Ethical Fishbowl Topic Rankings

My Sister’s Keeper: [school copies]

Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the

rights of another?

AustinClaire Campion

SeetaHannah

The Glass Castle: [school copies]Whose responsibility is it to care for a child when parents are

unable to properly do so?

AggieNathan AbbyDivyaSarah

[Osberg Copies]

When should we go to war? When at war, where do we draw the line between

duty to one’s country and duty to another human being?

HaakonAnn

CooperNataliya

Risa

House Rules [you provide copies]Elena

Megan GulinoTravis Turner

Courtney

Cider House Rules [you provide copies]Claire Colby

NicoleMaya

Katarina

[you provide copies]

Megan GresethAllison

MadisonKingshuk

Ethical Dilemma Literature Circles

Responsibilities:

1. Small group discussions: a. Written Reflections + Discussion Questions + Post-Discussion Commentary

2. Whole Class Discussions: a. Led by small groups regarding ethical issues

3. Ethical Lens Analysis Paper:a. Choose one of the ethical lenses discussed in class and analyze the issues presented in

your novel through this lens

RankingAs we go through each of the book titles, write down:

● The title● A one sentence summary about what the book is about

After each title has been previewed, you will rank your top five choices in order from 1 (first choice) 5 (last choice).

If you have another book in mind with a prominent ethical dilemma that you are willing to borrow or buy copies of and have others that would be interested in the same novel, you

may write a note at the bottom of your ballot.

Summary of Novel Titles:

1. My Sister’s Keeper [school]2. The Glass Castle [school]3. A Thousand Splendid Suns [you] (RPL: 2 loose copies, 10 book in a bag)4. Three Cups of Tea [school]5. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families [school]6. A Long Way Home [Osberg]7. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter [you] (RPL: 5 loose copies)8. Cider House Rules [you]9. Unwind [school]

10. One True Thing [you]11. Never Let Me Go [you] (RPL: 10 book in a bag)12. Mercy [you] (4)13. Handle with Care [you] (2)

My Sister’s Keeper: [school copies]

Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the

rights of another?

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she

has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart

and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

The Glass Castle: [school copies]Whose responsibility is it to care for a child when parents are

unable to properly do so?

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In

the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all,

how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she

could make a painting that might last forever.As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had

to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.

A Thousand Splendid Suns [you provide copy]

What responsibility do we have to help others when our own lives are in danger?

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly

together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the

streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately

alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini

shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

[School Copies]

To what extent should those more fortunate extend humanitarian efforts to give others the opportunity for a good life?

Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and

promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in

one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict

with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the

humanitarian spirit.

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will we killed with our families [school copies]

What responsibility do we have to stand up to our government when they ask us to commit senseless acts of violence?

In April 1994, the Rwandan government called upon everyone in the Hutu majority to kill each member of the Tutsi minority, and over the next three months 800,000 Tutsis perished in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews. Philip Gourevitch's haunting work is an anatomy of

the war in Rwanda, a vivid history of the tragedy's background, and an unforgettable account of its aftermath. One of the most

acclaimed books of the year, this account will endure as a chilling document of our time.

[Osberg Copies]

When should we go to war? When at war, where do we draw the line between

duty to one’s country and duty to another human being?

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding

AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts

going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.

Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a

killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and

novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a

first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how

at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered

unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government

army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible

acts.

[You provide copies]

Should we be able to make decisions to alter or end one’s life based on our perceived idea of quality of life?

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by David Henry's fateful decision that long-ago winter night.

Cider House Rules [you provide copies]This novel concerns, as the title suggests, the rules by which people are to conduct their lives, but just as the list of rules posted in the cider house (Please don’t smoke in bed or use candles…) is consistently ignored, so Dr. Wilbur Larch, one of the novel’s central characters, breaks the rules by performing abortions in rural Maine in the 1920s. Wilbur Larch is no back-room abortionist, but a skilled obstetrician who also runs an orphanage for the children whose mothers prefer to give birth, and he seeks to have the children adopted. Homer Wells, the other central character, is an orphan who is never adopted, and who grows up in the orphanage absorbing the most basic lesson taught there: that one must “be of use.” His final usefulness is to replace Dr. Larch when the elderly man dies, but even here he breaks the rules, for although he is a skilled obstetrician and abortionist, he has no medical degree, and so takes over the position with an assumed identity. Partly because of the precarious nature of his own existence, Homer has opposed abortion all his life, until he feels he must perform one for a black teenager who has been raped by her father.

