Check out this story
Here.
Another important retired general is speaking out about the war in Iraq and against our government's policy therein. (Specifically the white house and congress).
The article does well to mention Gen. Shensheki as some background.
I wonder how many more Generals will speak out.
Sen. McCain makes an interesting point suggesting that the General in question should have spoken out in this way while on active duty or else he should have resigned (if he felt he couldn't have), rather than wait until he's retired.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Surtax for the war...?
Check out the story Here.
It's all over the news sites and blogs.
I must admit this really is a novel and fascinating idea. For contextual purposes, it should be noted that we had similiar taxes in Vietnam and WWII (and other conflicts in our nation's history).
Fascinating idea. I'm still undecided how I feel about it. One thing, off the cuff, that I do find appealing about it is that it raises the bar on the jus ad bellum constraints for our nation. It essentially says, "if you want to go to war (and you believe it is important enough, morally neccessary, etc.), then you have to step up and pay for it." hmmm...
What do you think? We had a rousing debate about it in the department just the other day.
It's all over the news sites and blogs.
I must admit this really is a novel and fascinating idea. For contextual purposes, it should be noted that we had similiar taxes in Vietnam and WWII (and other conflicts in our nation's history).
Fascinating idea. I'm still undecided how I feel about it. One thing, off the cuff, that I do find appealing about it is that it raises the bar on the jus ad bellum constraints for our nation. It essentially says, "if you want to go to war (and you believe it is important enough, morally neccessary, etc.), then you have to step up and pay for it." hmmm...
What do you think? We had a rousing debate about it in the department just the other day.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
NPR story on moral reasoning and Iraq
A philosopher from Oxford, Daniel Robinson, discusses how to apply various normative ethical theories (namely, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, and Utilitarianism) in relation specifically to Iraq.
It's actually really well done. It was on NPR.
Here's the link.
Check it out.
It's actually really well done. It was on NPR.
Here's the link.
Check it out.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Ahmadinejad's visit to ground zero (didn't happen... but...)
I'm sure many of you have been following the story of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's visit to the U.S. He was given the opportunity to speak at Columbia University (although he was slammed pretty hard when he was introduced by Columbia's President) and initially he was planning on visiting the Ground Zero site. This suggestion (that he'd visit the World Trade Center site) caused quite a stir. Should we allow him to visit the site?
If you don't know much about Ahmadinejad, he is an outspoken, vocal critic of US policy and the non-Islamic West in general. He is a holocaust denier as well. There's lots of reasons to not like this guy.
Fortunately, he backed down and decided not to visit the site... but what if he hadn't? That's the question I'm after: what should we have done if had pushed it and wanted to see the site? What's your call? Say you are the mayor of NYC or some other position that could make a power play on this decision. If he wanted to visit the site (as thousands of people do all the time -- I've been there three different times), should we allow him to?
This is a tough one. We've been debating it here in the philosophy department all week and we are rather split on it. What are your thoughts?
If you don't know much about Ahmadinejad, he is an outspoken, vocal critic of US policy and the non-Islamic West in general. He is a holocaust denier as well. There's lots of reasons to not like this guy.
Fortunately, he backed down and decided not to visit the site... but what if he hadn't? That's the question I'm after: what should we have done if had pushed it and wanted to see the site? What's your call? Say you are the mayor of NYC or some other position that could make a power play on this decision. If he wanted to visit the site (as thousands of people do all the time -- I've been there three different times), should we allow him to?
This is a tough one. We've been debating it here in the philosophy department all week and we are rather split on it. What are your thoughts?
Woman has her breasts removed
Check out this story here.
Turns out this lady, Lindsay Avner, decided to have her breasts removed so that she has no future risk of breast cancer.
This one seems to spark passionate positions on both sides. Where do you come down?
Ethically, is it right for her to do this? Is it acceptable?
Turns out this lady, Lindsay Avner, decided to have her breasts removed so that she has no future risk of breast cancer.
This one seems to spark passionate positions on both sides. Where do you come down?
Ethically, is it right for her to do this? Is it acceptable?
Monday, September 24, 2007
The future lies in Asia?
A good read on the future of international affairs. Notice the use of "post-national West"...
The New York Times
September 21, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Lost at Sea
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
THE ultimate strategic effect of the Iraq war has been to hasten the arrival of the Asian Century.
While the American government has been occupied in Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in particular those of China, India, Japan and South Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as well as economic.
The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the private policy group Strategic Forecasting, Americans will not to the same extent be the prime deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships will share the waters (and the prestige) with new “big decks” from Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Then there is China, whose production and acquisition of submarines is now five times that of America’s. Many military analysts feel it is mounting a quantitative advantage in naval technology that could erode our qualitative one. Yet the Chinese have been buying smart rather than across the board.
In addition to submarines, Beijing has focused on naval mines, ballistic missiles that can hit moving objects at sea, and technology that blocks G.P.S. satellites. The goal is “sea denial”: dissuading American carrier strike groups from closing in on the Asian mainland wherever and whenever we like. Such dissuasion is the subtle, high-tech end of military asymmetry, as opposed to the crude, low-tech end that we’ve seen with homemade bombs in Iraq. Whether or not China ever has a motive to challenge America, it will increasingly have the capacity to do so.
Certainly, the billions of dollars spent on Iraq (a war I supported) would not have gone for the expensive new air, naval and space systems necessary to retain our relative edge against a future peer competitor like China. But some of it would have.
China’s military expansion, with a defense budget growing by double digits for the 19th consecutive year, is part of a broader, regional trend. Russia — a Pacific as well as a European nation, we should remember — is right behind the United States and China as the world’s biggest military spender. Japan, with 119 warships, including 20 diesel-electric submarines, boasts a naval force nearly three times larger than Britain’s. (It is soon to be four times larger: 13 to 19 of Britain’s 44 remaining large ships are set to be mothballed by the Labor government.)
India’s Navy could be the third-largest in the world in a few years as it becomes more active throughout the Indian Ocean, from the Mozambique Channel to the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia. South Korea, Singapore and Pakistan all spend higher percentages of their gross domestic products on defense than do Britain and France — which are by far Europe’s most serious military-minded nations.
The twin trends of a rising Asia and a politically crumbling Middle East will most likely lead to a naval emphasis on the Indian Ocean and its surrounding seas, the sites of the “brown water” choke points of world commerce — the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the Bab el Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, and Malacca. These narrow bodies of water will become increasingly susceptible to terrorism, even as they become more and more clogged with tankers bringing Middle Eastern oil to the growing middle classes of India and China. The surrounding seas will then become home territory to Indian and Chinese warships, protecting their own tanker routes.
