. The social convention is to ignore the phone call from your
significant for now and finish your discussion with your English
teacher. The moral imperative is to answer your phone call from your
loved one, but harshly ending your conversation with your teacher.

2. You could answer the phone call in your pocket but not talking
directly to the phone, rather letting your significant other hear your
conversation so he/she understands the situation you're in. You could
also pretend you suddenly feel very sick and need to run to the
washroom, therefore ending your conversation with your English teacher
without him/her knowing you're answering a phone call.

3. To make matters worse, your English teacher could explaining
something very important at that instant so you wouldn't want to miss
the information he/she is about to give you and your phone rings very
loudly as you forgot to turn the sound off.

[Xiya Ma]

I would like to be addressed as Ms. President please.

1. The main conflict here is a political and large-scale situation of
egoism/nationalism versus altruism/global concern. The president has
the choice (and the power) to decide whether she will temporarily save
the American citizens at the cost of starting World War 3 and to be
potentially responsable for even more deaths in the Middle East. In a
way, there is also a conflict between the importance of one's own
identity (country) and the respect of others (international
community).

2. a) Call for an emergency meeting with the United Nations Security
Council, including the representative from Iran, to further discuss
the matter and establish a peaceful solution. Invite the UNSC to
investigate deeper and elaborate a plan to ensure the protection of
all civilians who are not involved in nuclear proliferation.

b) Increase national protection by increasing research into nuclear
tehcnology in order to build a jihad-proof bubble englobing the
American territory (maybe with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii
though: for military purposes). Stay neutral in the matter (which will
never happen).

c) Use the power of American imagination and technology to build a
gigantic, indestructable Captain America robot to crush the nuclear
research centers in Iran and destroy their nuclear weapons.

3. a) You're very Canadian and couldn't care less about the sad fate
of Americans. You flee to back to Canada two hours before the ambush
from Iranian forces. Canada becomes the new world power.

b) It was a false alert from the C.I.A. April fools guys!

c) The nuclear bases in Israel are already conquered by Iranian
forces.

d) North Korea decides to meddle with the situation and sides with
Iran (Good luck).

e) Iran took you as a hostage to start up the war.

f) Natural catastrophes are all over the place due to the abuse of
nuclear experiments.

g) Japan prepares its vendetta for Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Very MUN-related topic: Awesome choice!

[Jessica Michelin]

You are staying at an acquaintance's house with your younger brother
for one night. The acquaintance is a co-worker's friend that you met
at their wedding, and who then emailed you offering their guest
bedroom when they saw your tweet about being stuck overnight in
Toronto due to bad weather conditions.

During dinner, the acquaintance and her husband start making
insensitive and rude comments about homosexuals. Your brother has
recently come out to you, and is still insecure about his sexuality.

[Ronald Baxter]

Your best friend robs a bank and confesses his crime to you. However,
before doing so he makes you promise not to tell anyone. Later that
night, the police come by your house and start questioning you about
the robbery and ask you if you know anything about it. Do you tell the
officer your friend is the culprit or do you keep your promise to your
friend?

[tina urbanavicius]

You promised your mother that you would help her prepare
for a big family supper. Your best friend has just called you
crying because her boyfriend just broke up with her. You know
that your mother won't be able to to do the preparations herself
but your friend is feeling depressed and wants you to keep her
company. The problem is, your mother is depending on your help
and you know she will be very disappointed if you leave but you also
know that your best friend will be very upset if you don't go see
her.
Should you keep the promise you made to your mother or give your
best friend emotional support?

[YasmeenKhan]

You are out shopping with a good friend, when you both decide to look
around a very modern looking furniture store. You are looking at a
gorgeous cedar wardrobe when from the corner of your eye, you see your
friend's bag nudge a crystal vase, sending it crashing to the floor,
shattering into a million pieces. Luckily, the store is empty, and the
two working employees are in a heated debate over the display in the
kitchen section and didn't notice. Your friend frantically gestures
for you both to leave quickly, but you can't help but feel morally
obligated to stay. Do you leave with your friend? Or do you go explain
what happened to an employee?

[Chuong Trinh]

On one hand, it is impolite to tell someone to shut up and also
embarrassing for the person being told to shut up, and on the other
hand, you require silence to be able to study intensely.

