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?

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?

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?

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...

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?

...."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?

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.