To wit, China is giving Pakistan $200 million to build a deep-water port at Gwadar, just 390 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is also trying to work with the military junta in Myanmar to create another deep-water port on the Bay of Bengal. It has even hinted at financing a canal across the 30-mile Isthmus of Kra in Thailand that would open a new connection between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
Oddly enough, the Pacific, as an organizing principle in world military affairs, will also encroach upon Africa. It’s no secret that a major reason for the Pentagon’s decision to establish its new Africa Command is to contain and keep an eye on China’s growing web of development projects across the sub-Saharan regions.
Still, measuring budgets, deployments, and sea and air “platforms” does not quite indicate just how much the ground is shifting beneath our feet. Military power rests substantially on the willingness to use it: perhaps less so in war than in peacetime as a means of leverage and coercion.
That, in turn, requires a vigorous nationalism — something that is far more noticeable right now in Asia than in parts of an increasingly post-national West. As the Yale political scientist Paul Bracken notes in his book “Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age,” the Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese have great pride in possessing nuclear weapons, unlike the Western powers that seem almost ashamed of needing them. Likewise, the right to produce nuclear arms is something that unites Iranians, regardless of their views of the clerical regime.
Mending relations with Europe is only a partial answer to America’s problems in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, since Europe itself continues to turn away from military power. This trend was quickened by the Iraq war, which has helped legitimize nascent European pacifism. People in countries like Germany, Italy and Spain see their own militaries not so much as soldiers but as civil servants in uniform: there for soft peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.
Meanwhile, Asia is marked by rivalries that encourage traditional arms races. Despite warming economic ties between Japan and China, and between Japan and South Korea, the Japanese and Chinese have fought wars of words over possession of the Senkaku (or, as the Chinese have it, Diaoyutai) Islands in the East China Sea; just as Japanese and South Koreans have over possession of the Takeshima Islands (Tokdo Islands to the Koreans) in the Sea of Japan. These are classic territorial disputes, stirring deep emotions of the sorts that often led to war in early modern Europe.
Despite these tensions, the United States should also be concerned about the alternative possibility of a China-Japan entente. Some of China’s recent diplomatic approaches to Japan have been couched in a new tone of respect and camaraderie, as it attempts to tame Japan’s push toward rearmament and thus to reduce the regional influence of the United States.
Asia’s military-economic vigor is the product of united political, economic and military elites. In Asia, politics often does stop at the water’s edge. In a post-George W. Bush America, if we do not find a way to agree on basic precepts, Iraq may indeed turn out to have been the event that signaled our military decline.
Preventing that will require continued high military expenditures combined with an unrelenting multilateralism of a sort we have not pursued since the 1990s. In the vast oceanic spaces bordering the Pacific and Indian Oceans, air, sea and space power will be paramount both as means of deterrence and of guarding the sea lanes. A global power at peace still requires a navy and an air force deployed as far forward as possible. That costs money. Even with the gargantuan cost of Iraq, our defense budget is still under 5 percent of our gross domestic product, low by historical standards.
Furthermore, the very vitality of nation-states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will take us back to an older world of traditional statecraft, in which we will need to tirelessly leverage allies and seek cooperation from competitors. Thus we should take advantage of the rising risk of terrorism and piracy in order to draw the Chinese and Indian Navies into joint patrols of choke points and tanker routes.
Still, we should be careful about leveraging Japan and India too overtly against China. The Japanese continue to be distrusted throughout Asia, particularly in the Korean Peninsula, because of the horrors of World War II. As for India, as a number of policy experts leaders there told me on a recent visit: India will remain non-aligned, with a tilt toward the United States. But any official alliance would compromise India’s own shaky relationship with China. Subtlety must be a keystone to our policy. We have to draw China in, not gang up against it.
Because we remain the only major player in the Pacific and Indian Oceans without territorial ambitions or disputes with its neighbors, indispensability, rather than dominance, must be our goal. That, continuing deep into the 21st century, would be a stirring achievement.
Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic and a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, is the author of “Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea and on the Ground.”
The New York Times
September 21, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Lost at Sea
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
THE ultimate strategic effect of the Iraq war has been to hasten the arrival of the Asian Century.
While the American government has been occupied in Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in particular those of China, India, Japan and South Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as well as economic.
The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the private policy group Strategic Forecasting, Americans will not to the same extent be the prime deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships will share the waters (and the prestige) with new “big decks” from Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Then there is China, whose production and acquisition of submarines is now five times that of America’s. Many military analysts feel it is mounting a quantitative advantage in naval technology that could erode our qualitative one. Yet the Chinese have been buying smart rather than across the board.
In addition to submarines, Beijing has focused on naval mines, ballistic missiles that can hit moving objects at sea, and technology that blocks G.P.S. satellites. The goal is “sea denial”: dissuading American carrier strike groups from closing in on the Asian mainland wherever and whenever we like. Such dissuasion is the subtle, high-tech end of military asymmetry, as opposed to the crude, low-tech end that we’ve seen with homemade bombs in Iraq. Whether or not China ever has a motive to challenge America, it will increasingly have the capacity to do so.
Certainly, the billions of dollars spent on Iraq (a war I supported) would not have gone for the expensive new air, naval and space systems necessary to retain our relative edge against a future peer competitor like China. But some of it would have.
China’s military expansion, with a defense budget growing by double digits for the 19th consecutive year, is part of a broader, regional trend. Russia — a Pacific as well as a European nation, we should remember — is right behind the United States and China as the world’s biggest military spender. Japan, with 119 warships, including 20 diesel-electric submarines, boasts a naval force nearly three times larger than Britain’s. (It is soon to be four times larger: 13 to 19 of Britain’s 44 remaining large ships are set to be mothballed by the Labor government.)
India’s Navy could be the third-largest in the world in a few years as it becomes more active throughout the Indian Ocean, from the Mozambique Channel to the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia. South Korea, Singapore and Pakistan all spend higher percentages of their gross domestic products on defense than do Britain and France — which are by far Europe’s most serious military-minded nations.
The twin trends of a rising Asia and a politically crumbling Middle East will most likely lead to a naval emphasis on the Indian Ocean and its surrounding seas, the sites of the “brown water” choke points of world commerce — the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the Bab el Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, and Malacca. These narrow bodies of water will become increasingly susceptible to terrorism, even as they become more and more clogged with tankers bringing Middle Eastern oil to the growing middle classes of India and China. The surrounding seas will then become home territory to Indian and Chinese warships, protecting their own tanker routes.
