July 15, 2005

• Why should it entirely up to schools to teach ethics? There should be something on the curriculum, even starting at kindergarten, but if the parental units don't play their part, 'tis all for nought. Of course, with the constant bombardment that the ends justify the means, and supposed felons being feted, no wonder that we produce people like this. Only the most unobservant youngsters wouldn't pick up on the hypocrisy.
• I have to say that while I think my parents did a good job of teaching and demonstrating ethical behavior, the first time that the subject of ethics came up in school was in college, at the master's class level. In our Ph.D. program, there is a strong thread of ethics and ethical considerations infused throughout the curriculum. In business, we had some perfunctory ethics workshops that were clearly scoffed at by the majority. Those of us who took it seriously were noted and not allowed into inner circle decision making, largely because we asked the questions that Kenneth Lay, Tom De Lay, Bernard Ebbers or the people around them should have asked.
• Well, after Enron and all the other shady business deals and every election since I've been born, and the fraudulent news scandals, I would say, no, at least within the world of business, politics, or journalism there isn't much in the way of ethics anymore. While we are all wondering why someone would expose a cia agent, shouldn't we be wondering why someone would publish that fact? How did reporting that help things? So we have a world where we tell kids, "Don't do drugs" -- except for ritalin, cialis, claritin, alcohol, cigarettes, or any of the million other drugs that are advertized. We tell kids to share, but not music! Then we have people like Bernard Goldberg who was on the daily show the other day hyping his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America and was arguing that, basically, racial slurs are the same as someone cussing. Is there any wonder why I hate people?
• There is a current trend to push Morals over Ethics (or vice versa, perhaps - morals are an easier concept to grasp and have existed for longer). The basic difference between the two is that Morals make it easier to justify the means via the ends, because there is a higher truth or purpose that is being upheld. Ethics is more concerned with never making that decision, no matter how tempting. And I suspect my grammar is all messed up above, but that's tough, because it's the message that's important, and if you have to suffer a little to get to it, so be it.
• The New Jersey College Republicans' State Treasurer is Joe McCarthy. The guy never quits!
• Yes, but those without ethics use morals as an excuse to be an asshat.
• As I understand it, dishonesty was invented during the 1950s by Lyndon Johnson during an especially brutal senate campaign. From the time man crawled out of the ocean until then, everyone had been completely honest and ethical about everything. And thus it is proved: we live in the worst times ever. Our generation is completly unique in feeling that politicans and other public figures are sometimes less than totally honest. This is a totally original concept that no one in any other time or place in world history has ever thought before.
• We tell kids to share, but not music! Funny, I was going to use stealing music from p2p sites as an common example of lack of ethics.
• Bernard Goldberg did not seem to get the point that killing innocent civilians might be more of a detriment to a civil society than whatever drivel gets posted on Barbra Streisand's blog. And Jimmy Carter #6??? Puh-leeze.
• There is a current trend to push Morals over Ethics The two words are interchangeable in most moral philosophy circles. It sounds like the disinction you're making has more to do with the argument between utilitarian and Kantian (or "deontological," if you like jargon) ethics.
• You'd think college students would be able to spell "hassled" and use the phrase "a man of his sature" correctly. Or I would. Feh.
• I tend to think of morals as personal and ethics as societal or professional.
• stature. typo. :D
• The Law of Internets Karma: When correcting another poster's grammar or spelling, the correctee will always make at least one spelling error in the correcting psot.
• mor·al (môrl, mr-) adj. 1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary. 2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson. 3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life. 4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation. 5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support. 6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty. eth·ic (thk) n. 1. 1. A set of principles of right conduct. 2. A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain” (Gregg Easterbrook). 2. ethics (used with a sing. verb) The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy. 3. ethics (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.
• Smo's correct. In ethical philosophy, "morals" and "ethics" are effectively interchangeable words. Though in popular usage we seem to be moving toward a distinction of "morals" as a religious conservative phenomenon (anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, hide your naughty bits from Jesus) and "ethics" as a secular principle of right/wrong, fair/foul. Bernard Goldberg did not seem to get the point that killing innocent civilians might be more of a detriment to a civil society than whatever drivel gets posted on Barbra Streisand's blog. I'm sure I'm not the first to think that Goldberg is, well, an idiot, but I'm more floored by the...BARBARA STREISAND HAS A BLOG?!?!?!?!?
