ETHC 445 Principles of Ethics – DeVry

ETHC 445 Week 3 DQ 1 Applying the Death Penalty

First, here is a word of caution. With this discussion comes a tasking to discuss the death penalty in two ways: first, as an expression of the social contract, where one person has killed another in a violation of that other person’s right to peace and safety, and second, as a rules-based function of the justice system being applied to a difficult situation.

What do you see going on that is a violation of the Hobbes/Locke social contract idea?
And you might also connect it with any of the Three Schools, plus Aristotle, that you have read in past weeks—and especially with the rules-based ethics model.

Here’s the situation: In Manatee County, Florida, a judge sentenced a man to death—the first time this had happened in the county for over 19 years. Sentenced to death was a 25-year-old man for the January 7, 2004, murder of both of his parents by bludgeoning them to death in their bed with a baseball bat.

Now, with your social contract ethicist hats on, tell us what you make of this quote by the judge at the sentencing, quoted from the front page of the November 17, 2007 Bradenton Herald: “You have not only forfeited your right to live among us, but under the laws of the state of Florida, you have forfeited the right to live at all.”

Have at it, good folks. But, rather than running off with reactions and opinions about the death penalty in general, please do keep it in the context of our social contract discussion for this week and also connected with ethics of justice.

 ETHC 445 Week 3 DQ 2 Living in Our State of Nature

Social Contract theorists say that morality consists of a set of rules governing how people should treat one another that rational beings will agree to accept for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others agree to follow these rules as well. 
Hobbes runs the logic like this in the form of a logical syllogism:
1) We are all self-interested,
2) Each of us needs to have a peaceful and cooperative social order to pursue our interests,
3) We need moral rules in order to establish and maintain a cooperative social order,
Therefore, self-interest motivates us to establish moral rules.
Thomas Hobbes looked to the past to observe a primitive “State of Nature” in which there is no such thing as morality, and that this self-interested human nature was “nasty, brutish, and short” — a kind of perpetual state of warfare 

John Locke disagreed, and set forth the view that the state exists to preserve the natural rights of its citizens. When governments fail in that task, citizens have the right—and sometimes the duty—to withdraw their support and even to rebel. Listen to Locke’s audio on the lecture tab and read his lecturette to be able to answer this thread. 
Locke addressed Hobbes’s claim that the state of nature was the state of war, though he attribute this claim to “some men” not to Hobbes. He refuted it by pointing to existing and real historical examples of people in a state of nature. For this purpose he regarded any people who are not subject to a common judge to resolve disputes, people who may legitimately take action to themselves punish wrong doers, as in a state of nature. 
Which philosophy do you espouse?

In coming to grips with the two and considering your experience of society as it is today, think out loud about what you experiences as the State of Nature, and tell us what you would be willing to give up in exchange for civil order and personal security?  

You might consider what you have already given up in exchange for security as well as what might be required in coming days.

 

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ETHC 445 Principles of Ethics – DeVry

ETHC 445 Week 4 DQ 1 Ethics of Controlling Environmental Innovation

Increasing food supplies are necessary to sustain growing populations around the world and their appetites for great food, quality products, and continuous availability.

A great deal of expensive research is invested in developing technologies to deliver productive agriculture. Horticultural efforts to breed hybrid crops are seen as far back as history can observe, and there have been efforts to domesticate improved animals, as well. Gene splitting was a 1990s technology to improve the health and productivity of farm crops. With the 21st century have come genetically modified foods (GMF) through the use of nanotechnology to cause changes at the genetic and even molecular levels. These are very expensive technologies, and many new products have been patented and otherwise protected as proprietary products of intellectual property.

Drive out to the country during growing season, and you will see signs identifying that the crop has been grown with a protected seed that cannot be used to produce retained seed for planting in the next growing season.

In terms of this week’s TCOs, what ethical issues are raised by this legal process of patent protection, and how do we see the primary schools of ethics used in these proprietary measures? What, in this deontological week and in our learning to date, informs our understanding of this situation, and what should be done about it?

ETHC 445 Week 4 DQ 2 Kant – Accomplice to Crazed Murderer

Kant’s famous First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative reads:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Kant taught morality as a matter of following maxims of living that reflect absolute laws. “Universal” is a term that allows for no exceptions, and what is universal applies always and everywhere. Lying, for any reason, is universally wrong.