To wit, China is giving Pakistan $200 million to build a deep-water port at Gwadar, just 390 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is also trying to work with the military junta in Myanmar to create another deep-water port on the Bay of Bengal. It has even hinted at financing a canal across the 30-mile Isthmus of Kra in Thailand that would open a new connection between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
Oddly enough, the Pacific, as an organizing principle in world military affairs, will also encroach upon Africa. It’s no secret that a major reason for the Pentagon’s decision to establish its new Africa Command is to contain and keep an eye on China’s growing web of development projects across the sub-Saharan regions.
Still, measuring budgets, deployments, and sea and air “platforms” does not quite indicate just how much the ground is shifting beneath our feet. Military power rests substantially on the willingness to use it: perhaps less so in war than in peacetime as a means of leverage and coercion.
That, in turn, requires a vigorous nationalism — something that is far more noticeable right now in Asia than in parts of an increasingly post-national West. As the Yale political scientist Paul Bracken notes in his book “Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age,” the Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese have great pride in possessing nuclear weapons, unlike the Western powers that seem almost ashamed of needing them. Likewise, the right to produce nuclear arms is something that unites Iranians, regardless of their views of the clerical regime.
Mending relations with Europe is only a partial answer to America’s problems in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, since Europe itself continues to turn away from military power. This trend was quickened by the Iraq war, which has helped legitimize nascent European pacifism. People in countries like Germany, Italy and Spain see their own militaries not so much as soldiers but as civil servants in uniform: there for soft peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.
Meanwhile, Asia is marked by rivalries that encourage traditional arms races. Despite warming economic ties between Japan and China, and between Japan and South Korea, the Japanese and Chinese have fought wars of words over possession of the Senkaku (or, as the Chinese have it, Diaoyutai) Islands in the East China Sea; just as Japanese and South Koreans have over possession of the Takeshima Islands (Tokdo Islands to the Koreans) in the Sea of Japan. These are classic territorial disputes, stirring deep emotions of the sorts that often led to war in early modern Europe.
Despite these tensions, the United States should also be concerned about the alternative possibility of a China-Japan entente. Some of China’s recent diplomatic approaches to Japan have been couched in a new tone of respect and camaraderie, as it attempts to tame Japan’s push toward rearmament and thus to reduce the regional influence of the United States.
Asia’s military-economic vigor is the product of united political, economic and military elites. In Asia, politics often does stop at the water’s edge. In a post-George W. Bush America, if we do not find a way to agree on basic precepts, Iraq may indeed turn out to have been the event that signaled our military decline.
Preventing that will require continued high military expenditures combined with an unrelenting multilateralism of a sort we have not pursued since the 1990s. In the vast oceanic spaces bordering the Pacific and Indian Oceans, air, sea and space power will be paramount both as means of deterrence and of guarding the sea lanes. A global power at peace still requires a navy and an air force deployed as far forward as possible. That costs money. Even with the gargantuan cost of Iraq, our defense budget is still under 5 percent of our gross domestic product, low by historical standards.
Furthermore, the very vitality of nation-states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will take us back to an older world of traditional statecraft, in which we will need to tirelessly leverage allies and seek cooperation from competitors. Thus we should take advantage of the rising risk of terrorism and piracy in order to draw the Chinese and Indian Navies into joint patrols of choke points and tanker routes.
Still, we should be careful about leveraging Japan and India too overtly against China. The Japanese continue to be distrusted throughout Asia, particularly in the Korean Peninsula, because of the horrors of World War II. As for India, as a number of policy experts leaders there told me on a recent visit: India will remain non-aligned, with a tilt toward the United States. But any official alliance would compromise India’s own shaky relationship with China. Subtlety must be a keystone to our policy. We have to draw China in, not gang up against it.
Because we remain the only major player in the Pacific and Indian Oceans without territorial ambitions or disputes with its neighbors, indispensability, rather than dominance, must be our goal. That, continuing deep into the 21st century, would be a stirring achievement.
Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic and a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, is the author of “Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea and on the Ground.”
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
A Stranger or your Dog: REDUX
I've made this post now three times. Now that we've got a new crop of students, it's fun to throw it out there again. It always produces interesting answers. For my old bloggers, I'm curious if your answers to any of these questions has changed. (And, of course, if they have changed, why do you think that is?)
So here it is...
In the following scenario imagine you are in some weird situation wherein you can only save one of the the two options given in each question. There is no possible way to save both, nor would sacrificing yourself help in any way towards saving them and they will both die. If you do nothing, they will both die (and, I suppose, that is an option). You know that when you save one of them, the other will most certainly die (or be destroyed). Assume there is no other relevant information than that given for each question (i.e., in the child or adult question, assume they have the same status otherwise in all ways that may affect your decision, the only difference being that one is a child and one is an adult). You can only rescue one of each of the following, which do you save?
a) A child or an adult
b) A stranger or your dog
c) Your entire family or the entire canine species
d) A bottle with the cure for cancer or your brother/sister
e) Lassie or A Convicted Murderer/Rapist
f) Your spouse or a Nobel Laureate
g) A petry dish with 15 fertilized human eggs or 1 small child
h) A dog or a rat
i) A dog or a fish
j) A dog or a jellyfish
k) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
l) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time (in your favorite genre)
m) A young child you don't know or a 95-year old adult that you know well
n) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
o) A dog or a human being on life support in a perpetual coma (with no chance of ever coming out of the coma, although they are not technically brain dead).
p) Lassie or Hitler
q) 1 of your fellow soldiers from your unit or 25 injured enemy soldiers who have surrendered
Perhaps we can give two answers to each (if they are different): 1) what do you think you would actually do and 2) what do you think should or ought to do.
Now, after you've answered a) through q) can you provide some kind of principles or basis upon which you are guiding your decision making? Are the decisions consistent with one another? Are the principles consistent?
I think what is most fascinating about this exercise is that we are able to even answers these questions. That reveals, to me anyway, that we have incredible reserves of intuitions on these weird moral questions. Why is that? The difficult thing to do (and the profitable thing to do) is to try to "mine" those intuitions and see what is guiding them. Again: why do you answer the way you do on these??
Have fun.
So here it is...
