The Heinz Dilemma: The challenge


Ethics and Morality...I know, I know, a heavy topic. We were discussing this topic today in my theory class as part of understanding how humans develop cognition and higher mental processes.

I have a challenge! Here's a famous scenario used by Lawrence Kohlberg and his stages of moral development. Read it and give me your answer to this question in the comments section, I'm interested to know what you all think!

A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist/pharmacist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?


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