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Patty was a rich businessman's daughter. She had the best of everything all her life. Her future would have been college, a good marriage to a successful young man, and a life of comparative luxury, except that she was kidnapped by a small band of radical extremists who sought to overthrow the government by terror, intimidation, and robbery. After being raped, beaten, and locked in a small, dark closet for many days, and continually taunted and threatened, she was told she must participate with the terrorist gang in a bank robbery.  If she didn't, she and her family would be killed. During the course of the robbery, a bank guard was shot.  Was her action immoral? What if she had killed the guard? What if the terrorists had kidnapped her mother or father, too, and told her if she didn't cooperate, they would kill her parents immediately?

What would you have done in her place (your moral judgment)? [Many readers might recognize this dilemma as the Patty Hearst case. In the 1970s, the Symbionese Liberation Army, a terrorist group, kidnapped the daughter of Randolph Hearst, the tycoon of a large newspaper chain. Her subsequent capture, trial, conviction, and prison sentence has been portrayed in books and movies and provide ripe material for questions of free will and legal and moral culpability.] Watch the video and read Dilemma Situation 1 above.

Critical Analysis:

Moral Judgment:    

Moral Rules:     

Ethical System/s:  

**** Follow the Sample Ethical Dilemma Analysis above and do a critical analysis of Dilemma 1 in terms of Moral Judgment, Moral Rules and Ethical Systems. You MUST have a paragraph for each of the three topics: 1) Moral Judgment, 2) Moral Rules (forbid us to commit unethical/immoral acts, e.g., "Thou shall not kill."), 3) Ethical System that is applicable, e.g., Ethics of Virtue, Ethics of Religion, 3) Natural Law, 4) Ethical Formalism (Kant's Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives), 5) Utilitarianism (Act and Rule Utilitarianism) and 6) Ethical Egoism.

Which Ethical System or Systems would apply to the Patty Hearst case and why? You can discuss more than one Ethical System, if applicable. Whichever ethical system you choose, you MUST justify it.

Germanic Values

 Make a general statement as to the values of Germanic warriors based on what Beowulf and Hrothgar do and say.

Aspergers?

 What was the reputation of Beowulf among the Geats before he performed the mighty works we hear about in this poem?  See lines 2177-2189 before answering.

Runes?

What is on the hilt of the sword that Beowulf uses to kill Grendel’s mom and behead Gendel?  Runes?  Does it remind you of anything in contemporary classics that you may have seen in book or movie form?  What?

Digressions

How is the story of Sigemund worked into the narrative?  The story of the Fight at Finnsburh?

The Other Guy

Unferth makes some snide insinuations about Beowulf’s contest with Breca.  What is Unferth trying to do, and how does Beowulf meet the challenge?

Action Story

We are told why Grendel is so evil.  What have the Danes done, that Grendel gets to eat so many of them?

Germanic Kingship

1. The poem tells us that Shield Sheafson was “one good king.”  What, according to the eleven-line opening of Beowulf, would a good king do?

Inferno. Choose a conspicuous character from Dante’s upper hell (Circles 2-5), and another conspicuous character from lower hell (Circles 6-10).  Please do not choose Dante or Virgil.  Research your characters briefly—there is lots of information on the net about almost every character in the Inferno.  Wikipedia will do, but pay attention to the sources cited in your articles.  Your job is to use these two characters to explain the structure and logic of Dante’s hell in Dante’s terms, explaining why these particular characters are placed where they are and with the particular torments they suffer.  Before you begin, reread Canto XI, where Virgil explains it all.  Of course, you will quote relevant lines about your chosen characters, but please also quote from Canto XI.

Inferno. Choose a conspicuous character from Dante’s upper hell (Circles 2-5), and another conspicuous character from lower hell (Circles 6-10).  Please do not choose Dante or Virgil.  Research your characters briefly—there is lots of information on the net about almost every character in the Inferno.  Wikipedia will do, but pay attention to the sources cited in your articles.  Your job is to use these two characters to explain the structure and logic of Dante’s hell in Dante’s terms, explaining why these particular characters are placed where they are and with the particular torments they suffer.  Before you begin, reread Canto XI, where Virgil explains it all.  Of course, you will quote relevant lines about your chosen characters, but please also quote from Canto XI.