Be sure to listen to Kant’s audio lecture before posting this week!

So, consider the famous case of the Crazed Murderer. In your town the Crazed Murderer comes to your door looking for your friend and wanting to kill him. You know that your friend went home to hide. What do you tell the murderer? When he leaves and runs up the street to your friend’s house, what do you do?

 

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ETHC 445 Principles of Ethics – DeVry

ETHC 445 Week 6 DQ 1 Applying Rand’s Objectivism

Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy has been touted by her detractors as the philosophy of self-interested selfishness.  

Her four epistemological principles are: 
1. Metaphysics: Objective reality of the world and the objects in it.
2. Epistemology: Reason as the one and only key to understanding.
3. Ethics: Self-interest in what behavior is but also what it should be.
4. Politics: Capitalism through the performance of deeds by individuals who are self-interested.

In the early 1960’s, a student asked a spokesman for Objectivism what would happen to the poor in an Objectivist’s free society.
The spokesman answered, “If you want to help them, you will not be stopped.” 

If one reads Rand’s works, Atlas Shrugged, or The Fountainhead, one will conclude that this would be the answer Ayn would have given to that student as well.

What do you conclude from the answer given by the Objectivist spokesperson? 
Is Objectivism, like Moral Relativism, the opposite of ethics?
And what clue in what she taught leads to your conclusion?

ETHC 445 Week 6 DQ 2 Working Conflict Resolution Methods

Different ways to analyze ethical behaviors and dilemmas exist, and many of them will help direct you to the correct or “best” solution to a problem.

As we discussed in week 1 in the “tough choices” .pdf, sometimes right vs. right or wrong vs. wrong decisions have to be made.

In the lecture this week, you are given three ethical dilemma resolution models to try out on a dilemma provided there. Please review that interactive before posting to the threads this week, and let’s bring your questions and comments about the “proposed” solutions here to the threads.  We will talk about that through mid-week, and then I will post a new dilemma here where we will, as a group, begin analyzing it using the different methods.

You will need to be able to use these three models (Blanchard and Peale, Laura Nash and Front page of the Newspaper) on the final exam … so let’s be sure to practice all three of them together this week.

So, to start this off, let’s address the dilemma in the Week 6 Lecture interactive (at the bottom of the page). You MUST read the lecture and run the interactive in order to participate in the threads this week!

1. Review the sample solution to the Laura Nash method. 
   
   Do you agree with that analysis? If so, what parts do you think really helped you work through the dilemma? If not, which parts do you not agree with?
2. Review the sample solution to the Front Page of the Newspaper method. 
   
   Do you think this is one of those types of dilemmas for which this model works? If not, why not? If so, why? How did using this method help you work through the dilemma?
3. Review the sample solution to the Blanchard and Peale method. 
   
   Do you agree with the analysis? If not, why not? If so, in what way did this help you analyze this dilemma?

Pick ONE of the above 3 questions and let’s get started. Or, respond to another student with details about why you agree or disagree with their analysis. Feel free to kindly debate with each other. Do not take things personally if someone disagrees. Be sure to show that you have viewed the lecture and interactive and that you attempted an analysis for “high quality” posts this week. After Wednesday, I will bring in another scenario and we can analyze that one together as a class.

 

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ETHC 445 Principles of Ethics – DeVry

ETHC 445 Week 7 DQ 1 Business Ethics & the Hovercraft Debacle

This week, we looked at two more ethical codes—one for the Project Management Institute, and one for Engineers. 
(Find links to these professional codes in the Week 7 Assignment tab along with the Week 7 readings.)

You can see that both of them are much simpler than the Legal code we looked at last week, and even simpler than the Medical code of ethics. Appropriate professional behavior, practice, and discipline varies among professions and reflects the needs and values of the professional society in question. 

Let’s then assume professional roles as we work on this fictional scenario:

It’s 2020, and General Foryota Company opens a plant in which to build a new mass-produced hover-craft. This hover-craft will work using E-85 Ethanol, will travel up to 200 mph, and will reduce pollution worldwide at a rate of 10 percent per year. It is likely that when all automobiles in the industrial world have been changed over to hovercrafts, emission of greenhouse gasses may be so reduced that global warming may end and air quality will become completely refreshed.

