A Massachusetts high school student had just finished her shift when a friend sent her a text messaging asking if she would pick her up from a party. The girl realized she was drunk, and had the wherewithal to ask a friend for a ride home. The driver, Erin Cox, picked up her friend as the police arrived to bust the party. Her high school has suspended Erin for even appearing at this party; despite the fact that she did not have any alcohol and that the police have corroborated her story, and despite the fact that she was not there as a party goer but rather a designated driver, the school recognizes no difference in her actions or the actions of those students who partook in underage drinking. As a school with a zero tolerance policy, there is no grey area.
When I first read this story, I was reminded of "The Heinz Dilemma" posed by noted psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg held that there are three levels of moral thought, with a total of six steps from the first level to the highest level. He posed this scenario:
"A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?"
Kohlberg argued that whether a participant believed Heinz was justified in his actions or not was not important. What was truly important was why the participant believed this. It was the reasoning that participants came up with that was telling of their levels of moral thought. In a nutshell, Kohlberg devised three levels: Pre-conventional is best thought of as basing actions on rewards and consequences; "I will do this because I will be rewarded, I will not do this because only bad people do that." Conventional thought can be conceptualized as a dualistic view of behaviors; "Things are either right or they are wrong, and if the action is wrong, then it should never be committed." The final level is called Post-conventional thought, and is described as a means of thinking in terms of one's own moral and ethical values as opposed to what society deems as right or wrong.
Why should you know this? Well, for anyone who has young children in their lives, teaching children appropriate from inappropriate behaviors is very important. However, we also know that behavior typically not allowed is allowed in certain situations. You may tell a young child that she is not permitted to use the phone without permission, but in the event of an emergency she should absolutely call 9-1-1. And so as responsible adults we hope to guide younger generations away from an dichotomous view of absolute right and wrong, and foster an ability to decide what is right for themselves (when they are old enough, of course).
This brings us to Ms. Erin Cox. Her high school's zero tolerance policy holds that any activity related to underage drinking is wrong and will not be tolerated. This means that the girl who offered a sober driver is as guilty as the teenagers engaging in underage drinking. Regardless of her actions, Erin would have been engaging in some undesirable behavior and have to deal with certain consequences; breaking a school rule will result in suspension, loss of honors and privileges that she has worked hard to earn. Should she have knowingly allowing an intoxicated young girl to remain at a party with other drunk teens? What would you have told your child to do?
I am seriously troubled at where our society is going. On the west coast we have teenagers (with adults in their lives who allow them to) get drunk and destroy a man's home without repercussion, and on the other side of the country a school punishes a girl for acting responsibly. While it's nice that some of us recognize the absurdity of these situations, acknowledging these issues alone is not stopping them. This is a very disturbing trend that seems to be pervasive on even small levels. When was the last time you went to a store and saw a young child behave inappropriately and wonder to yourself how his/her parent just allows the child to act out in that way without saying anything? How many entitled teenagers and young adults do you know that just expect the world to be handed to them? Is there a place for values in today's America?
Excellent post.
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