Brannigan\'s Moral Reasoning Applied to a Specific

Brannigan's Moral Reasoning Applied to a Specific Case Study

Using Brannigan's six steps to moral reasoning, the situation involving the business man, his wife, and her lover can be broken down and analyzed from a moral perspective in order to arrive at an agreed upon moral option. The first step in using Brannigan's Moral Reasoning logic is to identify the fact. Since the case went to court, the article used to relate the case to the public is adequate for identifying these facts. Here are the facts as stated by the article:

The wife was a teacher at the secondary school where the 16-year-old student attended when the affair began, the husband filed for divorce 20 years after the affair began, the divorce was filed in August, 2009, the couple had not had sex for over 10 years due to the husbands impotence and related health problems, the wife was hit and beaten during her marriage, and witnesses re expected to take the stand later in the trial to help resolve some of the murky details about the marriage and affair.

Since these are the facts, the next step of viewing the facts from different perspectives will be relatively easy. Each person alleges that other meetings and actions took place, but since these are not related in the article as facts, they cannot be used in the moral reasoning exercise.

From the wife's perspective these facts do not change. However, the moral issues relative to this case are certainly up for interpretation, depending on which perspective is used. From the husband's perspective, it was morally wrong for the wife to begin n affair while married and continue this affair for twenty years. From the wife's perspective, the man was impotent, and he may have had a moral obligation to make sure she was sexually satisfied in the marriage.

This does not give the wife a license to cheat, however it does bring up questions relative to the husband's responsibilities within the marriage and relationship from a moral perspective.

The next step in the Brannigan process is to identify the people involved. The people involved in this court case are the husband, wife, younger lover, and the wife and her lover's children. Each of these individuals plays a different role in the story.

There are many ways in which the issue can be resolved, depending on the intended outcome and weight of the statements coming from both parties. Since both parties are looking to get divorced, there can be little debate about the outcome of the conflict relative to this intention. However, the issue could be resolved by awarding the husband the estate of the married couple and any money or property acquired after the affair began 20 years ago. This would seem fair because it is typical in a divorce court for the judgment to be against the person who did the cheating. Also, it could help to make up of the husband's grief and repay what is emotionally owed from the wife, who chose to cheat and create a family with her lover.

The wife has a family with the lover, all of whom will be undoubtedly affected by the court's decision and whom have been already affected by their parents' decisions.

The final step in the Brannigan process is to identify the best moral option. Depending on the viewpoint of the court, the best moral option could be utilitarian or it could take the shape of may other beneficial and fair rulings, depending on the outcome of the trial.

Since the husband and wife are older, and have dealt with this affair for years, it would only seem morally fair to make sure that the children and those affected by the affair indirectly are clear of any fallout from the trial. This means that the wife and lover's children should remain clear of the outcome and not be negatively affected by the ruling. Otherwise, the best moral decision would be one where the husband and wife no longer feel obligated to be a part of each other's lives. Obviously the wife felt unsatisfied or unfulfilled and decided to cheat. However, she is also guilty of not communicating with her husband in order to relay this information before she cheated.

The husband, at no time, should have hit his wife, and cheating gives him no excuse to do so. This means that the wife should remain free of any future abuse, and should be compensated for the specific instances and experiences where she was emotionally or physically hurt. This violence should also be taken into consideration wen handing out a punishment or ruling, either way.