The Moral Dilemma (Gun Metal Grey HK TVB Series)

Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning gave us a glimpse into how the concept of morality is formed. It consists of three stages, namely :

• pre-conventional level 
• conventional level
• post-conventional level

In the theory, we were presented with moral dilemma. The story goes like this:

Your wife is dying of cancer soon. You found out that there was a chemist who has developed a drug that could potentially save your wife's life. But the chemist wants to charge you USD2000 even though the cost of developing the drug was only about USD300. You frantically asked for your friends' help and managed to collect USD1000. The chemist still refused to sell it to you despite your promise of paying the rest later.

In desperation, you decided to steal the drug even though you know you would end up in jail.

I leave it to you to decide what course of action you would be taking. I would like to g straight to the story involving 2 police investigators named Carlson and Stone, a woman called Jodie, a car wreckage operator called Jeson, and a guy called Robert. The story is taken from episode 19 of a HK TVB series titled Gun Metal Grey.

Jeson was a racing car driver. One day while he was not racing, he drove his girlfriend out to the city mall. Along the way, there was a reckless driver who crashed into his car and killed his girlfriend instantly. Despite this, the reckless driver was acquitted of the crime of reckless driving as there was not enough evidence. Jeson was very devastated and angry. He wanted to commit suicide but there was a social worker, Jodie who advised him not to take his life away. She promised him that she would plan something for him.

Jodie had the similar experience years back when a reckless driver named Robert drove cross the traffic red light and killed his 6 years old son.

Jodie and Jeson decided to start a car-burning ritual in the middle of the night and gather all the family members of car accident victims. They chanted, curse the driver and burn the car belonged to reckless drivers (Jeson worked as car wreckage cutter 劏车佬)

Carlson and Stone are the police investigators who wanted to find out the truth about all the hit and run car accidents that led to the deaths of many reckless driver.

To cut the long story short, they managed to trace the potential suspect of the brutal killer who murdered those people who have killed many through their reckless driving.

They asked Robert to meet up with Jodie to clear the air and seek forgiveness. Jodie agreed to meet Robert. He came to the place where years ago he accidentally killed the 6 years old boy. He carried flowers, and kneel at that spot. Jodie sensed that was the best opportunity to revenge. She drove at high speed and hit Robert on the spot. He died of serious injury.

She felt a sense of satisfaction of revenge. Her mum saw her at the graveyard of her son, and told her how she missed her. They went to her mum's place. A priest came over to pass some money to her mum. Jodie wanted to know who the donor was. Her mum said, it was Robert who kept asking the priest to pass money and paid for her dad's hospital bill, and even funeral. Jodie was devastated. She now realised that she had done something really terrible.

On the other hand, Carlson and Stone managed to trace Jodie's home and found a notebook chronicling the murder of three reckless drivers. Stone was imprisoned to life sentence for a murder he didn't commit years back.

Despite able to turn off the false accusation 15 years later through Court of Appeal, Stone became a firm believer of social justice rather than the judicial system that sometimes do not provide real justice to victims. He deliberately threw the notebook into a container for burning incense to detroy evidence, in order to help Jodie to be freed from criminal prosecution. Carlson was really angry with Stone as he believes that judicial system must be the ultimate yardstick of prosecuting criminals, whether they are killing the reckless drivers or not.

Carlson went up to Jodie's mum's place. They were having dinner. Jodie confessed the crime and agreed to be arrested. However, she requested to change clothes. After a while, she screamed. Carlson rushed in, she stabbed herself with a huge knife.

Stone told Carlson off on his insistence of arresting her.

I think this is a moral dilemma for Carlson. He has different perspectives from Stone.

What do you think about this story?