There are many things that you can do to help solve the problem. For
one, the manner in which you choose to tell your fellow marianopolis
students to be silent does not have to be impolite or demeaning. A
imple: "could you please lower the volume" might be the trick. Also,
there is always the possibility of studying elsewhere. Finally, you
could always notify the library staff discreetly.

To make the dilemma more difficult, you can add the fact that you have
tried to tell them to be quiet politely and that the noise persists
nonetheless. You can also make it impossible for you to leave the room
(ie. class study period, etc) to make this a more serious situation.

[Adrian Carlesimo]

The county sheriff has arrested you and is bringing you to jail.
First, he wants to stop at the general store. Both of you go in, he
picks up some chewing tobacco and gives it to you, telling you to pass
in front of the line and buy it for him. However, the yokels in the
line don't seem to be to happy about what you are trying to do, and
start cocking their 12-gage shotguns.

[Adrian Carlesimo]

The morality here is not to sell expired or rancid goods to your
customers.
The social convention is not crossing your boss.

I believe the answer is simple. Let your assistant manager place the
expired pepsi on the shelf. Then, when she is not looking, quickly
replace them with fresh Pepsi. No one will ever know.
(Elaine sounds like something that's actually happened to you)

[Josh Indig]

You are a heart-surgeon. On an early weekend morning, you are called
in to the hospital to perform emergency open-heart surgery. You
frantically rush to the hospital. As you are parking in the parking
lot, you accidentally bump into a parked car and cause significant
damage (ie. broken headlight). You look for a pen and paper to leave
your contact information, but you don't have anything. If you don't
leave your information, its likely that the car's owner won't
immediately notice the damage, leave before you finish the surgery,
and you won't be able to pay for repairs. You know that the success of
the surgery is very time-sensitize, but finding a pen and leaving your
information could take nearly 20 minutes. What do you do?

[Josh Indig]

1. The social convention of being loyal to your best friend is in
conflict with the moral imperative to be truthful and forthright with
law enforcement.

2. One way to resolve this conflict would be to abstain from
responding, and instead refer the police to another witness or
confidant that could provide testimony incriminating your best friend.

3. This dilemma would become much more complex if the police
threatened charging you with being complicit in your friend's crime,
and you could only absolve yourself by telling them about his/her
confession.

[Evelyne Shousha]

1. It is illegal (therefore socially incorrect) to enlist if you are a
girl. However, you cannot morally let your father join the army.

2. Solutions:
a) You use your awesome Asian skills to build a rocket ship and escape
to Mars, where you would live peacefully with your family among the
local Martians.
b) You fake your father’s death so he can’t go fight.
c) You watch She’s the Man a number of times to get tips on how to act
like a guy. If the officers never learn that you’re a girl, it won’t
hurt them.

3. To make matters worse:
a) You haven’t mastered the art of dodging bullets yet and therefore
aren’t to keen on going to fight.
b) Your father, even though he is sick, is the only one who can bring
home money (since you live in a sexist country). If he goes to war, he
will undoubtedly die very soon, and the rest of your family will in
turn starve to death.
c) If you are caught, the officers will learn of your obscure Asian
mixed martial arts. They will think that all your little sisters also
have these skills and force them to fight.

> > All responses must be posted by midnight Friday March 2nd.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[davidv...@hotmail.com]

You are at home writing a paper and you know it is due the next day
and if you do not get it done on time you will lose 20 percent of your
grade with no questions asked. By chance your girlfriend of a year
happens to call you up and says that she is finally ready to sleep
with you and offers for you to come over (to keep this PG 13 lets say
she just had a huge fight with her father and he called her a bunch of
horrible names that evening and needs you to come over and console
her) On your way out of the house your mom walks by you and gives you
a big hug and tells you how proud she is of you for doing so well in
school the past couple of weeks and asks you if you were done your
assignment due the next day. The dilemma is: Do you lie and go comfort
your girlfriend who needs you or do you tell your mom that you are not
finished and were just headed to do that and then call your girlfriend
that you can't make it?

