I'm sure all of you (cadets, anyway) have seen the email floating around where the Maj from a fighter squadron slams a cadet for requesting an incentive ride.
Any thoughts on this? Was the Maj. in the right for responding as he did? Was the cadet in the wrong? Were both in the wrong? We both right?
What do you think?
Here's another way to approach the question: if you were the Maj what would you have said/done differently (if anything). Same question for the cadet. And if you were General Regni (say), what you do now (if anything)?
Friday, December 15, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Swearing in on the.... Quran?
Here's a controversial one... Dennis Prager, a syndicated radio show host, recently had this commentary. Read it here:
Here.
It has set off quite a firestorm of debate and frustration for lots of folks. What do you think? He does have some arguments here -- so you can try to analyze those and see if they work. But what about is overall claim? What IS his overall claim exactly?
He responded to all this heat generated by his commentary here
here
But you'll notice that his response is much more toned down.
I'd give you a source to find responses to Prager, but there are literally too many out there. This is being ranted about all of the blogosphere right now -- just do any search on it and you'll find plenty of foder. Be warned though: some blogs are places where people just yell and rant and rave -- and others are where people actually rationally debate these issues.
Give me your opinion!
Here.
It has set off quite a firestorm of debate and frustration for lots of folks. What do you think? He does have some arguments here -- so you can try to analyze those and see if they work. But what about is overall claim? What IS his overall claim exactly?
He responded to all this heat generated by his commentary here
here
But you'll notice that his response is much more toned down.
I'd give you a source to find responses to Prager, but there are literally too many out there. This is being ranted about all of the blogosphere right now -- just do any search on it and you'll find plenty of foder. Be warned though: some blogs are places where people just yell and rant and rave -- and others are where people actually rationally debate these issues.
Give me your opinion!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
An oft forgotten side-effect of the mess in Iraq
Here's a note from William Edmundson, a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, on the Leiter Reports blog. Read it here.
He points out something we often do not hear about: the refugee problem that has been placed upon many of Iraq's neighbors due to the conflict.
What do you make of this? What is the US's moral responsibility (if any) regarding this refugee problem? If you were a representative of one of the sovereign powers that border Iraq that are dealing with this problem (i.e. Syria or Jordan), how would you feel about this situation? Presume, for argument's sake, that you (as Syria or Jordan) did not see the pressing need to remove Sadaam because your nation had no real self-interest in his removal (this isn't entirely accurate, but grant it for the moment). Under Sadaam you had no Iraqi refugee problem. Now, due to the changes in Iraq over the past three years, your nation is stuck with this problem -- that you had no hand in causing... what kind of moral claims do you think you would make regarding your nation's situation and perhaps other nation-state powers?
BTW, The Leiter Reports (originally just the Leiter Report until he added other contributors) is a somewhat popular philosophy news blog. Leiter is a philosophy at Texas who head's up the Philosophical Gourmet (a ranking system of Philosophy graduate programs). His blog now frequently posts political commentary and discourse -- very often highly critical of the Bush adminstration and current US foreign policy.
He points out something we often do not hear about: the refugee problem that has been placed upon many of Iraq's neighbors due to the conflict.
What do you make of this? What is the US's moral responsibility (if any) regarding this refugee problem? If you were a representative of one of the sovereign powers that border Iraq that are dealing with this problem (i.e. Syria or Jordan), how would you feel about this situation? Presume, for argument's sake, that you (as Syria or Jordan) did not see the pressing need to remove Sadaam because your nation had no real self-interest in his removal (this isn't entirely accurate, but grant it for the moment). Under Sadaam you had no Iraqi refugee problem. Now, due to the changes in Iraq over the past three years, your nation is stuck with this problem -- that you had no hand in causing... what kind of moral claims do you think you would make regarding your nation's situation and perhaps other nation-state powers?
BTW, The Leiter Reports (originally just the Leiter Report until he added other contributors) is a somewhat popular philosophy news blog. Leiter is a philosophy at Texas who head's up the Philosophical Gourmet (a ranking system of Philosophy graduate programs). His blog now frequently posts political commentary and discourse -- very often highly critical of the Bush adminstration and current US foreign policy.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
A business world vs. academic world ethical quandry
Here's a rather tricky, complicated scenario for your consideration. I got this from some random discussion board, here.
