The Harder Right: Stories of Conscience and Choice

Is it ever right to reject a child?

What do you do when taking the life of an innocent person means saving several more?

When is it right to break a promise?

Can someone be too good?

If confronted with these situations, what would you do?

These are some of the issues explored in The Harder Right, short stories that throw light on the complexity of ethical decision-making. Each story considers a moral concern, from personal loyalty to conflicts between integrity and ethical principles.

The Harder Right is designed to stimulate discussion about morality and ethics. A discussion guide is provided at the end of the book.

The stories in this book are outstanding ethical markers that will help our soldiers dig deep inside themselves to practice not necessarily what to think, but how to think.
—Stephen Arata, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret), former Deputy Head of the Department of History, US Military Academy at West Point

These stories compel the reader to place him- or herself in the shoes of each morally conflicted protagonist. I found myself repeatedly wondering what would I do in this situation.
—Jeffrey Berger, Director of Clinical Ethics, Department of Medicine, Winthrop-University Hospital, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Stony Brook School of Medicine

The Harder Right demonstrates the difficulty of knowing the most basic truths about people while opening up a door to their lives and inviting us inside.
—Maryann Woods-Murphy, 2011 Teaching Ambassador Fellow of the U.S. Department of Education

We have had some intense discussion using The Harder Right in the Freshman College. Every story provokes some kind of debate. We believe this will move the students to think more critically about unclear topics.
—Millicent Brown, Associate Professor of History and Sociology and Mitchell Mackinem, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Claiflin University