[davidv...@hotmail.com]

Well the social conventions are that if you are a healthy, non
debilitated person, you should then give up your seat to someone that
is not as healthy or in the proper shape to be standing for long
periods of time. Now if you were sitting in the handicapped seat you
do have a more social conventions, but as a younger person in the bus,
the other elder people or people that are debilitated might look down
on you and judge you nevertheless for not getting up and giving them
your seat. The moral imperative is that you know its wrong and that
you can stand for an hour or so and it will not be the end of the
world if you do but it might be hell for the person that needs the
seat.
Now since you may faint if you stand the whole ride or get sick, it is
obviously not the smart thing to get up and give away your seat for
you are putting yourself at risk, now if you were healthy and whatnot
then so be it, get up and give up your seat. To solve this problem,
you could maybe tell someone near you that you are very sick and feel
bad for the elderly person and was wondering if they could give up
their seat, now while that may be strange, it is at least something
you could do. Another possible option is to maybe get off the metro
and let the person take your seat and wait for the next metro to come
and hopefully get another.
Since I do not see how you could make this situation worse, apart from
staring at the person and glaring at them without apologizing that you
would like to get up but feel very ill, you could always put your bag
on the next available seat and not let the person sit there. You could
even try to take up a lot of room and make everyone around you,
including the person that needs to sit uncomfortable and listen to
your iPod and play really laud obnoxious music.

On Feb 26, 7:15 pm, Julia Ros-Larocque <juliaroslaroc...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Alexandra Belanger]

1. The issue you are facing in this situation is whether to say
something that could seem rude or threatening to the group of students
or to keep quiet and avoid any confrontation or misunderstandings.

2. Solutions to the dilemma:
a) Ask them politely if they can lower their volume because you are
studying. The library is a public area meant to be for quiet studies
so you have the right to tell them to keep the volume down.
b) Stare them down until they get really uncomfortable and stop
talking
c) Inform them that it is Carnival Week 2 and that they are selling
cotton candy and chocolate bars in the cafeteria (that will make them
leave immediately!)
d) Leave the library and go to a quiet study room in the school

3. To make matters worse:

a) The group of students just came from the gym and have a really
nauseating smell
b) Other students in the library hear the group’s discussion and start
to converse as well (increasing the noise level)
c) You realize their discussion is about your best friend (in a
negative way)
d) One of them is sick and is coughing in your direction
e) You are so distracted that you realize you were studying for the
midterm next week and not the one that was in an hour
f) One of your friends spots you and tells you that their dog just
died and that they need someone to talk to

[Julia Altmann]

The social convention is that since you hit the car, you want to leave
your contact information because otherwise it would be a "hit and run"
and the moral imperative is that you have a patient waiting for you in
the hospital that needs emergency open heart surgery and it cannot
wait.
To resolve the situation:
- You can always leave your ID on the car
- Look around to see if there is someone nearby and ask for a pen
- Use your cell phone to call the repair company and give them your
information
- If you don't have a phone, run into the hospital and ask someone
working at the desk to call.
- Stick money under the windshield wipers (for the repairs).

To make the situation worse:

- The damage is much more severe (the whole back of the car is
crushed)
- By hitting the car you injure yourself, making you incapable of
doing the surgery
- Your patient dies before you get there
- The car you hit is a Ferrari

[Adrian Carlesimo]

And for the third part:
- As you start to replace them all the cans suddenly topple over
creating a loud noise.
- As you are replacing the pepsi cans, the manager comes up to you and
realizes you are handling expired pepsi, believing it was you who put
them there in the first place, despite your efforts to explain.
- You discover the assistant manager is a drug dealer, and is using
expired pepsi cans to sell cocaine and heroine hidden inside to his
customers who know that the cans contain narcotics. You think about
calling the police but then you realize the drug trade is a very
lucrative industry, and you remember that your mom must undergo an
expensive operation to save her life.

On Feb

[Emma Taline Noradounkian]

There’s a conflict between the social convention of helping out a
friend in need and the moral imperative to not break a promise,
especially one made to a family member.

To resolve the situation without transgressing either social
convention or morality:
-You can ask your friend to come over and give you a hand with your
mother’s dinner preparations. Your mother will appreciate the extra
help, and you will be able to keep your friend company at the same
time.
-You keep the promise that you made with your mother by helping her
prepare for the big family supper and you can ask your friend come
over for dinner.

To make the dilemma even more keen/intolerable/ insoluable:
-If you leave the house without having helped out your mother, she
will have to take away some of your privileges (for example, your
special curfew hours).
-It is not the first time that you are not able to support your friend
due to family priorities, and she is beginning to think that you're a
lousy friend.
-Your friend is so crushed about this break up that she feels as
though her life has no meaning. You have to come and see her
immediately or else she’ll do something that she’ll regret.


