Please define "Ethical" 3

[GreenTeeth]

Not being funny or anything, just thought it might make an interresting thread.

And while yoou're at it, could you compare it to "Moral"

Regards

Rob

 

[skiflyer]

Cajun

I would disagree with your interpretation that if a society violates an absolute moral, it disproves it as an absolute moral.

As computer programmers here, certainlly we all know about scoping. Your suggestion is that morals can only be defined at the most interior scope, and I'm not sure I agree.

As I said before, I personally need to do alot more reading on the topic before I'm convinced in either direction... but the idea that you can consider humanity as the top level society, add in some reason (i.e. actions which would result in no more earth after three days don't work...), you might come to an absolute moral. In the strictest sense a society can be me and my cubicle neighbor. We can decide all sorts of things are ok. The larger society of the city of Chicago can gladly, and in my view, rightly, call us amoral, or possibly even immoral.

The easy arguments against this are (1)what Korngeek and I just said... societies can be tiny, at what point are they allowed to assert morality?. and (2) temporal... morals change as drastically over time as they do over miles. Even given that though, I would posit that certain morals have lasted... I dunno, I'll return to the idea after a couple more books.

-Rob

Here's a question that actually brings this idea on topic for these boards...

without the sense of someone judging you in the afterlife, how much power do morals really hold? If your personal philosophy makes it important that others respect you, and it's important to you to make life better for them, then of course they have their merits, but if you choose to be deviant, and you choose to do things society labels as immoral, and you can avoid being locked up for your particular views... what's the big deal?

How this applies to tech you say?

Well, when creating technology of any sort, this is an important question to keep in mind. You design tech A with uses B-D in mind. But evil man Q has a different set of morals which you would label as immoral, and wants to use your tech for E-T. If there's no "higher power", then there's no evening out and such... and such is life and death. Additionally, and perhaps most applicably to tech... this leaves me with this question...

Given that morality is not homogenous in the human race, our your morally responsible to the human race to cease your research if clear immoral uses are evident, and you cannot deploy such safeguards to avoid them?

i.e. was the group working under the bleachers at Stagg field acting immorally in developing the a-bomb? Argue all you want for the good uses of the a-bomb, the evil is obviouslly apparent, and impossible to control, even if we haven't necessarily reached that state yet. Are they in any way responsible?

Of course to me personally it's a rather uninteresting discussion as I view most research as discovery rather than invention... but I'm talking myself in circles, so I'm going to go to Wrigley Field, get a beer, and watch my cubbies beat up on Houston.

-Rob

 

[skiflyer]

greyted

Without taking the opposite stance, I would point out that your second list gives an example of one specific ethical decision.

Showing that generally accepted ethics can be violated in certain cases, does not show that there are no absolute morals.

The first link just argues that ethics can be taught. All sorts of things that are absolute can be taught, as well as things which are relative. I'm not sure how this supports your agreement?

-Rob

 

[vaoldschl]

I take the following issue with the a-bomb example: there are no good uses for bombs.

I would agree with you if you started with saying research on splitting the atom was cool but evil man Q made it into a big nasty weapon. And I don't believe in the broader spectrum that people doing the initial research are responsible for future misuse, distortion or manipulation of that research. I can stab you with a spork but that doesn't mean the Van Brode Milling Co. is immoral.

 

[CajunCenturion]

skiflyer - What on earth did I say that gave you the impression that I meant "that if a society violates an absolute moral, it disproves it as an absolute moral."? Please explain how you arrived at this conclusion so that we may clear up the misunderstanding.

I also did not say that morals can only be defined at the most interior scope, in fact, if you read my original post, the second post in the thread, in my last paragraph, I clearly indicate that societies exist at multiple levels and have different moralities at these different levels.

Which is why I posited in my most recent post, that the concept of an absolute moral only make sense within the scope of a specific society. You could have an absolute moral within your family, or maybe your neighborhood has an absolute moral, or perhaps your professional society. But that absoluteness only makes sense within that society. Whereas you can expect the members of your family to espouse the absoluteness of a given moral, you cannot necessarily expect the neighborhood to espouse that same standard.

Just to be sure I understand your follow up question. Are you asking if the inventors of a new technology are in some manner morally responsible if that technology should be abused by some other party?

