Seeing as how the cases at the end of The Ethics of Teaching are left to us to analyze, I thought I would give this one a shot (no pun intended). In this scenario, James gets beat up and robbed on a regular basis by the school bullies. He brings an unloaded gun to school in an attempt to frighten off his attackers and the teacher, Ms. Hesston, sees it. She ponders whether she should stick to the school district's Zero Tolerance Policy (enforced by law) or try to quietly cover up the issue since James is truly a victim and is right about the school's inability to prevent bullying.
The consequentialist may consider the following: the gun was not loaded, noone was hurt with the gun, James (and possibly others) are being harmed everyday by the bullies, and James' parents are being harmed since the lunch money they give him is being stolen. If Ms. Hesston enforces the Zero Tolerance policy, James will be harmed by having to go to Juvenile detention, his parents will be harmed by his absence, finding a gun in school may give the school a bad reputation, and students/parents may consider Ms. Hesston cruel for punishing James' attempt to defend himself. If Ms. Hesston does not report the gun, James will not go to Juvenile Detention, his parents will not be hurt, and the school's reputation won't be harmed. However, if Ms. Hesston covers up the fact that James had a gun and the school/police find out anyways, she will be in trouble as well as James, facing losing her job and potentially criminal charges. Since this would cause the same harmful effects as before, in addition to harmful effects to Ms. Hesston herself, I would think that the consequentialist would consider the harm done by not telling (if discovered) to be greater than the harm done by telling and would thus enforce the Zero Tolerance policy.
Since the non-consequentialist views people as ends and not means, he would say that James is a free-moral agent and therefore should know that bringing a gun to school is wrong (even if he does not know that the school has a Zero Tolerance policy). He is responsible for his actions and must suffer the consequences. The non-consequentialist would say (and I agree) that Ms. Hesston must report the gun incident.
However, I must ask myself (and this is personal feeling) what should happen to the bullies? If James was under so much duress from these bullies that he felt the only resort was to bring a gun to school, then I do not think they should go unpunished - if they are guilty. Of course, in order to observe due-process there must be some proof (perhaps a witness) that the bullies were attacking James before they can be punished. It's sad that James might suffer while his attackers go on to victimize other children.
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2 comments:
I think after reading the issues for today and what I blogged about, my moral intuition would be to punish the student. Today he may have brought it unloaded to school, but what about tomorrow and in the future. While there are some parts of the consequentialist theory aspects that you brought up that I do agree with, the fact that you should not bring a gun to school is important to myself and my morals. I do agree that the bullies should also be punished in some way, but that would be another case in itself to discuss.
I think the teacher should review the situation with the principal in the hope that conferences with him, the student and his parents can eliminate the need for the serious punishment called for in the zero tolerance policy. The seriousness of the consequences make this a decision requiring more authority than an individual teacher has.
I also think that overhaul of the school bullying policy should be taken immediately. Just the presence of administrators or teachers all around the school and its properties could be enough to deter bullying.
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