In the following scenario imagine you are in some weird situation wherein you can only save one of the the two options given in each question. There is no possible way to save both, nor would sacrificing yourself help in any way towards saving them and they will both die. If you do nothing, they will both die (and, I suppose, that is an option). You know that when you save one of them, the other will most certainly die (or be destroyed). Assume there is no other relevant information than that given for each question (i.e., in the child or adult question, assume they have the same status otherwise in all ways that may affect your decision, the only difference being that one is a child and one is an adult). You can only rescue one of each of the following, which do you save?
a) A child or an adult
b) A stranger or your dog
c) Your entire family or the entire canine species
d) A bottle with the cure for cancer or your brother/sister
e) Lassie or A Convicted Murderer/Rapist
f) Your spouse or a Nobel Laureate
g) A petry dish with 15 fertilized human eggs or 1 small child
h) A dog or a rat
i) A dog or a fish
j) A dog or a jellyfish
k) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
l) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time (in your favorite genre)
m) A young child you don't know or a 95-year old adult that you know well
n) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
o) A dog or a human being on life support in a perpetual coma (with no chance of ever coming out of the coma, although they are not technically brain dead).
p) Lassie or Hitler
q) 1 of your fellow soldiers from your unit or 25 injured enemy soldiers who have surrendered
Perhaps we can give two answers to each (if they are different): 1) what do you think you would actually do and 2) what do you think should or ought to do.
Now, after you've answered a) through q) can you provide some kind of principles or basis upon which you are guiding your decision making? Are the decisions consistent with one another? Are the principles consistent?
I think what is most fascinating about this exercise is that we are able to even answers these questions. That reveals, to me anyway, that we have incredible reserves of intuitions on these weird moral questions. Why is that? The difficult thing to do (and the profitable thing to do) is to try to "mine" those intuitions and see what is guiding them. Again: why do you answer the way you do on these??
Have fun.
Stretched troops...
Check out this political cartoon:
Any thoughts?
Lots of underlying issues here:
If the situation in Iraq really does boil down to a civil war between different internal factions, is it our place to intervene? What's the right call here? Certainly France aided us in our revolutionary war, but should they have? How about our civil war? What's the difference?
This also brings up the question, in general, about "imposing" democracy on a people. I'm sure you've all heard it before, but there's this argument tossed around from time to time that contends that a people have to rise up and make their own democracy when they are ready for it -- that is cannot be forced on them. Is this the case? Always? What if a people are incapable of gaining democracy for themselves although they want it? How can we tell if this is the case? Is it bigoted of us to assume democracy is the best form of government for all people?
If the situation in Iraq really does boil down to a civil war between different internal factions, is it our place to intervene? What's the right call here? Certainly France aided us in our revolutionary war, but should they have? How about our civil war? What's the difference?
This also brings up the question, in general, about "imposing" democracy on a people. I'm sure you've all heard it before, but there's this argument tossed around from time to time that contends that a people have to rise up and make their own democracy when they are ready for it -- that is cannot be forced on them. Is this the case? Always? What if a people are incapable of gaining democracy for themselves although they want it? How can we tell if this is the case? Is it bigoted of us to assume democracy is the best form of government for all people?
...many other thoughts come to mind. Either way: a good cartoon.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Trapped miners... safety violations??
You've probably heard the news on the trapped miners out in Utah. You can find the latest here.
Interestingly, the coverage on this always mentions the safety record of the mine (which has apparently had lots of violations in the past).
"Over the past three years, the mine was cited at least 300 times -- with 118 of those citations for violations serious enough to cause death, records show."
So... of course we don't want to jump to conclusions, but it leaves several interesting ethical questions looming, such as:
Is the owner of the mine responsible for the deaths of these miners (if they don't make it), due to not resolving the safety problems in the past?
Even if it can be shown to be an accident, does the past record of the mine still have a normative impact on the current crisis?
Interestingly, the coverage on this always mentions the safety record of the mine (which has apparently had lots of violations in the past).
"Over the past three years, the mine was cited at least 300 times -- with 118 of those citations for violations serious enough to cause death, records show."
So... of course we don't want to jump to conclusions, but it leaves several interesting ethical questions looming, such as:
Is the owner of the mine responsible for the deaths of these miners (if they don't make it), due to not resolving the safety problems in the past?
Even if it can be shown to be an accident, does the past record of the mine still have a normative impact on the current crisis?
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Summer Hiatus over... a new semester has begun
Welcome back, RRfStV regulars! The summer is over (academically, anyway) and the school year has begun again up here at USAFA.
We'll resume regular blogging now.
Welcome, as well, to the new crop of ethics students who will be interacting on here.
Lot's of important stuff to catch up on in the world of ethics.
We'll resume regular blogging now.
Welcome, as well, to the new crop of ethics students who will be interacting on here.
Lot's of important stuff to catch up on in the world of ethics.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Military Report on troops' ethics
Some military troops are posed some tough ethical questions in a poll. Check out the story Here.
Do these numbers (if they are accurate) scare anyone? What kind of explanation can we come up with to understand why such a number of marines would (for example) not report a fellow marine for killing a non-combatant??
Do these numbers (if they are accurate) scare anyone? What kind of explanation can we come up with to understand why such a number of marines would (for example) not report a fellow marine for killing a non-combatant??
NPR does story on Ethics class at West Point
Check out this story on NPR's Morning Edition
Here.
It listens in on an Ethics class at West Point. One cadet makes the point that he is tired of "having all this ethics junk rammed down his throat" and he believes that taking classes, PME, etc. can't teach him to be a better person. He believes ethics is entirely subjective and "personal", so why waste my time with these kinds of classes?
This cadets complaints sound eerily familiar (although in the vast minority) to some cadets here as well. Any thoughts?
Here.
It listens in on an Ethics class at West Point. One cadet makes the point that he is tired of "having all this ethics junk rammed down his throat" and he believes that taking classes, PME, etc. can't teach him to be a better person. He believes ethics is entirely subjective and "personal", so why waste my time with these kinds of classes?
This cadets complaints sound eerily familiar (although in the vast minority) to some cadets here as well. Any thoughts?
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Mission to mars -- should we cut off the sick guy's supplies?
Read this article here.
Some fascinating, and rather difficult, ethical questions that must be pondered for long-term space missions.
Your thoughts?
Some fascinating, and rather difficult, ethical questions that must be pondered for long-term space missions.
Your thoughts?
Friday, April 27, 2007
Military speaking out?
Remember all the hub-bub and much discussed situation with the retired Generals speaking out about the SecDef (Rumsfield)... well now we have an active duty LtCol speaking out about the war in Iraq -- specifically criticizing the Generals in charge and their decisions.
