Ep 1: In Hindsight with Jay Shapiro

07/11/19 • 32 min

Dilemma Podcast

Host Jay Shapiro reflects on Episode 1 of Dilemma - Fire at the Louvre with Professor Susan Wolf.

Host Jay Shapiro reflects on Episode 1 of Dilemma - Fire at the Louvre with Professor Susan Wolf.

Previous Episode

S01E01: Fire at the Louvre - Susan Wolf

Paul is a scholar of Renaissance art history and a curator at the Louvre in Paris. One morning, a fire sweeps through the museum. As people are evacuating the museum, Paul has an important decision to make. Should he risk his own life by attempting to rescue anything?

He sees that he has at least two options. First, he could rescue Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, his favorite painting in the world and the museum’s most prized work. Second, he could rescue a museum visitor who seems to have lost consciousness, and who therefore seems to be incapable of rescuing themselves.

Paul realizes that no one would blame him if he did not attempt a rescue at all, given the personal risk involved. He also realizes that, if he does attempt a rescue, he faces a separate question: What or whom should he rescue? Paul thinks of himself as a kind and humane person. Watching a human being die as he saves a painting would be devastating. But he has dedicated his entire life to studying and preserving Renaissance art, and he loves the Mona Lisa more than anything else in the world. Moreover, approximately six million people visit the painting every year, and its destruction would be an immeasurable cultural loss.

Hosts: Jay Shapiro & Coleman Hughes

Featured Guest: Susan Wolf, professor of moral philosophy at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Next Episode

S01E02: Star Trek's Prime Directive - Eric Linus Kaplan

In the long running science fiction show Star Trek, the Federation has a guiding principle referred to as the Prime Directive which instructs federation ships with advanced technology to not interfere with primitive evolving civilisations in such a way where the intervention is detected. In a recent situation from the film ‘Into Darkness’ Captain Kirk is faced with a dilemma of violating the Prime Directive to save Spock’s life. The staff led crew comes across an alien planet with an intelligent but primitive culture facing the prospect of an imminent devastating eruption of a volcano. The local culture believes the volcanoes activities are controlled by Gods. The Starship has a simple device which can be used inside the volcano which would neutralise it, and prevent it from causing any harm. Kirk is faced with a situation. Where he will reveal the starship to the locals thus violating the Prime Directive in order to save Spock who is stuck in the volcano. Spock pleads that the good of the many outweigh the good of the few. And Kirk’s crew member reminds Kirk that if the positions were switched he would let you die. But kirk saves him anyway, much to Spock's dismay. The final shot of the sequence shows the tribe huddled praying in a circle, spared from the volcano. Worshipping a diagram of Star Trek's spaceship.