Moral Reasoning
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“Moral Reasoning”
Mary Reed
Grantham University
In the story about the police officer and the football player I think that the officer was using post conventional thought, because he was following the law and the rules that he had learned in his job. In our reading it states that Post conventional thought comes in when you consider laws and rules, and you have your own belief system – and your belief system may actually go outside the laws and rules – and you understand and respect them – but you are willing to fight for your belief system at all costs. So when the football player explained his situation and had evidence to back him up that did not matter to the officer because he had his own belief system and thought that no matter what was going on the football player should have obeyed the rules of the law.
I believe that the football player was using conventional thought, because in our reading it states that what would a good person do? They havent internalized themselves that they are a good person – but they really focus on trying to be good – and that is their justification for a behavior. The football player thought that he was doing something that was good when he ran the red lights, because he would get his wife there to see her mother before she died and that was enough justification for what he had did.
I believe that I would have done the same thing in the football player situation, because there was a life and death situation that was going on and if it was the last time I would see one of my family members alive it would not matter. I would have made sure that I made sure that it was safe to cross the red lights so that others would not have been at harm and if the way was clear I would have ran the lights as well and suffered the consequences afterward. I believe that the officer was right in one way but he should have also consider the circumstance after he heard it and let the couple go in and then afterward did his job as an officer. There are certain things that I think that officers should consider when it comes to things like this and there are different ways in handling the situation.
I know that officers have a job to do but when it comes to a situation of life and death I think they should be consider of the others that are involved.