On Feb 26, 11:18 pm, tina urbanavicius <tinaurbanavic...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Xu Zhang]

1- The social convention is to keep your promise and go to the concert
with your friend and the moral issue is to not let your teammates do
your work for you.
2- a) Tell your team about your situation, they will certainly
understand how hard it is for you to make a decision. Then, you can
ask them to change the date of your meeting.
b)Tell your team that you have a cold and it is contagious.
They will probably urge you to stay home and rest.
3- a) The concert ticket is 250$ and it is non-refundable. In
addition, your project is to film a short movie and you play the main
character.
b) The concert is in two days and the project is due in three days.
Therefore, you have to urge your teammates to change the date of the
meeting today and convince all of them to have the meeting tomorrow
instead.

On Feb 26, 1:48 pm, Kevin Hua <melrakki.villie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Your best friend and you plan to go see a concert sometime next year
> for your favorite band. You buy the tickets months in advance and have
> everything planned out. The week of the concert finally arrives.
> Unfortunately, the teacher gives a group project to do, and the only
> possible day that you can all work on it (group of people that is not
> your best friend) is the day of your concert. Your friend has been
> really excited, as have you, about the concert and have talked about
> it almost non-stop for weeks now. The dilemma is do you fulfill the
> promise you made to your best friend and go to the concert, letting
> down your entire team, or do the group project and let down your best
> friend.
>

[Alexander Ness]

The Social obligation is that your dead master was your best friend
and that training this child was going to be one of his most
important
accomplishements in life, thus you accomplishing it would be a good
way to carry on his legacy. However the moral obligation is that the
Jedi council not only forbid it, but also told you that if you were to
train him
grave danger could come out of it.

One way to resolve this by making sure that your master was right
in thinking that this child was important by examining him yourself.
If in any way this child seems as though he will kill you and all
other
jedis, including the young trainnes, you should send him right back
to
Tatooine. If you still cant tell, asume the worse, and send him back,
seeing
as without the existence of the galaxies peacekeepers, the galaxy will
fall into chaos

To make matters worse:
-The boy's mother, his only friend and relative, has terminally
illness that will kill her
if he doesn't become a Jedi
-If a slave becomes a Jedi, it will end the horrible slave trade, and
all slaves will be freed
-If you train him you will be banned from the order
-He is in love with a princess that is way older than him, and his
love for her will make him
insane eventually
-Your master also saved the life of an annoying alien creature, who
you will have to live with
now for the next twenty years

[Jessica Michelin]

The social convention is to follow the instructions of your
supervisor, because they are your superior. This social convention is
taught by parents, and reinforced by teachers, coaches etc. This comes
in conflict with the moral obligation to pass the child, because they
deserve it. Passing the child is what is "right" or "fair", and you
will likely have a guilty conscience if you fail the child.

One way to resolve this conflict would be to leave parts of the
child's report card blank, and test them again the next week. Another
way to resolve this conflict would be to go show your supervisor the
midterm report cards, which show that the student has already
completed all the tasks, and ask him/her for advice on what to do. By
asking your supervisor for help, you reinforce the idea that they are
more knowledgeable than you, but still subtly prove to them that the
child deserves to pass.

This situation would become even more intolerable if:
-Your supervisor had called you into his/her office the week before to
scold you for defying his/her instructions
-You and your supervisor have been sleeping together
-The child in question is your cousin, who comes to your house for
family dinner every week

[Max Renner-Rao]

1. The issue lies between being seen as impolite for rejecting an
invitation (and possibly shelter for the night) or coming to your
brother's defense.

2.To alleviate/resolve the situation:
-Point out that your host is being prejudiced and proceed to argue
about the fair treatment of homosexuals.
-Fake a sudden emergency and get out of the house immediately (though
this might leave you asleep in a car, feeling like a coward).
-Desperately try to change the topic, making it obvious to your host
that gay-bashing isn't your favorite dinner-conversation.

Ways to make the situation even worse:
-Join your host in mocking homosexuals.
-Out your insecure brother to these practical strangers in the hopes
of shutting them up.
-Hit on the member of the couple who is of the same gender as you.
-Your brother is hitting on the husband.
-Protect your brother is the most direct sense, and literally hit your
host.