"
An undergradute student named Alice is doing her university industrial training program in a company named Wee-Kan, which has a policy of not allowing employees to disclose any company confidential information to outsiders.
Wee-Kan is facing financial difficulties. Meanwhile, another company, Global Corp, is interested in acquiring Wee-Kan. The Wee-Kan CEO explained to staff that the merger will help to increase the market share and stabilize company growth. As it's commercial-in-confidence, all personnel working at Wee-Kan are not allowed to disclose any information to outsiders.
As a result of potential change of management, staffs are no longer interested in their work, so Alice's training is badly affected. She's asked by her academic supervisor to write a quarterly report on Wee-Kan's growth and development strategy.
Given the fact that she hasn't received enough on the job training and is not allowed to discuss any confidential information, she decides to prepare a report detailing recent events using the company's computer . Unfortunately, her work is scanned and updated in the IT log file by the IT admin. The admin immediately notifies Alice's supervisor, Brooke, of her progress report. Brooke reads the report and comments that she hasn't taken enough responsibility to understand the ethical and legal issues with the organization's current situation.
Brooke doesn't approve of what she has submitted in the report and asks her to remove some of the company data in the report. She is left with no choice but to submit her shortened progress report to her academic supervisor. She doesn't pass as due to the lack of progress in her work.
My questions are:
1. If Alice could have done something before her report is submitted to her academic supervisor, what do you think she should do?
(given the fact that she shouldn't breach the company's policy but at the same time, she certainly doesn't want to fail)
2. Is Brooke's action legal and/or ethical?
3. Is the IT admin's action of exposing someone's work (Alice's report) legal in this case?
"
"
An undergradute student named Alice is doing her university industrial training program in a company named Wee-Kan, which has a policy of not allowing employees to disclose any company confidential information to outsiders.
Wee-Kan is facing financial difficulties. Meanwhile, another company, Global Corp, is interested in acquiring Wee-Kan. The Wee-Kan CEO explained to staff that the merger will help to increase the market share and stabilize company growth. As it's commercial-in-confidence, all personnel working at Wee-Kan are not allowed to disclose any information to outsiders.
As a result of potential change of management, staffs are no longer interested in their work, so Alice's training is badly affected. She's asked by her academic supervisor to write a quarterly report on Wee-Kan's growth and development strategy.
Given the fact that she hasn't received enough on the job training and is not allowed to discuss any confidential information, she decides to prepare a report detailing recent events using the company's computer . Unfortunately, her work is scanned and updated in the IT log file by the IT admin. The admin immediately notifies Alice's supervisor, Brooke, of her progress report. Brooke reads the report and comments that she hasn't taken enough responsibility to understand the ethical and legal issues with the organization's current situation.
Brooke doesn't approve of what she has submitted in the report and asks her to remove some of the company data in the report. She is left with no choice but to submit her shortened progress report to her academic supervisor. She doesn't pass as due to the lack of progress in her work.
My questions are:
1. If Alice could have done something before her report is submitted to her academic supervisor, what do you think she should do?
(given the fact that she shouldn't breach the company's policy but at the same time, she certainly doesn't want to fail)
2. Is Brooke's action legal and/or ethical?
3. Is the IT admin's action of exposing someone's work (Alice's report) legal in this case?
"
Thought Experiments
The BBC did a nice little story on Ethical Dillemma's
here.
There's a couple fun classic ones that most of you have already heard, of course. But still fun.
here.
There's a couple fun classic ones that most of you have already heard, of course. But still fun.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Cheating and moral guilt regarding CYA
Check out this site that makes customs papers for students for a fee.
