12/11/2022 0 Comments Lifeboat ethicsWhether at a nightclub on New Providence or a private party in Lyford Cay, a self-absorbed mindset reigns. We are living through a period when many are in their secure and secured lifeboats, while many others suffer from the metaphorical Titanics caused by COVID-19, which continue to sink because of the many icebergs and dangerous waters of the pandemic.Ī supernova level of selfishness and herd stupidity are endemic in peoples around the world and here at home. They are in their individual lifeboats watching as the Titanic collapses around them, indifferent that their behaviour may endanger or kill others, including their loved ones. While some listened to the respected Fauci, others simply didn’t give a damn. He feared there would be a surge on top of a surge. The state of Florida has now passed one million COVID-19 cases, with one person in America dying every minute as the virus spreads like a climate change-induced season of wildfires during an autumn that is growing deadlier by the day.ĭr Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, repeatedly asked, begged, pleaded with, invited and warned Americans not to travel over Thanksgiving because such travel would make a dire public health crisis exceedingly worse. While governments can mandate various public health measures, it cannot force citizens and individuals to make choices that will redound to the greater good. In terms of social ethics there is a surplus of social questions concerning the many societal deficits and the needs of the poor, minorities and the most vulnerable during the pandemic.įrom Pope Francis to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and others have come impassioned pleas about galloping inequality and access to basic goods, medicine and vaccines for the developing world and the poor.īut alongside the meta and major ethical questions to which the pandemic has given rise, are the individual ethical choices which confront us all. The COVID-19 pandemic has produced volumes of ethical case studies in medical ethics and bioethics, resource and food distribution and the availability of health care. There are also a number of well-known films which invite viewers to do the same. There are a number of case studies and scenarios employed to probe how students or participants view a particular ethical dilemma or trilemma. The notion of lifeboat ethics is a classic in ethics courses. “The inquiry nonetheless concluded that, if the lifeboat had returned to the wreck site, it might have been able to rescue others.” “Sir Cosmo denied his offer of money to the lifeboat’s crew was a bribe, and the inquiry into the disaster accepted his explanation that it was a charitable contribution for crew members who had lost not only their possessions but their jobs. One of these was the lifeboat carrying Sir Cosmo, his wife and her secretary.Īn inquiry after the accident heard claims that Sir Cosmo paid or bribed its crew not to turn back for other passengers, a contention he forcefully denied and for which no evidence was found by a Board of Trade inquiry. The inquiry into the maritime mishap found that a number of the lifeboats turned away from drowning passengers and the plaintive cries for help from some in the ocean and the pleading of some on the lifeboats to go back to rescue others.Ī number of the lifeboats had the capacity to rescue more of those struggling in the nighttime waters. Many of those who died in the brutally cold waters of the North Atlantic, froze to death or drowned after passing out from the cold. Approximately 1,500 perished in the infamous disaster, while 705 survived. The small company of three was among only 12 people in the lifeboat, despite the capacity for 28 more. Sir Cosmo, his wife and her secretary, Laura Mabel Francatelli, survived the sinking of the superliner on its maiden passenger voyage by escaping on Lifeboat No 1, which had the capacity for 40 people. THERE is a well-known episode from the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic involving the wealthy Scottish landowner Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gordon (1862-1931). Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head. An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish.
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