Read about it here. Apparently the story was also covered on national news this morning (on NPR and other sources).
What do you think? Is this acceptable behavoir? Is this not the same because it was in the context of an academic/professional article in a professional journal?
Read about it here. Apparently the story was also covered on national news this morning (on NPR and other sources).
What do you think? Is this acceptable behavoir? Is this not the same because it was in the context of an academic/professional article in a professional journal?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Deception and benefit.
A very simple question:
Is it wrong to decieve someone for their own benefit?
Yet a very difficult & complex ethical matter. We've been debating this one on and off all semester in the dept. Many supporting examples and counter examples come to mind for both sides. For example, placebos have proven to often have a measurable positive medical effect on patients (the placebo effect), yet, for it to work you have to deceive the patient (you can't TELL them you are giving them a placebo... they must believe it is a "real" drug for the placebo effect to work). Tradtionally in medical ethics it is considered wrong to prescribe placebos... but I'm not so sure. What if someone WANTS to have a placebo effect. Well, it's difficult at best. They can't request a placebo -- for then they know that's what they are getting and it won't work. My thought is this is a legitimate case where someone can be decieved for their own benefit and such an act would be morally permissable.
Your thoughts? Is it ever morally permisable to deceive someone for their benefit? There are LOTS of counters on the other side.
Is it wrong to decieve someone for their own benefit?
Yet a very difficult & complex ethical matter. We've been debating this one on and off all semester in the dept. Many supporting examples and counter examples come to mind for both sides. For example, placebos have proven to often have a measurable positive medical effect on patients (the placebo effect), yet, for it to work you have to deceive the patient (you can't TELL them you are giving them a placebo... they must believe it is a "real" drug for the placebo effect to work). Tradtionally in medical ethics it is considered wrong to prescribe placebos... but I'm not so sure. What if someone WANTS to have a placebo effect. Well, it's difficult at best. They can't request a placebo -- for then they know that's what they are getting and it won't work. My thought is this is a legitimate case where someone can be decieved for their own benefit and such an act would be morally permissable.
Your thoughts? Is it ever morally permisable to deceive someone for their benefit? There are LOTS of counters on the other side.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Earth day and overpopulation
Here's an interesting question... is there such a thing as "overpopulation"?
Earth Day is as good a time as any to reflect on some environmental ethics. Clearly there are many ethical implications of how we treat the environment and there's lots of debates to be had here.... but I'm particularly interested in the very concept of overpopulation. What does this mean, precisely? I assume something like, "a state of affairs where the human population of the earth exceeds the earth's sustainable resource to support said population." But then, of course, I'd have to ask: How can we possibly know when that number threshold has been reached?
The Lemon Law
As most of my students recall, we discussed a paper by one of my students about the "Lemon Law", only in this case as it applies to dating.
In brief, the idea is that if within the first few minutes of a date, if one party becomes convinced that there is no hope of a second date, then they have the right to end the date at that point, no questions asked.
As we've debated in class, there are all kinds of wide-ranging issues here. Give me your thoughts for or against the moral permisability of such a law.
In brief, the idea is that if within the first few minutes of a date, if one party becomes convinced that there is no hope of a second date, then they have the right to end the date at that point, no questions asked.
As we've debated in class, there are all kinds of wide-ranging issues here. Give me your thoughts for or against the moral permisability of such a law.
Kamikaze missions!
Phew, way too long with no new posts. My apologies.
There's been lots of stuff brewing to discuss and I'll try to mention just a few things.
First, check out this article on FoxNews regarding Brittish pilots and the possibility of suicide missions against terrorists.
This raises an interesting question, of course.
Are suicide "Kamikaze" missions ever morally permissable? It seems we can imagine some crazy scenario where it certainly seems like the high stakes consequences would demand such a thing.... but does it feel to anyone else that at such a point we've already lost? That we'd be playing "their" game, as it were? Moreover, isn't whatever argument one could come up with for us doing suicide missions essentially the same argument terrorists presently use for suicide bombings? (They believe the stakes are that high, only option, etc., etc.).
Does that bother you?
There's been lots of stuff brewing to discuss and I'll try to mention just a few things.
First, check out this article on FoxNews regarding Brittish pilots and the possibility of suicide missions against terrorists.
This raises an interesting question, of course.
Are suicide "Kamikaze" missions ever morally permissable? It seems we can imagine some crazy scenario where it certainly seems like the high stakes consequences would demand such a thing.... but does it feel to anyone else that at such a point we've already lost? That we'd be playing "their" game, as it were? Moreover, isn't whatever argument one could come up with for us doing suicide missions essentially the same argument terrorists presently use for suicide bombings? (They believe the stakes are that high, only option, etc., etc.).
Does that bother you?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Classic informal fallacies
Enjoy this look at "rational debate" here.
Sadly enough, this really is about the level I think a good portion of "debate" occurs on in our society today.
Sadly enough, this really is about the level I think a good portion of "debate" occurs on in our society today.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
A good read
Here's a fascinating article regarding an officer who sued the POTUS on behalf of a prisoner at Gitmo.
Check it out here.
Check it out here.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
sins committed?
Check out this story here.
(once you click on the link, you may need to push another button to launch the CNN video).
It regards a decal a soldier (and Iraq war vet) had on the back of his truck reading, "Forgive me Lord for the sins I committed to protect our freedom."
This relates to a great class discussion we had in a couple sections.
On one view of consequentialism, if doing some (in isolation) morally wrong act leads to a greater good, then that originally wrong act becomes good. On another view, the original wrong act is still wrong, but it "had to be done" as it were. Clearly the soldier has the later view... interesting.
What do you think?
(once you click on the link, you may need to push another button to launch the CNN video).
It regards a decal a soldier (and Iraq war vet) had on the back of his truck reading, "Forgive me Lord for the sins I committed to protect our freedom."
This relates to a great class discussion we had in a couple sections.
On one view of consequentialism, if doing some (in isolation) morally wrong act leads to a greater good, then that originally wrong act becomes good. On another view, the original wrong act is still wrong, but it "had to be done" as it were. Clearly the soldier has the later view... interesting.
What do you think?
The nature of an "offense"
Here's one our department was debating over lunch yesterday.
If you do something to someone that doesn't "hurt" them in any clear, direct way -- and they never know that it happened -- have you actually done anything wrong? This gets to the nature of what it means to committ an offense. To help explain, let me give a couple examples we came up with:
First imagine a "peeping tom" type scenario where someone (say a teenage male) looks in on someone else while they are in the shower (say an attractive female). Let's say the woman never knows that the peeping tom looked at her and no one else can ever find out.
