Special Forces action with Michael Sandel
real life trolley car questions
If you want to have a go at Michael Sandel’s class, you can do it for free here. https://www.edx.org/course/justice-2
Here’s one of the stories he tells- good for student discussion?
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What would you do?
What would you have done?
In June 2005, a special forces team made up of Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell and three other U.S. Navy SEALs set out on a secret reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, in search of a Taliban leader, a close associate of Osama bin Laden. According to intelligence reports, their target commanded 140 to 150 heavily armed fighters and was staying in a village in the forbidding mountainous region. Shortly after the special forces team took up a position on a mountain ridge overlooking the village, two Afghan farmers with about a hundred bleating goats happened upon them. With them was a boy about fourteen years old. The Afghans were unarmed. The American soldiers trained their rifles on them, motioned for them to sit on the ground, and then debated what to do about them. On the one hand, the goatherds appeared to be unarmed civilians. On the other hand, letting them go would run the risk that they would inform the Taliban of the presence of the U.S. soldiers. As the four soldiers contemplated their options, they realized that they didn’t have any rope, so tying up the Afghans to allow time to find a new hideout was not feasible. The only choice was to kill them or let them go free. One of Luttrell’s comrades argued for killing the goatherds: “We’re on active duty behind enemy lines, sent here by our senior commanders. We have a right to do everything we can to save our own lives. The military decision is obvious. To turn them loose would be wrong.” Luttrell was torn. “In my soul, I knew he was right,” he wrote in retrospect. “We could not possibly turn them loose. But my trouble is, I have another soul. My Christian soul. And it was crowding in on me. Something kept whispering in the back of my mind, it would be wrong to execute these unarmed men in cold blood.” Luttrell didn’t say what he meant by his Christian soul, but in the end, his conscience didn’t allow him to kill the goatherds. He cast the deciding vote to release them. (One of his three comrades had abstained.)
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Is it the right decision?