Case 01
The Trolley Variation
You discover the trolley problem has a third track that leads back to you. The lever is warm. Does proximity to consequence change the moral weight of inaction?
Case 02
Memory Debt
If you could erase the memory of a harm you caused, but the victim retains theirs, have you reduced suffering or merely redistributed guilt?
Case 03
The Honest Machine
An AI tells you an uncomfortable truth you have been avoiding. You know it is right. Does the source of truth affect its moral authority? Can silicon bear witness?
Case 04
Inherited Obligation
Your ancestor made a promise to a stranger descendant. Neither party chose this covenant. The descendant arrives at your door. What do you owe the dead?
Case 05
The Compassion Paradox
A doctor can save five patients with organs from one healthy visitor. The utilitarian calculus is clear. Yet every moral intuition revolts. Is disgust a form of moral reasoning, or merely its obstacle? The ward is quiet. The visitor is reading a magazine.
Case 06
Selective Mercy
You can forgive one of two people who wronged you equally. The act of choosing makes forgiveness itself conditional. Does partial mercy corrupt the whole?
Case 07
The Last Lie
A dying friend asks if their life mattered. You believe it did not, not in any grand sense. But the room is small and the hours are few. What is kindness without honesty?
Case 08
Consent of the Unborn
You make decisions that will affect people who do not yet exist. They cannot consent, object, or negotiate. By what authority do we bind the future?
Case 09
The Observer Complicity
You witness an injustice through a screen. You record it, share it, discuss it at dinner. The victim remains in the frame. At what point does witnessing become consumption? Your attention is a currency someone else is spending.