[Ronald Baxter]

1) There is the social convention of loyally standing by your friend
versus the moral imperative not to lie.

2) To solve the conflict you can try to convince your friend to go
tell the employees. Then if that doesn't work and you still feel
guilty you could go to one of the employees, explain what happened and
offer to pay them back for damages.

3) To make the dilemma even more insoluble you can say that there was
a camera in the store that caught the whole incident on tape. On top
of that your friend could already have a history in scenarios like
this and your leaving with her would make you a willing accomplice.

[Luohan Wei]

1. This problem is very similar to the original problem then the first
one proposed by Mr Burton, however the consequences of the decision at
hand seems to be of a much more serious scope. The Social Convention
dictates that you cannot pass to the front of the line as the yokels
have been waiting for a much larger amount of time than you have
especially if they are armed with lethal weapons, this opposes you're
moral obligation to the Sheriff who has you under his custody.

2. The way to resolve this problem is simple, simply use your talents
of persuasion that you are innocent, that the sheriff standing at the
back of the store isn't really a sheriff he is a fugitive in disguise,
he is in fact a criminal guilty of some of the ugliest crimes known to
man, very quickly the shotguns first turned towards you will be
returned against the sheriff and with any luck he will be shot and you
will have gotten out of your situation and have regained freedom, you
may have to buy all those fine gentlemen a round of beer but that's a
small price to pay for freedom.

3. One way the situation could be intensified and made worst, would be
if the cities Mexican gang would all of a sudden burst into the store
demanding chewing tobacco and God forbid you are holding the last
piece in a five mile radius.

[Kevin Hua]

1) The problem being outlined here is the conflict between the social
convention of keeping the secret of someone who trusted you with your
silence and to whom you gave your word (a non-legal, but socially
binding contract) and the moral-legal obligation to respond truthfully
to the police officers who represent the law.
2) Ways to resolve this problem:
- Tell the police officers general hints and or stuff - perhaps
suggest that you might've possibly saw something somewhere that could
POTENTIALLY help solve the mystery of who robbed the bank. This way,
you don't say who (protecting friend) but still do your duty as a law-
abiding citizen by "trying" to help
- Feign sickness and pretend to violently collapse, thus effectively
rendering yourself in a state where you cannot be questioned
- Feign lunacy so that they will categorize you as crazy and thus not
believe a word you say
- Confess to the crime yourself thus satisfying the police's need to
arrest someone and to blame someone, and also not telling the true
identity
3) Ways to make this worse:
- During the bank robbery, someone who got injured was the officer's
daughter/son, so you feel guiltier for knowing who
- Your significant other's brother/sister/mother/father was injured/
killed in this robbery (hopefully accidentally)
- You get nervous very easily and are incapable of keeping secrets
- Somebody was killed during the robbery by your friend and you feel
extremely guilty
- Somebody (you don't know who) overheard bits of your friends
confession to you and has blackmailed you demanding payment for
keeping secret - which can be avoided by alerting authorities thus
destroying his bargaining chip

On Feb 26, 10:51 pm, Ronald Baxter <rjb...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Mark Tartamella]

1. The general dilemma in this situation is whether you should endure
the sleeplessness and lack of comfortable room to not be rude or do
something about it (like being assertive) in order to get the sleep
you so rightfully deserve.
2. In order to get your sleep while not being (too) rude, there are a
few things you can do:
a) Inform the flight attendant that your chair/seat belt/table is
broken and then inform him/her about your right to a free and
automatic upgrade to first class (assuming you know about the general
policy that there is always at least two first class seats available
on a plane for these situations).
b) Do what any self-respecting frequent flyer would do and yell "This
movie sucks!", or "Take that, my phone's been on wireless the whole
time ya scumbag pilots!" at the top of your lungs. A conveniently
placed U.S. Marshall would be delighted to escort you to a quieter
area, or at least tase you into unconsciousness for a guaranteed full
REM cycle!
c) Put on some good ol' classical music and pop some Xanax for god-
like drowsiness