House Rules [you provide copies]The prolific Picoult crafts a cunning whodunit that explores what it’s like to be not only a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome but also an AS kid accused of murder. Congenitally incapable of interpreting common social behavior or properly expressing his feelings, Jacob Hunt takes refuge in Crimebuster reruns and forensic science, often to the chagrin of the local cops. When the badly battered corpse of Jacob’s social-skills tutor, grad student Jess Ogilvie, is finally discovered, police first suspect Jess’ hot-tempered boyfriend. But when TV news footage shows Jess’ body wrapped in Jacob’s favorite quilt, his mother, Emma, reluctantly realizes her son might somehow be involved. After Jacob’s arrest, legal machinations go toe to toe with medical ethics, while Emma never realizes that Jacob’s younger brother, Theo, is struggling to conceal his own dangerous secret, one that will directly impact the outcome of Jacob’s trial. Told from multiple viewpoints, including those of an empathetic detective and an eager but wet-behind-the-ears attorney, the mystery unfolds at a spellbinding pace. But Picoult also does an exceptional job communicating the complexities of Asperger’s syndrome and the challenges confronting AS families. Faithful Picoult fans will whisk this off the shelves, but devoted readers of savvy courtroom dramas should also give it a try. (from Booklist)

[School copies]

Is there ever a time when taking someone else's life is acceptable or justified?

In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding ensures that the child's life doesn’t “technically” end by transplanting all the organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound.

With breathtaking suspense, this book follows three teens who all become runaway Unwinds: Connor, a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding; Risa, a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to cost-cutting; and Lev, his parents’ tenth child whose unwinding has been planned since birth as a religious tithing. As their paths intersect and lives hang in the balance, Shusterman examines complex moral issues that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.

One True Thing [you provide copies]Quindlen (Object Lessons) again examines delicate family dynamics with this resonating tale of a matriarch's illness and the tempest of emotion that swirls around her deterioration and death. Manhattan psychiatrist Ellen Gulden recalls the dark time nearly a decade ago when she was accused of administering a fatal dosage of morphine to her mother, who was suffering with terminal cancer. Back then, intelligent, overachieving Ellen was forced by her domineering father to abandon a promising magazine career and assume the role of companion and caretaker at her family's suburban home. While tending her failing mother, Ellen discovered some harsh truths about herself, her parents and the relationships they had developed over the years. Following Kate Gulden's autopsy, circumstantial evidence-as far-reaching as a high-school essay she wrote championing euthanasia-accumulated against Ellen, and she was arrested. Now cleared of charges and estranged from her father, Ellen speculates on what really happened during the final hours of Kate's life. Quindlen's talent for weaving a believable reality from her characters' complex sentiments shines here, and her portraits are full-bodied and carefully drawn. Unfortunately, Ellen's digressions are often too broad in scope, incorporating peripheral characters and aiming to discuss several themes (i.e., friendship, sex, the cost of ambition) at once; these introspections occasionally slow the narrative, especially in the novel's second half. These stylistic points aside, Quindlen's story sustains an emotional momentum, and she addresses difficult issues with compassion.

[you provide copies]

Set in late 1990s England, in a parallel universe in which humans are cloned and raised expressly to "donate" their

healthy organs and thus eradicate disease from the normal population, this is an epic ethical horror story, told in

devastatingly poignant miniature. In savoring the subtle shades of atmosphere and innuendo in three small, tightly bound lives, Ishiguro spins a stinging cautionary tale of

science outpacing ethics.

Mercy: (RPL: 4 loose)

Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy.

Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie -- seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?

Handle With Care: (RPL 2)When Willow is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, her parents are devastated—she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. In this provocative story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, “Picoult writes with unassuming brilliance” (Stephen King).

Every expectant parent will tell you that they don’t want a perfect baby, just a healthy one. Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe would have asked for a healthy baby, too, if they’d been given the choice. Instead, their lives are made up of sleepless nights, mounting bills, the pitying stares of “luckier” parents, and maybe worst of all, the what-ifs. What if their child had been born healthy? But it’s all worth it because Willow is, funny as it seems, perfect. She’s smart as a whip, on her way to being as pretty as her mother, kind, brave, and for a five-year-old an unexpectedly deep source of wisdom. Willow is Willow, in sickness and in health.

Everything changes, though, after a series of events forces Charlotte and her husband to confront the most serious what-ifs of all. What if Charlotte had known earlier of Willow’s illness? What if things could have been different? What if their beloved Willow had never been born? To do Willow justice, Charlotte must ask herself these questions and one more. What constitutes a valuable life?

Summary of Novel Titles:

1. My Sister’s Keeper [school]2. The Class Castle [school]3. A Thousand Splendid Suns [you] (RPL: 2 loose copies, 10 book in a bag)4. Three Cups of Tea [school]5. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families [school]6. A Long Way Home [Osberg]7. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter [you] (RPL: 5 loose copies)8. Cider House Rules [you]9. Unwind [school]

10. One True Thing [you]11. Never Let Me Go [you] (RPL: 10 book in a bag)12. Mercy [you] (4)13. Handle with Care [you] (2)14. House Rules

Ethical Perspectives:

1. Utilitarianism

2. Deontological

3. Rights Based

4. Ethics of Care

5. Virtue Ethics

http://hphs.dist113.org/library/studentresearch/Document%20Library/ethical_issues_list.htm