The study of Ethics brings many different kinds of “thinkers” together. One person’s philosophy on ethics may be another person’s philosophy on evil.
The study of Ethics brings many different kinds of “thinkers” together. One person’s philosophy on ethics may be another person’s philosophy on evil. We will be working this term on constructing personal ethical bases and understanding how Ethical Codes (both personal and professional) are created and followed.
To start us thinking about the different areas of philosophy and ethics, and how we fit into the different molds or world views, let’s discuss the differences and similarities between these views. To do this, let’s look at the role of right and wrong, laws which regulate behavior, principles vs. morality, and the role of ethics in our society.
To start out we’ll answer some of these questions and create more of them as we go. Pick one of the following and respond to your classmates thoughts and views:
Do we need ethics if we have laws? Why or why not?
Is it ethical to change our own views of ethics based on the situation we are in?
Can we “legislate” ethics?
How does Aristotle’s “virtue ethics” mirror your ethical view, or how is it different?
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 2 Discussion
MAJORITY THINK
American writer Mark Twain warned that “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” This is a common sentiment that we experience at different points throughout our lives. It is likely that your parents warned you “not to follow the crowd,” or your school counselors warned you about “peer pressure.”
The United States utilizes a democratic republic form of government, which espouses the “majority rule” in many instances. For example, when passing laws, Congress and state Legislators use majority voting. When electing our officials, the majority rules. But, is our government unethical?
This week’s discussion will examine majority findings or rules:
The great majority of people seem to find nothing objectionable about the use of commercials in children’s television programming. Yet a distinguished panel commissioned by the National Science Foundation found reason to disagree. After reviewing 21 relevant scholarly studies, they concluded:
It is clear from the available evidence that television advertising does influence children. Research has demonstrated that children attend to and learn from commercials, and that advertising is at least moderately successful in creating positive attitudes toward and the desire for products advertised. The variable that emerged most clearly across numerous studies as a strong determinant of children’s perception of television advertising is the child’s age. Research clearly establishes that children become more skilled in evaluating television advertising as they grow older, and that to treat all children from 2 to 12 as a homogenous group masks important, perhaps crucial differences.
Do you think the majority view is correct in this case? What difference would it make that a majority thinks this way?
Do you think the use of commercials in children’s television programming raises any ethical questions? Explain your reasoning.
Do you wish to place evidence for what you say before your classmates?
Be sure to utilize the readings and ethical theories for this week to highlight key aspects of your responses.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 3 Discussion
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
Social Contract theorists say that morality consists of a set of rules governing how people should treat one another that rational beings will agree to accept for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others agree to follow these rules as well.
Hobbes runs the logic like this in the form of a logical syllogism:
We are all self-interested,
Each of us needs to have a peaceful and cooperative social order to pursue our interests,
We need moral rules in order to establish and maintain a cooperative social order,
Therefore, self-interest motivates us to establish moral rules.
Thomas Hobbes looked to the past to observe a primitive “State of Nature” in which there is no such thing as morality, and that this self-interested human nature was “nasty, brutish, and short” — a kind of perpetual state of warfare
John Locke disagreed, and set forth the view that the state exists to preserve the natural rights of its citizens. When governments fail in that task, citizens have the right—and sometimes the duty—to withdraw their support and even to rebel. Listen to Locke’s audio in this week’s lesson and read his lecturette to be able to answer this thread.
Locke addressed Hobbes’s claim that the state of nature was the state of war, though he attribute this claim to “some men” not to Hobbes. He refuted it by pointing to existing and real historical examples of people in a state of nature. For this purpose he regarded any people who are not subject to a common judge to resolve disputes, people who may legitimately take action to themselves punish wrong doers, as in a state of nature.
Which philosophy do you espouse?
In coming to grips with the two and considering your experience of society as it is today, think out loud about what you experiences as the State of Nature, and tell us what you would be willing to give up in exchange for civil order and personal security?
You might consider what you have already given up in exchange for security as well as what might be required in coming days.
CASE STUDY: THE DEATH PENALTY
First, here is a word of caution. With this discussion comes a tasking to discuss the death penalty in two ways: first, as an expression of the social contract, where one person has killed another in a violation of that other person’s right to peace and safety, and second, as a rules-based function of the justice system being applied to a difficult situation.
What do you see going on that is a violation of the Hobbes/Locke social contract idea?
And you might also connect it with any of the Three Schools, plus Aristotle, that you have read in past weeks—and especially with the rules-based ethics model.
