Moral Justification Quiz

The purpose of the Society’s Building Blocks blog is “Critically Thinking About Things That Change Society” and it’s been a depressing task in the 21^st century to witness all the absurdities coming to the forefront of our society that are destroying our culture and the core foundations that have built and supported our country for 250 years.

This is related to some observed societal reactions to things that happen in our communities.

In today’s quiz I’ll present six theoretical scenarios about a very troubled individual [John Doe] and give you a very narrow moral choice. Be completely honest with yourself and don’t try to read between the lines to expand the scenarios. All the pertinent facts are there to answer each quiz question.

Scenario A

You are walking down the sidewalk and you are randomly and viscously attacked by a large person [John Doe] who is throwing punch after punch beating your face to a pulp and from your perspective it appears that the only purpose of the attacker is to seriously injure or kill you. You yell for help, you try to reason with the attacker, and you physically try to fight off the attack but the attacker continues to physically beat you to a pulp and slam your head into the sidewalk. Your efforts to stop the attacker haven’t been successful in any way. You’re in fear for your life and you’re rapidly approaching unconsciousness. You pull your legally concealed firearm, shoot the attacker, and the attacker is now dead. Those are absolutely all of the relevant facts.

• Do you think you are morally justified in fighting back to save your life by pulling your legally concealed firearm and shooting the attacker who is now dead? Yes or No

Scenario B

You are walking down the street with a small group of people and you are randomly and viscously attacked by a large person [John Doe] wielding a large knife and it appears that the only purpose of the attacker is to seriously injure or kill you and/or others in your group. You and others try to reason and fight back against the attacking individual but the attacker continues their knife attack. It appears that nothing is going to stop the attacker and someone is going to get seriously injured or killed. You pull your legally concealed firearm, shoot the attacker, and the attacker is now dead. Those are absolutely all of the relevant facts.

• Do you think you are morally justified in your effort to save yourself and/or the others in your group from serious injury or death by pulling your legally concealed firearm and shooting the attacker who is now dead? Yes or No

Scenario C

A police officer is called to a scene where a large person [John Doe] has been witnessed by many people engaging in multiple criminal behaviors. The police officer is familiar with John. The police officer approaches John to apprehend him and John chooses to pull a large knife and begin attacking the officer. Other officers arrive and have joined in trying to apprehend John but John’s violent actions continue to escalate no matter how the officers try to deescalate the situation. John still has possession of the large knife and he is continuing to fight officers in very close quarters. One of the officers pulls their firearm and shoots John multiple times to put a stop to the what the officer believes to be life threatening violence. John is now dead. Those are absolutely all of the relevant facts.

• Do you think the officer was morally justified in the effort to save officers from serious injury or death by pulling their firearm and shooting the attacking individual? Yes or No

Scenario D

A police officer is called to a scene where a large person [John Doe] has been witnessed by many people engaging in multiple criminal behaviors. The police officer is familiar with John. The police officer approaches John to apprehend him and John chooses to produce a firearm from a concealed position and points it at the officer thus threatening the life of the officer. The officer pulls his firearm when he first sees the firearm being produced and shoots John multiple times as John points the pistol at the officer. John is now dead. Those are absolutely all of the relevant facts

• Do you think the officer was morally justified in the effort to save himself from serious injury or death by pulling their firearm and shooting the individual that was threatening with a firearm? Yes or No

Scenario E

You are the parent of John Doe in all the above scenario’s and your son is now dead. You are well aware that your son is a very troubled person. Your son has had many problems with the law, and he’s shown violent tendencies towards anyone who challenges his actions. Regardless of John’s criminal behaviors you, as a parent, are justifiably distraught over the death of your son.

• Knowing absolutely all of the relevant facts that are corroborated by witnesses, are you morally justified as John’s parent to ignore your son John’s criminally violent behavior and his criminal actions in these scenarios and try to destroy the life of the person who ended your troubled son’s life and/or sue someone or something for millions of dollars? Yes or No

Scenario F

You are part of the greater community where each of the shootings of John Doe took place. All of the facts in each scenarios above are completely accurate, corroborated by witnesses, and widely known.

• Are you morally justified to completely ignore the facts, take to the streets in protest, and try to destroy the life of the shooter in these scenarios? Yes or No

NOTE: If your thoughts while reading these scenarios jumped to being curious to know if any participant in these scenarios was a black person or a non-black person, then you’re quite likely a racist at some level of your psyche, so take a serious look inward at your core beliefs. These people are human beings and their skin color is completely irrelevant to the scenarios.

Real world scenarios similar’ish to these take place all over the United States of America on a routine basis. The vast majority of activist minded people in communities across the USA seem to completely ignore scenarios like A & B unless it is a non-black individual shooting a black individual; however, it seems that every single time scenarios similar to C & D pop up and the shooter is a police officer (especially a non-black officer) and the person that’s shot is a black person, activists in the community come out of the woodwork, loose their collective minds, take to the streets, intentionally disrupt the community, and try to destroy the life of the non-black or the police officer shooter. This hive minded, sometimes racist, community behavior to completely ignore the violent behavior of people, like this John Doe, in the world and selectively take to the streets to “protest” and destroy the lives of the shooters is morally bankrupt.

We have a serious moral bankruptcy problem in the USA.

Here are the correct answers to the moral justification questions above, there is absolutely no ambiguity.

1. Scenario A = The Correct Moral Answer Is Yes.
2. Scenario B = The Correct Moral Answer Is Yes.
3. Scenario C = The Correct Moral Answer Is Yes.
4. Scenario D = The Correct Moral Answer Is Yes.
5. Scenario E = The Correct Moral Answer Is No.
6. Scenario F = The Correct Moral Answer Is No.

If you can’t honestly answer those six questions in exactly that way without any caveats, then you should take a serious look inward at the morally bankrupt justifications, and or rationalizations, you’re using to support your immoral answers.

Don’t be part of the moral bankruptcy problem.