Sorry but this post turned out longer than I had wished, but I hope you will consider reading it and responding anyhow.
A moral dilemma is a situation where:
1) You are presented with two or more actions, all of which you have the ability to perform.
2) There are moral reasons for you to choose each of the actions.
3) You cannot perform all of the actions and have to choose which action (or actions when there are three or more choices) to perform.
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The background
SecondLife is an immersive 3D virtual reality world that is owned and operated by Linden Lab. In this world people can create one - or more accounts. Once the accounts have been created they can be logged in-world as residents.
The residents can interact with each other in almost every conceivable way and through more than two but less than three of their five senses (the full exceptions being smelling and tasting, whereas "touching" can sort-of be achieved).
However, apart from breaches of the Terms of Service (ToS) for SecondLife (which all residents have to accept on login) Linden Lab is not a party to and cannot resolve disputes between residents. There are no laws and no judicial system to solve disputes between residents, other than their own personal ethics and morals.
Introduction of the participants
Mitzi and Barbie have both been residents in SecondLife for eight years. They are acquainted with each other, but have never really had much to do with one another except some friendly interaction at social events.
Mitzi has chosen a life on the sidelines which is mainly concerned with her lover, her family and her friends. Alongside that Mitzi has a passion for gardening and landscaping and is a member of an in-world garden society, "The SecondGarden". Mitzi has a blog where she gives an account of her life and experiences.
Barbie, on the other hand, is a high profiled business woman and entrepreneur and has been involved in a land owning company and many major events and business ventures. She is a well known and respected woman. Barbie also has a blog where she promotes her events and ventures and recounts her life and experiences,
The deal
SecondGarden annually hosts a huge inworld event for it's membership and everyone else who may be interested in participating. Due to the size of the event the society needs more than it's regular sim to organize the event.
At a late date Mitzi learns that the society is having problems acquiring support from it's previous supporters for the use of an additional sim and offers to step in. She starts looking into the problem, but as it all is a strange and new territory for her and time is short. Mitzi therefor comes to think of Barbie, whom she believes must be familiar with similar issues through her previous business and large scale events.
Mitzi and Barbie have an amicable chat and Barbie agrees to help in renting a sim for the soon upcoming event. They agree on the following:
1. The sim is to be rented for six (6) weeks at L$19,000 per week (4 weeks before the event, 1 week for the event and 1 week for cleanup)
2. The cost of moving the sim prior to and after the event, L$37,500 (both ways).
3. The sim to be delivered as soon as possible. (Barbie assures Mitzi that this should only take a few days.)
Mitzi pays Barbie the full costs of the arrangement, L$151,500, and thanks her profusely for her kind assistance in the matter.
Ensuing events
The sim is not delivered to SecondGarden until some 10-12 days later. This doesn't bother Mitzi too much as she believes that it could be due to some mess up in communications and actions for which Barbie is not solely responsible.
On the last day of the event Mitzi wakes up to find a barrage of emails informing her that the sim she has rented through Barbies kind assistance has been closed and no one can get in. Mitzi tries to get in contact with Barbie to have the issue solved, both on social media and inworld without success.
When nothing is heard from Barbie during several hours, Mitzi instead contacts the land owning company directly and asks for information about how she can solve the problem.
The company informs her that the rent for the last six days have not been paid (nor for the clean up week). When Mitzi asks if she can solve the issue by paying the arrears (the back rent) and for the coming week on behalf of Barbie, the company kindly acquiesced to let her do so. The sim was opened again immediately afterwards and the closing ceremonies could continue as planned.
When paying the arrears and for the coming week Mitzi sees that the cost is not L$19,000 a week, but L$17,777. This in itself doesn't bother Mitzi as she assumes that Barbie has gotten a better deal than the going rate due to her previous dealings with the company.
However, Mitzi doesn't feel that it is fair that she should pay for the two weeks twice and asks Barbie to reimburse her for the additional costs of L$35,554.
No reimbursement has been made and Barbie no longer responds to messages from Mitzi on social media or inworld.
The dilemma
Mitzi feels she has two choices in the current situation.
1. To forget all about it and go on with her happy life and avoiding all future contact or dealings with Barbie, after all the amount is really not that substantial and it is mostly her own fault for not having protected her interests better.
2. To write about the incident on her blog and name Barbies name, show the proofs she has collected for her case (transaction records, chat logs etc.) and warn everyone from future business with Barbie, after all the amount is not insignificant and Barbies actions show poor business ethics.
What do you think Mitzi should do and why?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