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[manarth]

maxg: "the a-bomb example: there are no good uses for bombs"

no good uses that we know of.
you never know - we may find an a-bomb useful for destroying a haphazard astroid charging earth's way (yeah, very sci-fi...i know!)
we may not condone its use on humans but that isn't to say it has no use.

how's about a hierarchy of morals?

the US execute people:
1. to prevent the individual from killing again
2. as a deterrent to other potential killers

so the "do not kill" moral is violated in the cause of the 'higher' moral "protect the innocent"


in considering a hierarchy of morals, could there be a "highest" moral?
obviously different societies and cultures place a different value on different morals....
take the example of chinese culture, which placed a lower value on a baby girl than on a baby boy - resulting in the abortion of female foetuses (or occasionally the murder of a female baby).

if you consider morals to be hierarchical, there can be no absolute morals unless every culture or society placed an identical value for that particular moral.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[greyted]

skiflyer,
Socrates and Plato were here eons ago and had the same arguments and discussions.
Technology has changed but the arguments and discussions are the same.
Indeed Socrates paid for his opinions by drinking Hemlock, how fortunate we are?

With regard to my second list that is precisely why I gave two opposing links.

A Google search on ethics or morals will yield so many differing views it is almost unarguable.

Medical ethics
Engineering ethics
Teaching ethics
Family ethics
National ethics
IT ethics
I'm sure you would agree a never-ending list.
As the second link explains,&quot; Yet however much the material is reworked, the real work remains with you. No one can simply read about ethics and become ethical. It’s not that easy. People have to make many decisions under economic, professional and social pressure. Rationalization and laziness are constant temptations. But making ethical decisions is worth it, if you want a better life and a better world. Keep in mind that whether for good or ill, change is always just a decision away.

I concur.





Ted

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
(William James)

 

[CajunCenturion]

I agree with manarth in that there is a heirarchy of morals, and a heirarchy of ethics, with elements approaching basic survival needs (acquiring food, water, etc) being at the top. And greyted is correct that these discussions have been around for thousands of years, and probably be discussed by others thousands of years from now.

The list that you started is a good list, but leaves off the one that perhaps is the most interesting of all.

Situational Ethics.


Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[KornGeek]

there are no good uses for bombs

There are several uses for bombs that are at least arguably good. Bombs are used for mining of mountains. This can be considered good or bad (or somewhere in between) depending on your personal views. Bombs are often used for movie and TV special effects, which are hard to consider &quot;bad&quot;. Bullets can be considered small bombs, and can be useful in hunting, which again can be bad or good depending on your personal views. Bullets used to protect yourself against an oncoming bear would generally be considered to be used for good (except by the bear). Fireworks are another type of small bomb, which I see as having small good value.

The best use I can think of for bombs would be building demolition. When done in a controlled and safe manner, this is (in my opinion) very good. It is fast, efficient, and safe.

It is hard to find any &quot;good&quot; use of a nuclear weapon outside of sci-fi, unless you take the political view point that justifies their existence.
A) It is better to wipe out many of the enemy to end a war quickly than to lose many of our own people.
B) The very existence of nuclear weapons acts as a deterrent against military action.

Again, I think we can show that there are no absolutes in this world. Each of the examples I mentioned have both good and bad sides depending on your own personal (and societal) views.

 

[skiflyer]

Sorry for the long delay in responding to your questions Cajun, I'm usually away for the weekends.

Second question first (cause it's easier

My follow up question was meant to be, if an immoral use is reasonably foreseable should the inventor be held responsible... and just how should we define reasonably foreseable.


As far as what led me to believe it was the lack of being able to define an absolute moral. The point has been argued in many posts here, and I understand the argument being put forth, my own beliefs lie very close to those. Perhaps this use of the word &quot;absolute&quot; is throwing off what I'm really trying to explore... so I'll state simply what I mean.

A moral or set of morals which is indisputable for humanity on this planet at any given time throughout history, the present and the future. They need not encompass a complete set of morals, only a base set on which no persons or group considered reasonable by humanity as a whole can disagree.

Documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights attempts to define such a code of actions, minus the &quot;at any given time throughout history&quot; clause, and has met with mixed success and failure.

