1-A band of rebels has liberated a village from the oppressive government forces. The commander orders all the troops to round up the surrendering enemy troops and move them out, but one soldier notices that he moves off to the side and begins to rape a young girl. The soldier then confronts the commander and shoots him several times killing him. Did he do the right thing?
Well murder is never right. Would there have been any way of restraining/arresting the man? Otherwise I'm quite ready to forgive this false action - it might be the least false option.
2-A soldier defending a prison camp knows one of his comrades is abusing and torturing prisoners, but higher ups keep ignoring him when he reports it. The camp is briefly attacked one day, and the two find themselves alone together. All attacking forces have been killed or have surrendered, but the soldier opts to kill the torturer, and then claims he was killed by enemy forces. Was this the right thing?
No. He destroyed a tool rather than attack the evil system he is in. What he should have done is collect him some good evidence and whistleblow - and make sure his attack is concentrated on the superiors.
3-A DA discovers an executive in a corporation is guilty of massive fraud. He attempts to prosecute him, but the wealthy executive is able to manipulate the legal system and get off on a technicality. Later the DA discovers similar scandals in the company, but in this case the previous executive is not involved. Despite this, he indicts him as well as those responsible and tries to pin him for crimes to get back for the previous incident. Is this OK?
No. That's a personal vendetta.
4-A ruling party in a country is likely to lose the next election to an extreme nationalist party that calls mass discrimination, stripping of political rights, and even deportation of ethnic minorities. Minority groups announce they will not tolerate the policies of this party if it is victorious and will rebel/attempt to secede, resulting in a civil war that would no doubt bring about much ethnic cleansing and even genocide. To prevent this, the ruling party rigs the election to deny the ultra-nationalists victory. Is this OK?
Of course not. (You thinking of any specific situation? Algeria?)
5-A wealthy businessman in a banana republic is being tried for corruption. One of the jurors knows that he is very much guilty of the charges brought about him, but also knows that many cronies of the government are even more guilty and are not being tried. He is being tried not for the corruption, but rather that he is a prominent opposition figure. He figures having such an important figure jailed would be a big setback and is unfair due to the worse corruption of the government, so he votes to acquit. Is this OK?
This couldn't happen in a Banana Republic. It could, and does, happen only in places like Russia where the state is still comparatively strong. And Russia doesn't have a jury system.
But let's hypothetically assume that the situation occurs as you describe, then all the jurors are pretty much f
ucked either way, as both side's gunmen are already waiting for them. Anyways no man with that kinda qualms would get on a jury in such a trial.
6-A man who begins working for a distributor of some product notices that many shipments are dated after they have actually shipped, some by quite some time. When he asks about it, he's told that company policy sets quotas for delivery. If the quotas are met, they are increased for the next period, and there is no real reward given for meeting the quotas, yet threats of pay cuts and layoffs come when the quotas are not met. Therefore orders are deliberately dated in the future so insure that quotas are only just met every period, and most customers either don't notice this or don't care. Everyone considers it fine since it's a result of the company's sloppy policies. Is this OK?
Absolutely.
7-A young woman's aunt who has always loved cats is dying, and she asks her niece to ensure that most of her fortune is donated to a local cat shelter. After her aunt dies, the woman investigates the shelter, and discovers it's not actually a shelter for stray animals, but rather a bit of a "kitty resort", where the cats are pampered and most that stay there for brief periods are owned and do so at the requests of their owners. As a result she takes the money and donates it to a bunch of legitimate charities. Is this OK?
Her aunt probably had a reason to donate to that particular cat shelter. Perhaps she's used it in the past?
At the very least, the charities it goes to should all be cat-related.
8-An unstable democracy is threatened by internal power struggles and rumors of coups. One day a coup does occur, but the military is able to thwart it. A military officer is able to apprehend those responsible for leading the coup, but he knows that even if arrested and tried, they have many friends and supporters in the government who could easily get them out, and there very likely would be another coup attempt not too long afterwords. So he opts to have the coup leaders shot and frames it as them refusing to surrender to prevent them from engaging in any coups ever again. Was this OK?
Obviously not.
