A solution that avoids the ethical uncertainty

Here is a great, lucid, clear article that outlines the banking/financial crisis in a straight-forward manner. It also offers a solution that, at first glance anyway, sounds more ethically upright as well as safer for the American taxpayer. Check it out.

More on the bailout...

Here's a strong case made by the Ron Paul camp on why the bailout is wrong in principle, regardless of the utilitarian concerns.

ends vs. means

Here's a classic thought experiment that pushes the watershed consequentialist non-consequentialist divide:

You run an orphanage and have had a hard time making ends meet. A car dealership offers you a new van worth $15,000 for free if you will falsely report to the government that the dealership donated a van worth $30,000. You really need the van and it will give you an opportunity to make the children happy. Do you agree to take the van?

Big Bombs

Read this startling account of Petrov, the man who saved the world in 1983.
Here.

It raises the perennial, vexing question of nuclear proliferation. Would is ever be justifiable to use nuclear weapons? It seems by their very nature they are incapable of the Just-War Theory tenants of civilian discrimination and proportionality. Yet, many countries have nuclear weapons, on active alert at all times, with enough firepower to destroy all of humanity. It is truly incomprehensible. What are your opinions on nuclear weapons? Should the U.S. get rid of all of our nukes? How could we possible disarm the rest of the world? Once pandora has been let out of the box, is there anyway to get the nukes back in?

Teaching Philosophy...

is more about teaching someone how to think, how to engage the world intellectually, than it is about teaching any specific set of content.

Here's an excellent article on philosophy at Auburn in recent years that was in the NY Times yesterday.

Federal Bailouts

The recent economic earthquakes and subsequent government bailouts of a variety of big investment banks and (now, even) insurance companies, raises some fascinating ethical questions.

Is it right for the federal government to bail out these banks that took these risks and failed?
The difficulty here is that this issue presses exactly against our moral norms from both sides. On the one hand, the consequentialist in us screams that if we don't bail out these institutions, millions of others will suffer huge consequences (people who had their retirement savings with these banks, or many more people in general who will suffer from the massive negative impacts it would have on the economy, etc.). While on the other hand, we think it is wrong to step in and save these businesses when they took on the risk in the first place. We don't do that with individuals or small businesses. It seems we have made it an unfair win-win for these businesses. If they take risk and it makes profit -- good for them, and they reap the reward. But if they take risk and it fails -- then we'll step in and save them. But still... if we don't, many "innoncents" will go down with these institutions failures.

Of course, one could mention that this also speaks loudly to the larger issue of deregulation and lack of oversight that got us here in the first place.

Your thoughts? Should we bail out these huge financial instutions so they don't go bankrupt and, by consequence, bankrupt the rest of the economy?

Here's a few articles on both sides of the debate:
Here and Here and Here.
And also here and here.

Informal Fallacies

Sorry it has been so slow here...
Now that the semester is fully underway, we'll have a variety of posts on ethical topics more frequently.

Here's a nice political cartoon highlighting the informal fallacy of "snob appeal."

Of course, with the elections drawing near, informal fallacies of all kinds will be coming out in spades from nearly all politicians. It is frustrating... rather than address each others arguments it has actually become more common to observe them respond with some kind of evasive informal fallacy. Just watch how many ad hominems you can count in any political speech. And watch how few actual arguments you will hear for the few positions they actually do take.