2005 Fall: Ethics Course Summary

Each word has an echo. So does each silence.
--Jean Paul Sarte

"Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." — Albert Einstein

A student approached me struggling with how the class fit. Although she openly admitted not reading homework assignments because I did not test them, she still felt that she could not see the connection of the individual classes to the course. Here is a summary of the 5 modules - in super-brief, brief and detailed manners. Please select the summary of your choice.

1. What is ethics? Ethics is an area of philosophy (love of wisdom) that is devoted to the unsolved issues of humam problems. Ethics is the science of moral decisionmaking.
2. Knowledge is critical to ethical analysis. Access to information and understanding how to use it will impact any ethical analysis.
3. Theories provide consistency to the analysis of ethical problems, just as math and science theories provide consistency to problems of their respective fields. While there are many theories, the five basic ones to study are:
a. Egoism
b. Virtue Theory
c. Utilitarianism
d. Rights Theory
e. Deontology
4. Theories can be observed in your personal life. If you examine your relationship with your own self, your family and your friends, you should find that you analyze moral problems with some general consistency. To the extent that you are inconsistent in your use of a theory for an ethical issue, you may well appear to lack integrity, just as a person changing the formula for 1+ 1 to 1 X 1, will have a different answer. There may be strongly held beliefs that are also inconsistent with any theory in which you identify your self with; while you don't have to change your beliefs, the beliefs that cannot be subjected to testing should not be a basis for public policy, as the social contract with the state requires minimal, rational restrictions on citizens for the benefit of society.
5. Theories can help solve problems of today. If we examine homicide, capital punishment and terrorism, there will be solutions based upon theories. All three subject matters deal with death:
a. homicide: killing of one by another - intent and bad act is not assessed here
b. capital punishment: the homicide of a convicted felon as retribution for evil acts against members of society
c. terrorism: the homicide of civilians as a mechanism to trigger political change
The most contrasting theories are deontology and utilitarianism here. If you can identify the theories that you use and those that others use to discuss the matter, you are more likely to have a conversation than 2 independent talks. The failure to speak with one another leads to apathy and skepticism. The goal is to be instead an active critic. With conversation, we may be more motivated to learn about problems and solutions. We can learn more details about the theories and more facts about the situations to developing models for testing and use.
6. Other factors: We have the ability to solve many moral problems of our generation, but there is a mask of apathy amongst the US college generation that creates indifference to political issues that directly impact them and skepticism about any social problems. While this may be caused by police in high schools, Columbine and its effects, 9-11 as a teenager or increased focus on terrorism, students must learn that:
a. The active citizen has a duty to participate in society, which is more than voting and can include running for political office
b. The citizen most likely to be active is one in college, with the energy and enthusiasm of its generation, and the time to focus on society. Upon graduation, careers and family generally consume most of one's time for the next several decades.
c. The college generation is the generation of change, by teaching their parents (or reminding them) of the values learned as children. This generation tends to fight for fairness and freedom in paradigms the parents have never previously considered.
d. This generation is financially tied to their parents unlike previous generation, as the cost of public education has increased and wealth disparities have become more apparent. Either fear of loss of current financial benefits or future ones (inheritance, other support) contribute to the unwillingness of students to take political action.
e. This generation is extremely rule compliant, missing an important component of maturity, which includes testing one's boundaries. This generation prefers the comfort of rules to the fears of seeing the self in flight, away from the social mores and increasing laws.
f. This generation is one of the first to feel the effects of the loss of the fairness doctrine in media, requiring both positions of an issue to be granted equal time, the consolidation of media from hundreds of independent stations to just a few dozen, with ownership interests heavily invested in military production and services and the legal authority to lie to audiences without reproach.
g. The lack of information about citizenship, world issues and even issues of family is apparent in most students. There is also a lack of information about where to obtain information when the media does not provide it.