Evergreen Valley College Humanities Five Questions

I’m working on a humanities multi-part question and need guidance to help me study.

1. Two young men, brothers, had got into serious trouble. They were secretly leaving town in a hurry and needed money. Karl, the older one, broke into a store and stole a thousand dollars. Bob, the younger one, went to a retired old man who was known to help people in town. He told the man that he was very sick and that he needed a thousand dollars to pay for an operation. Bob asked the old man to lend him the money and promised that he would pay him back when he recovered. Really Bob wasn’t sick at all, and he had no intention of paying the man back. Although the old man didn’t know Bob very well, he lent him the money. So Bob and Karl skipped town, each with a thousand dollars.

Explain which brother do you think was worse? Stealing the money like Karl or lying to the old man like Bob? Make sure you explain why you think that is worse – your reasoning is more important than the decision itself.

2. Judy was a twelve-year-old girl. Her mother promised her that she could go to a special rock concert coming to their town if she saved up from baby-sitting and lunch money to buy a ticket to the concert. She managed to save up the amount of money the ticket cost plus another twenty dollars. But then her mother changed her mind and told Judy that she had to spend the money on new clothes for school. Judy was disappointed and decided to go to the concert anyway. She bought a ticket and told her mother that she had only been able to save twenty dollars. That Saturday she went to the performance and told her mother that she was spending the day with a friend. A week passed without her mother finding out. Judy then told her older sister, Lola, that she had gone to the performance and had lied to her mother about it. Lola wonders whether to tell their mother what Judy did.

Should Lola, the older sister, tell their mother that Judy lied about the money or should she keep quiet?Explain why.

3.Review your 2 responses to questions 1 and 2 and identify which of Kohlberg’s 6 moral stages you are in for each scenario. Support why you think you are in that stage. You can be in different stages for the different scenario

4. Watch this short clip about a selfless good deed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowJfUmlzeI

Can humans truly be altruistic? Try to provide one example of true altruism. Be specific and support why you feel that example is truly altruistic.

5. Watch the TED talk about lying : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6diqpGKOvic

What are the 2 important ingredients that are required for lying? List the two. What did you think about the technology he explained to identify if people are lying or not – would it be ethical to use it? Explain why or why not?