Imagine an owner of a passenger ship is about to send out an emigrant ship, carrying several families across the sea to a new home. He understands that the ship is not very well built and knows it has suffered a lot of wear and tear. A shipwright he employs brings some expensive structural issues to his attention. It’s questionable whether the ship is seaworthy. These doubts make the owner unhappy, so he suppresses them. He convinces himself that the ship is fine and ready to go. He puts out of his mind any ungenerous suspicions about the integrity of shipwrights and contractors. He tells himself that the ship has already made many successful voyages before and that the Lord will see these families safely to their new home. When it sinks, hundreds of passengers drown. He collects the insurance money and suffers no remorse.
In class you we discussed the following questions and tried to reach a consensus.
- Is the shipowner morally at fault?
- If so, what exactly did he do wrong? What was the root cause of the failing?
- What, if anything, should he have done differently?
