Ethical Thought Experiment

[Elayis]

For my Ethics class we were tasked with coming up with a moral thought experiment, which we would ask at least 30 people to respond to and then write a paper on our findings. For anyone interested, here's the scenario I came up with (which is heavily influenced by the trolly problem).

Suppose you come across a large mastiff that you’ve never seen before being charged at by a young moose. Even though you have never seen this dog before it is obviously a human pet, as it has a collar and name tag. The dog is not backing down, and the moose appears ready to trample it. Because you have been on a nature walk you are carrying a pistol with you.

What should you do in this situation? Should you attempt to help? Perhaps you should let nature take its course. It is unclear, due to the largeness of the mastiff and the smallness of the moose, who would come out on top.

If you do decide to intervene, you fire a warning shot, but neither animal is backing down. It is clear that you will have to actually shoot one of them to stop the violence, but as the animals are moving and do not remain stationary a flesh wound is unlikely. Which animal would it be more moral to side with? The human pet obviously has an owner somewhere that would likely be devastated by its death. The moose, on the other hand, is still young and probably still living with its mother.

Is there a clear moral choice?

For anyone that doesn't want to post their responses publicly, I've also created a Google Survey:

Ethical Thought Experiment

Suppose you come across a large mastiff that you’ve never seen before being charged at by a young moose. Even though you have never seen this dog before it is obviously a human pet, as it has a collar and name tag. The dog is not backing down, and the moose appears ready to trample it. Because...

docs.google.com