• I tend to think of morals as personal and ethics as societal or professional. A lot of people do. And that's fine. They're not wrong. I know languagehat would be here to correct me if I said it was. But there isn't much of a distinction (today) between "morals" and "ethics" in philosophy, and there hasn't been for a while. So if you went up to someone trained in moral philosophy and tried to argue that ethics is more important than morality, most likely you'd get some puzzled looks.
• I think there is a distinction in common usage, though. Masturbation can be called immoral (by some), but it could never be called unethical.
• If you do it without consent, it could.
• I apologise in advance, but I'm not really sorry: MonkeyFilter: hide your naughty bits from Jesus
• And thus it is proved: we live in the worst times ever. Our generation is completly unique in feeling that politicans and other public figures are sometimes less than totally honest. This is a totally original concept that no one in any other time or place in world history has ever thought before. *sarcasm meter bursts into flame*
• The distinction I was attempting to make was as middleclasstool suggested, based on current popular usage. I try to make it a habit of not arguing philosophy with a trained philosopher for much the same reason as I don't try to pick a fight with a Shaolin monk or have sex with a professional dominatrix: because by the time I realize I've been beaten, I'll really have no idea how it happened. Nor, in all likelihood, care.
• Within specific careers/sciences/whatever-elses, many ethical actions are not obviously ethical, and many unethical actions are not obviously unethical. Many require a fair amount of thought to realize the ethicality thereof. Self promotion is a given in so many careers. It may not always be so obvious to some that specific types of self promotion are not ethical within journalism. Especially if the person has been raised on "the end justifies the means" train of thought.
• Your heart knows what is ethical You mind doesn't always listen.
• r
• I just masturbated violently upon an underage male virgin goat. Crucially, I told it before this act that I was a conservative, and the goat bleated in pleasure, but in actual fact I'm a democratic socialist. Have I been immoral, or merely unethical?
• you've just been very, very naughty.
• They teach ethics as a course in law school. Seriously. We discussed a case where the attorney was representing a man charged with murder. The man was believed to have killed a person in a second case. The man told the attorney that he did kill that person in the second case. So the attorney tried to make a deal with the DA to reveal the location of the bodies in the second case in exchange for a lighter sentence in the first murder case. The ethical question raised was whether or not the attorney was obligated to tell the police/DA about the second murder and where the bodies were. Not once was the question raised as to whether it was okay for the attorney to use that information as a bargaining tool.
• Hmm. I think the distinction Sandspider was making was not so much between consequentialism and Kantianism, nor between the personal and the societal, but rather between the observance of ethical principles on the one hand and conformity with a specific code on the other. It's the distinction between trying to 'love your neighbour', where you have to keep working out for yourself what that means in practice, and obeying the rule 'Thou shalt not kill', which is pretty clear but in unusual circumstances seems to yield perverse results (you fail to shoot the maniac who is about to detonate a bomb in a school). That is a valid and interesting distinction, and I think co-opting 'moral' and 'ethical' to express it is also a legitimate tactic - though everything said above about philosophical and popular usage is perfectly correct, of course. Hmmm... *strokes beard* Flashboy - it depends whether you are a professional goat molester or merely an enthusiastic amateur.
• Sure it's "Thou shall not kill"? in some versions it's "thou shall not murder". Therefore it is fine to kill a bomb weilding maniac since self defence is a mitigating circumstance. But what if you RAN INTO a building to kill a bomb weilding maniac??
• Also .... Doesn't a lawyer have an ethical responsibility to provide the BEST POSSIBLE defence for his/her client?? Can a doctor refuse to prescribe morning after pills and still keep the oath to "First do no harm"? What if the doctor's/lawyer's ethics and the patient/client ethics differ? Whose ethics should prevail?
• mct: Barbra Streisand. I shit you not.