To more specifically address your post Cajun what I'm saying is I agree with you, but I'm considering the idea that there more be a minimal set of morals which hold their absoluteness within a society which is humanity in general.

As pointed out a simple google shows so much debate it seems like a non-starter... but I'm not trying to say a complete set or even a useful set of morals may exist on an absolute level, only that there may be some.

-Rob

 

[CajunCenturion]

Good question on the reasonably forseable immoral use of an invention. And maybe the second question, how to define &quot;resonably forseable&quot; may even be a better question. That will require some serious cogitation. Will get back to you on these two. My initial thought is that we're venturing into the area of intent, which in and of itself, can be quite nebulous and subjective.

If there is even one moral standard that is absolute (and I agree with your defintion of absoulte - being both indisputable and omnipresent), then what could it be? Given the vast diversity in cultures both now and throughout time, I'm hard pressed to present one for consideration. That's why I'm tending to believe that if there is one, it's likely to be of a limited scope. But I'm certainly open to discuss other ideas. Do you (or does anyone) have one to present?

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[GreenTeeth]

skiflyer

My follow up question was meant to be, if an immoral use is reasonably foreseable should the inventor be held responsible... and just how should we define reasonably foreseable.

Meant to put my oar in here yesturday, but got caught up with IT. lol

This is a hard one, as mankind seems to like to have things at a press of a button, and so scientists oblige. Research is research no matter what, and I don't think that you can hold them responsible if their technology is used for destructive purposes.

It is hard for me to say that, as I have a big bone of contention called Monsanto and genetically modified, well anything really. Once you go down the road of no return you have to face the consequenses, and unfortunately this is in the hands of the polititions. I get the arguement that you can vote them out, but that is not strictly true. If I want to vote them out, it is to vote them out, not to replace them with someone who will do the same thing.

So where do morals come in to the Law, surely Laws are set down to be based upon moral issues.

 

[sleipnir214]

GreenTeeth:

The best I can say is that laws are often based on moral issues. However, laws get created for reasons spanning the human experience -- from greed and ignorance to noble self-sacrifice and considered thought.

But the question that has had me thinking is: When laws are based on mores, what happens in cultural melting pots like Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia? On the mores of which society in the country should laws be based?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[GreenTeeth]

i don't know about should, but it is always going to be the culture of the ones in power.

Nice point.

 

[sleipnir214]

Not always. There are many examples in history of a sufficiently vocal or vicious minority hijacking the legislative process.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[GreenTeeth]

YOu obviously don't live in the UK at the moment.

 

[sleipnir214]

GreenTeeth:
I'm sorry, but I don't understand your post.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[lionelhill]

Hullo Sleipnir.

Having read a bit of the nearby &quot;are copyright infringements ever....&quot; thread, can I suggest that:
&quot;Moral&quot; = &quot;I can do this and still sleep easy at nights&quot;, while
&quot;Ethical&quot; = anything begining &quot;Yeah, yeah, I know it's illegal, but....&quot;

Although there's lots of philosophy to all this, the major argument next door seems to be based on arguing that something is ethical as a way to make it OK even if local laws forbid it (and the forbidding is inconvenient to the person with the ethics)..

But maybe I'm being hard on the copiers...

 

[sleipnir214]

lionelhill:
You're description of the difference between ethics and morals is close, but not quite specific enough. Read CajunCenturion's first post in this thread.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[GreenTeeth]

sleipnir214,

Sorry for being so cryptic, I was refering to our present government in the UK. It is a one man government in that all his decisions are made before he even goes into his cabinit meetings.

The politics of the UK over the past 25 years has lost the point of representing the people of it's country and running on it's own decisions.

This is a very dangerous way to run a country, as it can never become a force to be reckoned with if it does not have the support of it's people who in turn will voice their oppinions based on their own moral or ethical code.

Having read your responce to my post, I was a little random. But I still agree with my previous post:

&quot;I don't know about should, but it is always going to be the culture of the ones in power.&quot;

If a particularly vocal or vicious minority obtain power in some way, they will surely try to rule using their own standards of what is right, no matter how off the wall they are.

Am I losing the plot???

 

[sleipnir214]

GreenTeeth:
Had I known that you were inserting politics into this discussion, I would never have asked. The most sure-fire way to get a thread removed in its entirety from the site is political discussions in the thread.

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http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!