Here’s the situation: In Manatee County, Florida, a judge sentenced a man to death—the first time this had happened in the county for over 19 years. Sentenced to death was a 25-year-old man for the January 7, 2004, murder of both of his parents by bludgeoning them to death in their bed with a baseball bat.
Now, with your social contract ethicist hats on, tell us what you make of this quote by the judge at the sentencing, quoted from the front page of the November 17, 2007 Bradenton Herald: “You have not only forfeited your right to live among us, but under the laws of the state of Florida, you have forfeited the right to live at all.”
Remember to keep your responses in the context of our social contract discussion for this week and also connected with ethics of justice.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 4 Discussion
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS
Increasing food supplies are necessary to sustain growing populations around the world and their appetites for great food, quality products, and continuous availability.
A great deal of expensive research is invested in developing technologies to deliver productive agriculture. Horticultural efforts to breed hybrid crops are seen as far back as history can observe, and there have been efforts to domesticate improved animals, as well. Gene splitting was a 1990s technology to improve the health and productivity of farm crops. With the 21st century have come genetically modified foods (GMF) through the use of nanotechnology to cause changes at the genetic and even molecular levels. These are very expensive technologies, and many new products have been patented and otherwise protected as proprietary products of intellectual property.
Drive out to the country during growing season, and you will see signs identifying that the crop has been grown with a protected seed that cannot be used to produce retained seed for planting in the next growing season.
What ethical issues are raised by this legal process of patent protection, and how do we see the primary schools of ethics used in these proprietary measures? What, in this deontological week and in our learning to date, informs our understanding of this situation, and what should be done about it? Use specific examples from the reading and Lesson for this week to help support your claims and reasoning.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 5 Discussion
UTILITARIANISM AND CARE BASED ETHICS
There are three basic propositions in standard Utilitarianism (Please be sure to listen to Mill’s audio lecture before joining this threaded discussion):
Actions are judged right and wrong solely on their consequences; that is, nothing else matters except the consequence, and right actions are simply those with the best consequences.
To assess consequences, the only thing that matters is the amount of happiness and unhappiness caused; that is, there is only one criterion and everything else is irrelevant.
In calculating happiness and unhappiness caused, nobody’s happiness counts any more than anybody else’s; that is, everybody’s welfare is equally important and the majority rules.
In specific cases where justice and utility are in conflict, it may seem expedient to serve the greater happiness through quick action that overrules consideration for justice. There is a side to happiness that can call for rushed decisions and actions that put decision-makers under the pressure of expediency.
Here is a dilemma for our class:
You are the elected district attorney. You receive a phone call from a nursing home administrator who was a good friend of yours in college. She has a waiting list of 3,000 people who will die if they don’t get into her nursing home facility within the next 3 weeks, and she currently has 400 patients who have asked (or their families have asked on their behalf) for the famous Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s (fictitious) sister, Dr. Jill Kevorkian, for assistance in helping them die. The 3,000 people on the waiting list want to live. She (the nursing home administrator) wants to know if you would agree to “look the other way” if she let in Dr. Jill to assist in the suicide of the 400 patients who have requested it, thus allowing at least 400 of the 3,000 on the waiting list in.
How would we use Utilitarianism to “solve” this dilemma?
How would we use cars-based ethics to “solve” this dilemma?
What ethics did your friend, the nursing home administrator, use in deciding to call you?
What ethics are you using if you just “look the other way” and let it happen?
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 6 Discussion
WORKING CONFLICT RESOLUTION METHODS
Different ways to analyze ethical behaviors and dilemmas exist, and many of them will help direct you to the correct or “best” solution to a problem.
As we have discussed since Week 1, sometimes right vs. right or wrong vs. wrong decisions have to be made.
In the lesson this week, you are given three ethical dilemma resolution models to try out on a dilemma provided there. Please review that interactive before posting to the discussion this week.
The dilemma in the Week 6 Lecture interactive (in the middle of the page) is where we will focus our attention. You MUST read the lecture and run the interactive in order to participate in the discussion this week!
Review the sample solution to the Laura Nash method. Do you agree with that analysis? If so, what parts do you think really helped you work through the dilemma? If not, which parts do you not agree with?
Review the sample solution to the Front Page of the Newspaper method. Do you think this is one of those types of dilemmas for which this model works? If not, why not? If so, why? How did using this method help you work through the dilemma?
Review the sample solution to the Blanchard and Peale method. Do you agree with the analysis? If not, why not? If so, in what way did this help you analyze this dilemma?
How can Ayn Rand’s four epistemological principles of objectivism be applied to this case? How might Rand’s solution differ from other methods?