Interestingly, simply from a simplistic utilitarian perspective, assuming the male derived some kind of pleasure from peeping, and the woman (if she never finds out) does not experience any (direct anyway) harm from it -- it seems we could actually call it a "good thing," and certainly not a bad one. So was it wrong of the tom? Did he commit any offense against the woman if she never finds out or is never aware of the tom?
Another example of what we after:
Let's say you have a vegetarian friend over for dinner and you make a nice soup for the first course. Now you could easily use chicken stock instead of vegetable stock in the recipe and your friend would probably never know. So let's say you do it. Your friend assumes its a vegetarian soup. He likes it a lot. And he leaves and no one ever knows, including your friend of course, that it was chicken stock instead of vegetable stock. If he never knows that he ate the chicken stock (and thus violated his own code -- let's say he's a vegetarian for ethical reasons), did you really commit any wrong?
This is tricky. Anyone can hop into this conversation and say "YES!" it was an offense and the person is a "victim" of a wrong act in both these cases. The tough part is explaining WHY. Any attempts?
If you do something to someone that doesn't "hurt" them in any clear, direct way -- and they never know that it happened -- have you actually done anything wrong? This gets to the nature of what it means to committ an offense. To help explain, let me give a couple examples we came up with:
First imagine a "peeping tom" type scenario where someone (say a teenage male) looks in on someone else while they are in the shower (say an attractive female). Let's say the woman never knows that the peeping tom looked at her and no one else can ever find out.
Interestingly, simply from a simplistic utilitarian perspective, assuming the male derived some kind of pleasure from peeping, and the woman (if she never finds out) does not experience any (direct anyway) harm from it -- it seems we could actually call it a "good thing," and certainly not a bad one. So was it wrong of the tom? Did he commit any offense against the woman if she never finds out or is never aware of the tom?
Another example of what we after:
Let's say you have a vegetarian friend over for dinner and you make a nice soup for the first course. Now you could easily use chicken stock instead of vegetable stock in the recipe and your friend would probably never know. So let's say you do it. Your friend assumes its a vegetarian soup. He likes it a lot. And he leaves and no one ever knows, including your friend of course, that it was chicken stock instead of vegetable stock. If he never knows that he ate the chicken stock (and thus violated his own code -- let's say he's a vegetarian for ethical reasons), did you really commit any wrong?
This is tricky. Anyone can hop into this conversation and say "YES!" it was an offense and the person is a "victim" of a wrong act in both these cases. The tough part is explaining WHY. Any attempts?
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Classic paradox
Here's a spin on the classic "liar paradox," that I thought may be new for some of you.
Consider the following proposition X:
X = [This sentence is false]
What is the truth-value (true or false) of X?
Is it true? If that's the case... well you can see for yourself the trouble this leads to.
Any ideas on how to solve the paradox?
Consider the following proposition X:
X = [This sentence is false]
What is the truth-value (true or false) of X?
Is it true? If that's the case... well you can see for yourself the trouble this leads to.
Any ideas on how to solve the paradox?
Monday, March 5, 2007
An argument
Here's a classic argument I've been mulling over (yet again, for the roughly billionth time) of late and am curious to hear your thoughts on it.
1. Assume there is a God who is omnibenevolent (all-good), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful)
2. Assume there is evil in the world (we can see it everyday in the papers, as they say)
3. Given 1, we should not have 2.
4. Therefore, either 1 or 2 is false.
5. Since we know 2 to be true, 1 must be false.
6. Hence, there is no God (at least not the kind described in 1).
This argument, or versions of it, has been around for a very long time and is one of the most widely written on topics in all of philosophy. Odds are you've heard it before (at least in a form like this, "How can there be evil if there's a God?").
Almost all possible responses focus on premise 3 above -- that is, they try to offer an explanation for how 1 and 2 CAN co-exist and therefore once 3 is false, we have no problem.
Is there any other broad approach? What approach do you take to this problem? How can you defend the argument (if you are so inclined) against the possible responses?
1. Assume there is a God who is omnibenevolent (all-good), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful)
2. Assume there is evil in the world (we can see it everyday in the papers, as they say)
3. Given 1, we should not have 2.
4. Therefore, either 1 or 2 is false.
5. Since we know 2 to be true, 1 must be false.
6. Hence, there is no God (at least not the kind described in 1).
This argument, or versions of it, has been around for a very long time and is one of the most widely written on topics in all of philosophy. Odds are you've heard it before (at least in a form like this, "How can there be evil if there's a God?").
Almost all possible responses focus on premise 3 above -- that is, they try to offer an explanation for how 1 and 2 CAN co-exist and therefore once 3 is false, we have no problem.
Is there any other broad approach? What approach do you take to this problem? How can you defend the argument (if you are so inclined) against the possible responses?
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Academic Freedom and Unabashed War Celebrating
This fascinating post here combines two very intriguing ethical issues.
Please read it.
What do you think? Either issue is a good one to comment on, the academic freedom questions raised or the issues specifically raised against Glenn Reynolds.
Please read it.
What do you think? Either issue is a good one to comment on, the academic freedom questions raised or the issues specifically raised against Glenn Reynolds.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Ishmael Beah's story
See a video about this young man Here.
I've heard countless stories like this before... a young child's entire family slaughtered before them and then those children forced to become rebels themselves. In this case he was forced into the government army fighting the rebels... but there seems little difference. This same "tactic" is occurring, and has been occurring for many years now, in the Sudan's Darfur region -- on a huge scale.
What do you make of it? A few questions to ponder: what are we to make of Ishmael's killing? In what ethical category do we put his killings? What are we to do when we realize that perhaps large portions, perhaps even a majority of those rebel groups causing such atrocities may very well be all like Ishmael? Listen to the description he writes about regarding how he lined up six people and watched them suffer (for a day) before mecahnically killing them. This, to me, sounds only like something out of the Holocaust. It reminds me chillingly of stories of SS soldiers doing similar things to the Jews in the streets of Eastern Europe.
How do these stories affect, if it all, affect how we can perhaps come up with any answers on how to stop the seemingly perpetual violence in Africa? In a post-holocaust world, how do things like this, situation like this, spiral out of control and happen?
Rwanda, Sierra Leon, Darfur.... and there are many other places, and perhaps more to come.
Any thoughts?