3. To make matters worse:

a) There is massive turbulence in the plane and you keep hitting your
head on the chair in front of you, in turn causing the person to glare
at you oddly (oh, the irony)
b) The loud kids next to you are actually a hallucination caused by
lack of sleep, and it is getting progressively worse
c) To everyone's surprising knowledge, they are aware that you are a
devoted and humble member of the Muslim faith and are keeping eyes on
you just to make sure you're okay. What sweet people :)
d) You're on the wrong plane. Loser.
On Feb 26, 11:59 am, Alexandra Belanger <abelang...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> You are travelling to London alone on a six-hour plane ride. You had
> so many assignments to complete before this trip that you only got two
> hours of sleep and now feel very weak and tired (you were hoping to
> catch up on sleep on the plane ride!). Unfortunately, the seat you
> were assigned is in the middle of two young and noisy children. To
> make matters worse, the elderly stranger sitting in front of you
> decides to incline their seat to the maximum (which takes away most of
> your space). You ask the flight attendant if there are any extra
> seats, but she informs you that the plane is completely full. Do you
> sit uncomfortably for six hours? If not, what do you do?

[Elaine Tat]

The moral convention here would be to not cut in line. Those yokels
have been waiting in line patiently long before you, and thus it would
be disrespectful of you to take their place.
The social convention would be to follow the orders given to you by an
authority (in this case the sheriff.)

Solutions:
a) Give the money to the first yokel in line and ask him if he would
mind paying the chewing tobacco for you .
b) Get some extra packs of chewing tobacco and give some to the yokels
(bribing always works).
c) Put the money on the counter and leave.

To make the dilemma worst:
a) There is a heavily injured person waiting patiently in line to buy
some plaster and antiseptic.
b) Before hand, the sheriff tells you that if you can get him a pack
of chewing tobacco in less than 30 seconds, he will release you.
c) The person at the front of the line is your landlord to whom you’ve
owed 2month worth of rent.

On Feb 27, 10:17 am, Adrian Carlesimo <carlesi...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Cindy Yang]

1. In this conflict, the social convention is to fit in and be
pleasant while the moral imperative is to be loyal and stand up for
your friend.
2. In order to fit in but still be loyal to your other friend:
a. Subtly leave the room while they are talking about your friend
to not be a part of the conversation.
b. Naturally drop in something positive of the girl they are
talking about
c. Pick up on something your friends said about your other friend
and deviate the focus on someone else
3. To make the situation worse:
a. Get mad at your friends for talking badly about your other
friend and leave the party immediately.
b. Join their conversation and then call up your other friend to
tell her about what happened.
c. The host of the party happens to be ex-bestfriends with your
other friend.


On Feb 26, 6:34 pm, Jenine Burt <jeninely...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> You're a high school student at a friends' house for her birthday
> party on the weekend. While a group of girls are sitting around, they
> begin to talk badly about a friend of yours who was not invited to the
> get together. Feeling caught in the middle between your two friend
> circles as your loyalty is being challenged on both sides, you sit
> still and listen to the conversation. Should you say something on your
> absent friend's behalf or sit down and feel accepted with your present
> friends since you were invited?

[YasmeenKhan]

1) The social convention at hand is entertaining a close friend who
rarely visits while the moral imperative is to support a close friend
through her bad breakup.
2) To console your friend while entertaining your friend visiting from
out of town you could:
a) call your friend and let them vent about their breakup, still
giving you time to hang out with your other friend
b) explain to one of them that you are suffering from a very serious
contagious illness, and hang out with the other one
c) find a really cute date for one of them, and hang out with the
other.
3) To make the dilemma even worse:
a) your friend was by your side through your entire week of depression
after your break up last month
b) your friend from out of town lives in Dubai and you haven't seen
them in over five years
c) your friend from out of town is about to go on a six year silence
retreat, so you wont be able to speak again for quite a while.

On Feb 26, 6:13 pm, "Pamela B.Girard" <pamela.blanc...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> As you are a very good friend, you have made plans to spend a day with
> a close friend of yours whom is in desperate need of company as he/she
> has recently undergone a devastating breakup. However, about an hour
> before meeting this friend of yours, an equally close friend from out
> of town but that rarely visits lets you know that he/she will be in
> town only for the day. This friend and the one you are supposed to
> meet cannot stand each other. What do you do?

[Kathy Liu]

I disagree. As members of a society comprising a large number of
people, we are taught to do our share so that society can keep
functioning smoothly. People who don't follow the social order are
frowned upon, but they aren't viewed as immoral. However, breaking a
promise made to a friend is wrong on a deeper, emotional level,
especially considering said friend is your best friend, and knowing
how much this meant to him/her.