Pick ONE of the above 4 questions and let’s get started. Feel free to kindly debate with each other. Do not take things personally if someone disagrees. Be sure to show that you have viewed the lecture and interactive and that you attempted an analysis for “high quality” posts this week.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 7 Discussion
PERSONAL AND BUSINESS ETHICS
Personal ethics often help us form relationships in all facets of our lives – including the workplace. As a result, it is important to think about the connection between personal ethics and business ethics. This week, we looked at two more ethical codes— one for the Project Management Institute, and one for Engineers.
You can see that both of them are much simpler than the Legal code we looked at last week, and even simpler than the Medical code of ethics. Appropriate professional behavior, practice, and discipline varies among professions and reflects the needs and values of the professional society in question.
Let’s then assume professional roles as we work on this fictional scenario:
It’s 2020, and General Foryota Company opens a plant in which to build a new mass-produced hover-craft. This hover-craft will work using E-85 Ethanol, will travel up to 200 mph, and will reduce pollution worldwide at a rate of 10 percent per year. It is likely that when all automobiles in the industrial world have been changed over to hovercrafts, emission of greenhouse gasses may be so reduced that global warming may end and air quality will become completely refreshed.
However, the downside is that during the transition time, GFC’s Hover-Vee (only available in red or black), will most likely put all transportation as we know it in major dissaray. Roadways will no longer be necessary, but new methods of controlling traffic will be required. Further, while the old version of cars are still being used, Hover-vee’s will cause accidents, parking issues, and most likely class envy and warfare. The sticker price on the first two models will be about four times that of the average SUV (to about $200,000.) Even so, GFC’s marketing futurists have let them know that they will be able to pre-sell their first three years of expected production, with a potential waiting list which will take between 15 and 20 years to fill.
The Chief Engineer of GFC commissions a study on potential liabilities for the Hover-vees. The preliminary result is that Hover-vees will likely kill or maim humans at an increased rate of double to triple over automobile travel because of collisions and crashes at high speeds — projected annual death rates of 100,000 to 200,000. However, global warming will end, and the environment will flourish.
The U. S. Government gets wind of the plans. Congress begins to discuss the rules on who can own and operate Hover-vees. GFC’s stock skyrockets. The Chief Engineer takes the results of the study to the Chief Legal Counsel, and together they agree to bury the study, going forward with the production plans. The Chief Project Manager, who has read the study and agreed to bury it, goes ahead and plans out the project for the company, with target dates and production deadlines.
Our class is a team of young lawyers, project managers, engineers, and congressional aides who are all part of the process of helping get this project off the ground. In fact, according to the first letter of your last name, you are the following team:
A-G: Attorney on the GFC team
H-N: Project Manager on the GFC team
0-S: Engineer on the GFC team
T-Z: Congressional Aide
Somebody sent a secret copy of the report to you at your home address. It has no information in it at all, except for the report showing the proof of the increase in accidents and deaths. The report shows, on its face, that the CLO, CE, CPM, and your Congressional Representative have seen copies of this report. On the front there are these words typed in red: They knew — they buried this. Please save the world!
Each of you feel a very loyal tie to your boss and your company/country. You all have mortgages, and families to feed. It is likely if you blow the whistle on this report, you will lose your job and your livelihood. You’re not even sure who wrote the study in your envelope or who actually sent it to you.
ETHC445 Principles of Ethics
Week 8 Discussion
REFLECTION
This is a also good time to be looking back over this course and thinking ahead to what comes next for you.
Courses like this one intend to expand your horizons by bringing new ideas and more refined ways of thinking about the kinds of decisions and commitments that you will make both in career and in life as a whole.
This course is Foundations of Ethics. Whatever you do and wherever you do it, you have gained tools of thinking and analysis that will serve you well. Keep these tools handy and at the forefront of your attention — whatever it is that will come into your hands in the future. You are far more equipped for leadership than you were a few short weeks ago.
So, here are a few questions for this final week in class to help you reflect for the last formal assignment:
What of all that you have learned and practiced in this class will make the most significant impact(s) in your study of your declared major here at DeVry and in your career as you envision it?
How might this course experience connect with and inform what you are looking forward to learning more about throughout your education and career as a lifelong learner?
Consider how one learns: how much learning is individual? How much learning is socially achieved by discussing with one or more people in a variety of roles?
To what extent is knowledge something one finds? To what extent is knowledge something one creates through interpretation, application, and analysis?
What are the differences between information and knowledge?
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