I've heard countless stories like this before... a young child's entire family slaughtered before them and then those children forced to become rebels themselves. In this case he was forced into the government army fighting the rebels... but there seems little difference. This same "tactic" is occurring, and has been occurring for many years now, in the Sudan's Darfur region -- on a huge scale.
What do you make of it? A few questions to ponder: what are we to make of Ishmael's killing? In what ethical category do we put his killings? What are we to do when we realize that perhaps large portions, perhaps even a majority of those rebel groups causing such atrocities may very well be all like Ishmael? Listen to the description he writes about regarding how he lined up six people and watched them suffer (for a day) before mecahnically killing them. This, to me, sounds only like something out of the Holocaust. It reminds me chillingly of stories of SS soldiers doing similar things to the Jews in the streets of Eastern Europe.
How do these stories affect, if it all, affect how we can perhaps come up with any answers on how to stop the seemingly perpetual violence in Africa? In a post-holocaust world, how do things like this, situation like this, spiral out of control and happen?
Rwanda, Sierra Leon, Darfur.... and there are many other places, and perhaps more to come.
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Imposition of will?
Check out this cartoon:
It is of course referencing the recent comments made by Russian President Putin regarding how he believes the US forces it's will on the rest of the world (often through military means).
What do you think? Does Putin here have a point? Are we -- as a combination of being the sole remaining super-power and our leaders administering a rather undeniably interventionist foreign policy of late -- trying to play control with the rest of the world? Are we the world's self-appointed policeman? Or worse... ?
Your thoughts?
It is of course referencing the recent comments made by Russian President Putin regarding how he believes the US forces it's will on the rest of the world (often through military means).
What do you think? Does Putin here have a point? Are we -- as a combination of being the sole remaining super-power and our leaders administering a rather undeniably interventionist foreign policy of late -- trying to play control with the rest of the world? Are we the world's self-appointed policeman? Or worse... ?
Your thoughts?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Half-truths...?
As usual for any political speech in our day and age, the "facts" were a bit cloudy in the things claimed by the POTUS in his State of the Union speech. The same holds true for one of the counter-claims made by Sen. Webb. See Here. Our friends at FactCheck.org have dug deep into the claims and unearthed some, shall we say, "flexibility" with the facts.
What do you make of this? Sure, there's the cynical claim that this is just a symptom of modern politics constantly playing the "spin" game (and that's most certainly true). But, what else can we ask here? Does telling a "half-truth" constitute a lie? If not, why not? What would we define as the basis for lying? And how does shaping and bending facts to be the most favorable for your position differ from that definition?
What do you make of this? Sure, there's the cynical claim that this is just a symptom of modern politics constantly playing the "spin" game (and that's most certainly true). But, what else can we ask here? Does telling a "half-truth" constitute a lie? If not, why not? What would we define as the basis for lying? And how does shaping and bending facts to be the most favorable for your position differ from that definition?
Gays in the military?
One of our most important former Generals has had a change of heart on the matter.
Read the story Here.
Do you agree with his arguments?
Read the story Here.
Do you agree with his arguments?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Iraq, Constitutional Powers, and the distinction between criminal law enforcement and war
Long post title, short post.
Check out this post over on the "Leiter Reports" blog. Several issues here. I'm most interested in the discussion regarding the actual powers of the legislative over the executive regarding war (and that how the legal systems were intentionally set up that way!). Also curious about the on-going debate regarding the very idea of a war on a method (i.e. terror) as well as the related issues of crime fighting vs. war fighting. All very interesting stuff.
I've linked posts from this blog before. Read my warnings from that previous post. I don't endorse anything said over at the Leiter Reports -- but the blog certainly gives good fodder for discussion.
Your thoughts?
Check out this post over on the "Leiter Reports" blog. Several issues here. I'm most interested in the discussion regarding the actual powers of the legislative over the executive regarding war (and that how the legal systems were intentionally set up that way!). Also curious about the on-going debate regarding the very idea of a war on a method (i.e. terror) as well as the related issues of crime fighting vs. war fighting. All very interesting stuff.
I've linked posts from this blog before. Read my warnings from that previous post. I don't endorse anything said over at the Leiter Reports -- but the blog certainly gives good fodder for discussion.
Your thoughts?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
child sex slaves
Check out this story here.
Here.
What do you think?
For those of you who tend to think that we can't say that morality is objective -- I'm curious if you'll defend the actions described in this story as merely subjectively right or wrong.
Would you say that to call the situation described in the story below "wrong" is just describing how we feel about it – but certainly such a claim (that it is wrong) is not saying anything that can be considered "true" or "false"? Or is there a true position to hold in regards to this situation and a false one (that is, a position that says it is wrong is correct, and vice versa)?
It is tough to play the relativist game when faced with stories of such disgust... but I'm curious if anyone is willing to try. It is easy to play the game on an issue such as, say, abortion. Many of you would hate to claim that one person is "right" and one person is "wrong" in such a case, and so you'll default to your moral subjectivism. But in a case such as this... let's say there are two people: Jim and Bob. Jim thinks that child sex slavery is morally justifiable. Bob thinks it is morally wrong. Are you willing to say that Bob is right? Or are you going to stick to your guns and claim that they are "both right"?
Just curious...
Here.
What do you think?
For those of you who tend to think that we can't say that morality is objective -- I'm curious if you'll defend the actions described in this story as merely subjectively right or wrong.
Would you say that to call the situation described in the story below "wrong" is just describing how we feel about it – but certainly such a claim (that it is wrong) is not saying anything that can be considered "true" or "false"? Or is there a true position to hold in regards to this situation and a false one (that is, a position that says it is wrong is correct, and vice versa)?
It is tough to play the relativist game when faced with stories of such disgust... but I'm curious if anyone is willing to try. It is easy to play the game on an issue such as, say, abortion. Many of you would hate to claim that one person is "right" and one person is "wrong" in such a case, and so you'll default to your moral subjectivism. But in a case such as this... let's say there are two people: Jim and Bob. Jim thinks that child sex slavery is morally justifiable. Bob thinks it is morally wrong. Are you willing to say that Bob is right? Or are you going to stick to your guns and claim that they are "both right"?
Just curious...
Friday, January 19, 2007
A stranger or your dog... Take 2
Here's a few fun ethics exercises. I did a post on roughly these same questions a few months back. Now that we've got a new crop of students, I thought I'd throw it out there again (notice that I changed a couple of the questions to mix it up a bit).
Also, for my old bloggers, I'm curious if your answers to any of these questions has changed. If so, why do you think that is?
