Hannah Hecht's Blog

“The Heinz Dilemma”
Yes, I believe that the husband was right in stealing the drug. If he had just stolen it outright after discovering his wife’s sickness it would have been wrong, but he exhausted all other options. The husband tried all other cancer treatments, which didn’t work, and offered the local druggist five times the amount that it cost the druggist to make. He was out of options. He could not borrow money from anyone else, nor could he reason with the druggist and talk his price down. And because of his intense love and sympathy for his wife, he simply couldn’t just sit idly by and watch her die. He knew that there was a way to save her and he did what was necessary. This isn’t a case of sacrificing a group of lives for one life, instead it is a simple case of doing something wrong in order to prevent something worse from occurring.

According to Gilligan, as a female, I ought to have answered as Amy did, with a focus on relationships and conflict-resolution, instead of logic and the law. Amy felt that the true answer to the question lay in convincing the druggist to lower his price, not in stealing the drug and then allowing the law system to advocate “true” justice. My answer was actually a lot closer to that of Jake and of Kohlberg. I took a more logical approach and felt that death was much more wrong than theft and that human life is much more valuable than the profit that the druggist would make off of the drug. I guess that I tend to see the world in terms of black and white, or right and wrong, and think in a logical sequence.

I found Amy’s answer to be much more interesting than Jake’s though. Maybe it was just more interesting because it’s always fun to see the world through someone else’s eyes, but her focus on conflict resolution seemed like it might lead to a better solution. She also was able to see into the future and recognize how the current situation may affect Heinz and his wife’s future relationship with each other. Also, if Heinz could convince the druggist to sell him the drug for less, then he wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences of breaking the law later, although the judge ought to understand why he did it. The part that I didn’t quite understand about Amy was her firm aversion to stealing, no matter what. For me, the law should not be followed unfailingly just because it is the law. Legislation is manmade, and therefore, subject to mistakes. Most importantly, laws aren’t written with the foresight of every single future situation that may arise. In this hypothetical situation, with all other options exhausted, stealing is the right thing to do, so Heinz should do it.

Questions:

1. If this study was conducted more extensively and more students were asked, would all of the male and female students give the same answers as Amy and Jake?

2. Would the respective age of the students make a difference?

3. This is more of a statement, but… It would be interesting to look at the case of Amy and Jake and their thought patterns from an evolutionary perspective. How has evolution prewired males and females to think in a certain way?