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?

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.

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.

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?