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.

AIAW

Academic Integrity Awareness Week is this week at the Avery Point Campus (Sept. 8th through 12th). There will be a variety of events going on throughout the week to discuss and reflect on this important topic. One of those events is a panelist discussion on the topic. Yours truly will be one of the panelists. It will be from 12:00 to 1:30 in ACD 308. (I'll leave at 1:00 for class).

Go check it out.

See a compelling article on the issue here.

To start things out...

Here is a classic series of questions that I have wrestled with other students and colleagues for many years. It is a thought experiment designed to tap into our intuitions over these matters and to then search for consistency and metatheory behind our "moral instincts".

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 what is 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
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 fish
i) A dog or a rat
j) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
k) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time
l) A child or a 95-year old adult
m) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
n) 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 brain dead).
o) Lassie or Hitler

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?

Welcome to On the Point

I hope you all enjoy using this blog as a tool to interact over a variety of ethical issues and questions. This is a public blog and so I will invite outside voices as well as those from UCONN to engage with us on the blog.