Then, most critically, read the "Terms of Service" aggreement at the bottom of the page. Here's a small sample:
"You agree that the paper produced by samedayresearch represents
an original work that is intended for further research and can only be used as
a model for your own writing efforts. You are encouraged to use our custom papers
with proper citation. We do not endorse nor tolerate any form of whole or partial
plagiarism and will not engage in any activity that will facilitate cheating. "
So, the questions here are multiple. First, and I suppose what I'm most interested in is this curious philosophical question:
When someone does something clearly immoral, yet covers their own culpability (at least legally, as this website does in the agreement), does that in any way affect their culpability (or better, their blameworthiness or guilt in our eyes)? I'm tempted, of course, to say yes -- that it, in fact, adds to their moral guilt (by adding lying to their already unethical behavoir). Yet, curiously, in cases such as this the claim made in the agreement could theoretically be POSSIBLE and so, assuming that the guilty party would never admit to what we all think (know) they are actually doing, does this mere entrance of a possiblity of innocence in any way lessen the total blameworthiness (recognizing certain epistemic limitations that we will have in nearly ALL moral blameworthiness cases -- i.e. we never know with complete certainty people's intentions, etc., in any case whatsoever). We seem to do this in some other moral cases, do we not? If someone seems to pretty clearly be guilty of some immoral act to us, but then we find out that there is some (however unlikely) possible chance of them being innocent -- it seems to (or can, in some cases anyway) lessen our overall assesment of their blameworthiness. Yet, if the person IS lying in their cover (and we think most likely they are) then it seems that it should increase our assesment of their guilt. But, again, granting that we ultimately cannot know, we often seem to be slightly (if however slightly) more lenient on the guilty party simply in lieu of the possibility that they may be innocent (or at least less guilty). If all this is correct then it gives us this curious paradox: By doing something that in fact actually adds to your moral guilt (in reality) you can occasionally lessen your moral guilt (in appearance). ... but then again, maybe there's no paradox here at all. One could say, I suppose, that's just what lying is.
From a legal perspective there are many other interesting questions here. In something as obvious as this (this site is CLEARLY intended for students to buy papers to use as their own), how can the site merely claiming that that is not what they are doing somehow free them of culpability?
Curious stuff to think about.
Any thoughts?
Then, most critically, read the "Terms of Service" aggreement at the bottom of the page. Here's a small sample:
"You agree that the paper produced by samedayresearch represents
an original work that is intended for further research and can only be used as
a model for your own writing efforts. You are encouraged to use our custom papers
with proper citation. We do not endorse nor tolerate any form of whole or partial
plagiarism and will not engage in any activity that will facilitate cheating. "
So, the questions here are multiple. First, and I suppose what I'm most interested in is this curious philosophical question:
When someone does something clearly immoral, yet covers their own culpability (at least legally, as this website does in the agreement), does that in any way affect their culpability (or better, their blameworthiness or guilt in our eyes)? I'm tempted, of course, to say yes -- that it, in fact, adds to their moral guilt (by adding lying to their already unethical behavoir). Yet, curiously, in cases such as this the claim made in the agreement could theoretically be POSSIBLE and so, assuming that the guilty party would never admit to what we all think (know) they are actually doing, does this mere entrance of a possiblity of innocence in any way lessen the total blameworthiness (recognizing certain epistemic limitations that we will have in nearly ALL moral blameworthiness cases -- i.e. we never know with complete certainty people's intentions, etc., in any case whatsoever). We seem to do this in some other moral cases, do we not? If someone seems to pretty clearly be guilty of some immoral act to us, but then we find out that there is some (however unlikely) possible chance of them being innocent -- it seems to (or can, in some cases anyway) lessen our overall assesment of their blameworthiness. Yet, if the person IS lying in their cover (and we think most likely they are) then it seems that it should increase our assesment of their guilt. But, again, granting that we ultimately cannot know, we often seem to be slightly (if however slightly) more lenient on the guilty party simply in lieu of the possibility that they may be innocent (or at least less guilty). If all this is correct then it gives us this curious paradox: By doing something that in fact actually adds to your moral guilt (in reality) you can occasionally lessen your moral guilt (in appearance). ... but then again, maybe there's no paradox here at all. One could say, I suppose, that's just what lying is.
From a legal perspective there are many other interesting questions here. In something as obvious as this (this site is CLEARLY intended for students to buy papers to use as their own), how can the site merely claiming that that is not what they are doing somehow free them of culpability?
Curious stuff to think about.
Any thoughts?
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