The Parable of the Sadhu

Introduction: The Parable of the Sadhu is the story of a man, Bowen McCoy, who traversed the Himalaya Mountains on a business sabbatical program. On his journey he encounters a sadhu (an Indian holy man) who has passed out from exhaustion on the path. He checks the man’s pulse and gets the others in his group to help him out, and carries on. When he reached the top, the rest of his team caught up to him and informed him that they did not take the sadhu all the way down to the village, and are not sure whether he lived or died.
Dilemma:
Bowen’s decision was based on many factors. Some of these factors were personal, such as his own physical fatigue, his goal to reach the summit, and the fact that this opportunity was “once-in-a-lifetime” (Curtis, 156). Other factors included the fatigue of his fellow climbers, the danger of the pass, the advise of his team and, most importantly, the well being of the sadhu. While reading this article, I found Bowen’s decision to be mostly based on his own personal issues. Although he rationalized his decision later with his fears of the other members of the group’s heath and the fact that the pass may not be passable later, I had the feeling that deep down that’s not why he pushed ahead. I believe that he, somewhat selfishly, was only interested in finishing the climb for his own personal gain and for his ego. Evidence of this lies in his exhilaration of reaching the top, even an hour later when he sees Stephen, his friend, come struggling up the mountain. His rationale of his decision makes it seem like his team’s well being was a major concern, but he did not appear to be as concerned with Stephen’s health as he was with his own accomplishment.
Goals:
Bowen’s goal, like the goal of many of the members of the team, was to reach the summit, no matter what it took. He and much of the team were primarily concerned with their own self-glory and accomplishment. The goal of Stephen was very much different, he too wanted to reach the summit, but was primarily concerned with the safety of the sadhu. All the members of the team wanted to help the sadhu, giving him clothes, food and water, but none wanted to take on full responsibility except Stephen. The sadhu was left to potentially die because, as Stephen said, “when it got to be a bother, everyone just passed the buck to someone else and took off” (157). Bowen best expressed the team’s ideology when he said, “we had our own well-being to worry about” (157). But as we saw, they could have all returned down with the sadhu. There was no need to carry on, only their desire to.
Analysis:
This case’s ethical faults were partially caused by distractions. Like the students in “When good people do bad things at work,” the men in the group were preoccupied with their trip that it distracted them from helping the sadhu, the ethical thing to do. Also, as Stephen pointed out, scripts (or biases) caused some of the poor ethical choice. His point that if the sadhu were a white woman, Bowen would have made a much different choice was evidence that there was probably some bias against the Indian man by members of the team.