A modern parable or a moral dilemma....maybe neither

A modern parable or a moral dilemma....maybe neither?

Fancy having a short journey to make on your good horse, it's strong and proud and you ride it hard but find, through nobody's fault, that the journey was to be over a much longer distance than originally thought.

You look after yourself along the way but neglect to feed and water your horse on the journey and instead constantly promise it a rich feed when you reach lush pastures and you protest this promise this often.

As the journey lengthens and the end seems very distant, out of guilt or supposed interest in the welfare of your horse, you frequently offer it the opportunity to run away but your trusty steed never does out of its dumb loyalty and faith in you, its master; it feels it has no choice. That's who and what it is and it is integral to its great heart and stamina, attributes that have got you this far.

You ride your horse, your great friend and loyal companion, until it collapses and dies. You are yourself now stranded in the desert and though you have fed and watered yourself well to-date the way forward looks bleak, you have no friend and no transport. Sure the horse was seduced by the promise of luxurious pastures but mirage-like they came to nothing and now you are both like to perish alongside each other. All a bit grim....wherein lies the lesson?

Should the horse have abandoned it master when it had the chance, giving itself the opportunity to sustain itself, either running free on the prairies or with a new master that understood its worth or should you, the master, have realized that it was in your own best interests to succour the the horse along the way and thereby increasing the chances of you both surviving? Perhaps you feel that you have broken no contract with your horse, you had every intention to let your horse feed richly on the the green pastures at the final destination. Perhaps however being right and justified does not always produce the most sensible decision or indeed the most moral one either.