However, the downside is that during the transition time, GFC’s Hover-Vee (only available in red or black), will most likely put all transportation as we know it in major dissaray. Roadways will no longer be necessary, but new methods of controlling traffic will be required. Further, while the old version of cars are still being used, Hover-vee’s will cause accidents, parking issues, and most likely class envy and warfare. The sticker price on the first two models will be about four times that of the average SUV (to about $200,000.) Even so, GFC’s marketing futurists have let them know that they will be able to pre-sell their first three years of expected production, with a potential waiting list which will take between 15 and 20 years to fill.

The Chief Engineer of GFC commissions a study on potential liabilities for the Hover-vees. The preliminary result is that Hover-vees will likely kill or maim humans at an increased rate of double to triple over automobile travel because of collisions and crashes at high speeds — projected annual death rates of 100,000 to 200,000. However, global warming will end, and the environment will flourish.

The U. S. Government gets wind of the plans. Congress begins to discuss the rules on who can own and operate Hover-vees. GFC’s stock skyrockets. The Chief Engineer takes the results of the study to the Chief Legal Counsel, and together they agree to bury the study, going forward with the production plans. The Chief Project Manager, who has read the study and agreed to bury it, goes ahead and plans out the project for the company, with target dates and production deadlines.

Our class is a team of young lawyers, project managers, engineers, and congressional aides who are all part of the process of helping get this project off the ground. In fact, according to the first letter of your last name, you are the following team:

A-G: Attorney on the GFC team
H-N: Project Manager on the GFC team
0-S: Engineer on the GFC team
T-Z: Congressional Aide

Somebody sent a secret copy of the report to you at your home address. It has no information in it at all, except for the report showing the proof of the increase in accidents and deaths. The report shows, on its face, that the CLO, CE, CPM, and your Congressional Representative have seen copies of this report. On the front there are these words typed in red: They knew — they buried this. Please save the world!

Each of you feel a very loyal tie to your boss and your company/country. You all have mortgages, and families to feed. It is likely if you blow the whistle on this report, you will lose your job and your livelihood. You’re not even sure who wrote the study in your envelope or who actually sent it to you.

Now to the task at hand:
Utilizing your profession’s code of ethics, what would be your first step? Who would you talk to first? Would you go to the press? Would you go to your boss? Should you do anything at all?

What’s your first step? To whom do you speak first? What about the press? Your boss? What if you do nothing?

ETHC 445 Week 7 DQ 2 Assemble and Test Your Personal Ethics Statement

Please be sure to read the Week Seven Lecture in its entirety before posting to this discussion. 

This week we will work on creating your own statement of personal ethics. 
To get started, read summarizing review of our great and famous ethics and what they have taught us — found in our lecture this week.

Then, let’s work on creating one for you.

Your goal for the end of this thread is to have created a personal ethical philosophy and be able to tell your classmates from which philosophies you created it and why the contents are important and meaningful for you. List its precepts. (You will need to do this on the Final Exam.)

After you have assembled and posted your personal ethics statement, responded to what others may have said to you and thought about what you have posted to others, then take your statement and use it to work through the famous case of the Ring of Gyges.

One of the great examples of ethics and morals in all of literature comes from Plato who wrote about the Ring of Gyges in 
The Republic, Book II, starting at paragraph 359a.
For those who wish to read the whole story, it is in the Doc Sharing tab and here is a link to the story — Ring of Gyges.

The story goes that Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the King. In a most unusual circumstance he came upon a dead man, removed the man’s ring, and discovered that it made him invisible. He conspired to take the periodic report of the shepherds to the King — once there he seduced the Queen and eventually took control of the Kingdom by conspiring with the Queen. Plato continues the story:

“Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right.”

This story raises up the question of what sanctions prevent people from just taking any liberties they are inclined to take.
The whole subject of ethics, seen in large scale, is that of accepting and living under moral standards.

1. Using YOUR personal ethical statement that you have created, what would you do if you had that second ring?
2. What else within this course helps in responding to this fictitious situation or in explaining it?
3. Respond to your classmates’ posts. Are they holding true to their own personal ethical philosophies in their resolutions of this dilemma?

 

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