So here it is...
In the following scenario imagine you are in some weird situation wherein you can only save one of the the two options given in each question. There is no possible way to save both, nor would sacrificing yourself help in any way towards saving them and they will both die. If you do nothing, they will both die (and, I suppose, that is an option). You know that when you save one of them, the other will most certainly die (or be destroyed). Assume there is no other relevant information than that given for each question (i.e., in the child or adult question, assume they have the same status otherwise in all ways that may affect your decision, the only difference being that one is a child and one is an adult). You can only rescue one of each of the following, which do you save?
a) A child or an adult
b) A stranger or your dog
c) Your entire family or the entire canine species
d) A bottle with the cure for cancer or your brother/sister
e) Lassie or A Convicted Murderer/Rapist
f) Your spouse or a Nobel Laureate
g) A petry dish with 15 fertilized human eggs or 1 small child
h) A dog or a rat
i) A dog or a fish
j) A dog or a jellyfish
k) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
l) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time (in your favorite genre)
m) A young child you don't know or a 95-year old adult that you know well
n) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
o) A dog or a human being on life support in a perpetual coma (with no chance of ever coming out of the coma, although they are not technically brain dead).
p) Lassie or Hitler
q) 1 of your fellow soldiers from your unit or 25 injured enemy soldiers who have surrendered
Perhaps we can give two answers to each (if they are different): 1) what do you think you would actually do and 2) what do you think should or ought to do.
Now, after you've answered a) through o) can you provide some kind of principles or basis upon which you are guiding your decision making? Are the decisions consistent with one another? Are the principles consistent?
Also, for my old bloggers, I'm curious if your answers to any of these questions has changed. If so, why do you think that is?
So here it is...
In the following scenario imagine you are in some weird situation wherein you can only save one of the the two options given in each question. There is no possible way to save both, nor would sacrificing yourself help in any way towards saving them and they will both die. If you do nothing, they will both die (and, I suppose, that is an option). You know that when you save one of them, the other will most certainly die (or be destroyed). Assume there is no other relevant information than that given for each question (i.e., in the child or adult question, assume they have the same status otherwise in all ways that may affect your decision, the only difference being that one is a child and one is an adult). You can only rescue one of each of the following, which do you save?
a) A child or an adult
b) A stranger or your dog
c) Your entire family or the entire canine species
d) A bottle with the cure for cancer or your brother/sister
e) Lassie or A Convicted Murderer/Rapist
f) Your spouse or a Nobel Laureate
g) A petry dish with 15 fertilized human eggs or 1 small child
h) A dog or a rat
i) A dog or a fish
j) A dog or a jellyfish
k) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
l) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time (in your favorite genre)
m) A young child you don't know or a 95-year old adult that you know well
n) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
o) A dog or a human being on life support in a perpetual coma (with no chance of ever coming out of the coma, although they are not technically brain dead).
p) Lassie or Hitler
q) 1 of your fellow soldiers from your unit or 25 injured enemy soldiers who have surrendered
Perhaps we can give two answers to each (if they are different): 1) what do you think you would actually do and 2) what do you think should or ought to do.
Now, after you've answered a) through o) can you provide some kind of principles or basis upon which you are guiding your decision making? Are the decisions consistent with one another? Are the principles consistent?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
...."Professionalism" in question?
Here's a curious story that we've been debating in the department -- so I thought I'd see what the blog world thinks.
Read the story, but the brief is this: A female SSgt who is a TI for BMT posed naked for a nationally published magazine (Playboy). The debate takes two sides (at least so far in our dept here):
One sides agrees that what she did was stupid (a bad judgment call), but in no way "wrong" (ethically, anyway) or something deserving of being reprimanded. This side argues that there was no specific violation of the UCMJ that occured and so there is nothing to do here(although the JAG's could try to envoke the "Good Order & Discipline" catch-all against her if they really wanted... and it looks like they may).
The other position agrees that it was of course unwise (a bad call), but also that it was in some sense wrong. Forget for a moment arguments for or against the inherent ethical standing of pornography -- that's a different debate (for obviously, if one finds posing for pornography under any circumstance to being morally wrong, this there is no debate here). The question here is does her being an NCO who is routinely in charge of brand new airmen in basic training somehow make this act particularly different than if she were a civilian? This position argues that it does and significantly so.
A good way to approach your answer to the question is what would you do (specifically) if you were her commander? Possible answers I've heard range from nothing, to an LOC, to an LOR, all the way to court-marshall. Tell me what you'd do and then justify it.
What do you think?
Read the story, but the brief is this: A female SSgt who is a TI for BMT posed naked for a nationally published magazine (Playboy). The debate takes two sides (at least so far in our dept here):
One sides agrees that what she did was stupid (a bad judgment call), but in no way "wrong" (ethically, anyway) or something deserving of being reprimanded. This side argues that there was no specific violation of the UCMJ that occured and so there is nothing to do here(although the JAG's could try to envoke the "Good Order & Discipline" catch-all against her if they really wanted... and it looks like they may).
The other position agrees that it was of course unwise (a bad call), but also that it was in some sense wrong. Forget for a moment arguments for or against the inherent ethical standing of pornography -- that's a different debate (for obviously, if one finds posing for pornography under any circumstance to being morally wrong, this there is no debate here). The question here is does her being an NCO who is routinely in charge of brand new airmen in basic training somehow make this act particularly different than if she were a civilian? This position argues that it does and significantly so.
A good way to approach your answer to the question is what would you do (specifically) if you were her commander? Possible answers I've heard range from nothing, to an LOC, to an LOR, all the way to court-marshall. Tell me what you'd do and then justify it.
What do you think?
Monday, January 8, 2007
Welcome Spring 2007 Ethics Students
Captain Strawser's newest students, welcome to the class blog. This blog already has one semester of interesting and fascinating discussions and debates behind it. Feel free to peruse the archives. I'm sure we'll return to some of the posts discussed previously -- for many of these issues are timeless -- and we'll wrestle through many new issues.
To my old students and other outside-USAFA bloggers, I encourage you to continue to interact and debate on this blog. I hope it continues to grow with each new semester. (Although, sorry, I can't give my old students any instructor points for posting anymore!)
Here's looking forward to a new season of rational reflections.
To my old students and other outside-USAFA bloggers, I encourage you to continue to interact and debate on this blog. I hope it continues to grow with each new semester. (Although, sorry, I can't give my old students any instructor points for posting anymore!)
Here's looking forward to a new season of rational reflections.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
