Philosophy 291
Environmental Ethics 
Winter Quarter 2001
Andrew Mills' 
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Values Exercise

Imagine that there is a large ship that is rapidly sinking at sea. There is an island with a small human city and a great deal of forest which can be reached by lifeboat. However, there is just one lifeboat left, and you must decide on which order you would place the following creatures on the lifeboat:

  1. An intelligent, healthy, morally virtuous human
  2. An intelligent, healthy, morally evil human
  3. A healthy moose (there is an indigenous moose population on the island)
  4. A collie with a permanently lame leg
  5. A severely mentally disabled human
  6. Ten chickens
  7. A breeding pair of an endangered species of bird, once native to the island
  8. A human in a coma who will almost certainly never come out
  9. A breeding pair of common, but beautiful, indigenous songbirds
  10. Two breeding pairs of a nonindigenous variety of rapidly breeding wild rabbits (with no known predators on the island, and an extensive food supply)
Assume that while on the lifeboat none of the potentially dangerous creatures will attack or cause any harm to the other creatures on the boat, and that all groups of creatures require an equal amount of space. Rank the creatures (or groups of creatures) from 1-10, with #1 being the creature(s) you would save first, and with #10 being that creature (or those creatures) which you would be most willing to sacrifice. Where possible, try to give a reason for why you placed a given creature where you did in your ranking. For example, if you placed the disabled collie ahead of the healthy moose (or vice versa), can you explain why you did so?
 

(From Jason Kawall, “An Introductory Exercise in Articulating Values”, Teaching Philosophy (APA Newsletters), Vol. 99, No.1, Fall 1999)