Rule of universality

Ethics And Civility 101: Rep. Joe (“You Lie!”) Wilson Has NOT Been Vindicated

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
Shut up, Joe.

Shut up, Joe.

Sometimes really incompetent and corrupting ethical verdicts run through the media and the culture like a bad flu, sickening our values and weakening our comprehension of what “good” is. These come with equal frequency from the Right and the Left—right now, they are flying in from both directions, which means that the United States is likely to get even sicker that it already is from an ethical perspective, and it is perilously ill already. From the Left, we have choruses proclaiming that the President apologized for lying to the public about how the Affordable Care Act would work, when he did nothing of the sort by any reasonable and honest analysis based on what an apology is. (I’ll discuss that in an upcoming post.)

From the Right, we are now hearing that because it is past denying that the President in fact did lie about Obamacare, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is owed an apology (as long as he gets as much of an apology as the faux example the President offered on Wednesday, I might not object too much) for the criticism he received after shouting out “You lie!”  as President Obama was giving his 2009 address touting his health care legislation to Congress.  Wilson is not owed any apology, nor has he been “vindicated,” as thousands of commenters on websites and bloggers have been claiming for weeks. Continue reading →

Now THAT’s Unethical!

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

 

“All right! We can lie without simply following the rule “It is permissible to lie< “ and instead, followa rule that pertains only to specific circumstances, like “It is permissible to lie when doing so will save a life, and thus such a rule can be made a universal law without contradiction, don’t you see? No?”

“All right! We can lie without simply following the rule “It is permissible to lie“ and instead, follow a rule that pertains only to specific circumstances, like “It is permissible to lie when doing so will save a life, and thus such a rule can be made a universal law without contradiction, don’t you see? No?”

From Russia comes this story:

“A “passionate argument” about 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, renowned for his treatises on ethics, “deteriorated into a fistfight” between two men waiting in line for beer during an outdoor City Day event in the southern Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don, police said Monday. The argument ended when one of the debaters pulled out an air gun and shot the other in the head, local police said in a statement. The shooter then fled the scene but was later detained, police said. The other man’s wound was not critical, but he was hospitalized, the statement said…”

I am fairly certain that Kant would have said that shooting someone in the head with an air gun to settle a debate over ethics violates his Rule of Universality, which has the seldom-cited codicil, “Don’t shoot people in the head, unless you want to live in a world where everyone gets shot in the head.” It is a perfect example of losing an argument by winning an argument.

And you thought the ethics debates got heated on Ethics Alarms!

________________

Pointer: Volokh Conspiracy

No, It’s Actually Allison Benedikt Who’s A Bad Person

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Hang in there--the schools will be better in a few generations...

Hang in there–the schools will be better in a few generations…

There may be some persuasive arguments to be made for sending your child to a public school system you don’t trust. The obvious one is that you have no choice, which is true for many Americans. There are also some good reasons to write a “manifesto” called “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person,” the best of which is to cause people to focus on the problem of the failing and unacceptable public school system, and what should be done about it. However, Allison Benedikt, who actually wrote an article with this title and presumably this intent, failed so miserably at making a coherent and persuasive argument of any kind that her provocative title amounts to an unethical assertion itself: if you are going to make a blanket indictment of the character of millions of people, you had better be able to produce an ethical argument or two, or at least demonstrate that you comprehend a little bit about ethics. Allison doesn’t. Based on this piece, I not only wouldn’t trust her (oh, by the way, Allison, the core objective of ethical conduct in your profession—any profession, actually—is trust) to provide advice about how to educate my child, I wouldn’t trust her to walk my dog. Continue reading →

Culture, Truthteller Ethics, And Richard Dawkins’ Tweet

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
What can a leading intellectual say of value in 140 characters?

What can a leading intellectual say of value in 140 characters?

Philosopher/biologist Richard Dawkins, best known as the world’s most formidable atheist, does not shy away from rustling the feathers of some pretty fierce birds. Recently he even infuriated many of his admirers by tweeting, “All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” He was immediately called an anti-Muslim bigot by some, while others chose to challenge his assertion with false analogies. Making a strong statement worthy of a treatise in 140 characters is a tricky enterprise, and perhaps an unwise one, but the politically incorrect observation he was making was not about the Nobel Prize’s perfection as a measure of accomplishment, but rather about how the Muslim culture has strangled human progress, creativity and advancement for centuries. In this he is correct. Continue reading →

The Zumba Instructor’s List and Public Shaming In Maine: Choose Your Ethical System

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

What those Zumba ads never told you…

Kennebunk, Maine’s popular Zumba dance instructor Alexis Wright and her “business partner” are being charged with solicitation and prostitution. Now the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is about to decide whether  Wright’s substantial client list should go on the public record, as it will unless the court agrees to put it and its names under seal.  Defense attorneys will argue that the harm that will result from allowing Wright’s “johns” to be outed to their families, employers and neighbors is too great. “We think there’s a really important principle at stake here: These people are presumed innocent,” defense attorney Stephen Schwartz said. “Once these names are released, they’re all going to have the mark of a scarlet letter, if you will.” Continue reading →

T-shirt Ethics and Bigotry In Lexington, Kentucky

/ Jack Marshall / 55 Comments

The offensive T-shirt design. Honest.

Hands On Originals is a T-shirt company in Lexington, Kentucky that is now under fire for refusing the business of the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization, which organizes Lexington’s annual gay pride festival every June. The organization wanted to print up some T-shirts, and the company told them to take their business somewhere else. The reason: the T-shirt company is a “Christian organization”, and the owners don’t want to assist in promoting a message that goes against their religious beliefs.

The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization filed a complaint, and now there will be an investigation to decide whether this violates Lexington’s Fairness Act, which protects people and organizations from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Lexington’s mayor has weighed in against Hands On, and boycotts against the company and the closely related company Wildcat Wearhouse have been threatened. Meanwhile the attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the T-shirt company, argues that “No business owner should be forced to violate his conscience simply because someone demands it. The Constitution absolutely supports the rights of business owners to decline a request to support a message that conflicts with their deeply held convictions.”

I am not going to comment on the legal and constitutional issues, but the ethical issue is clear. Should society respect the choice of a business to refuse to provide products or services to groups, individuals or causes it opposes or objects to on moral or religious grounds? Continue reading →

Loop-Hole Ethics and The New York Times

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The NYT’s website paywall plan floats in a sea of holes.

Ariel Kaminer, author of “The Ethicist” column in The New York Times Magazine, made an interesting assertion in her answer to a reader who asked about whether he could exploit several loop-holes in the Times’ new paywall plan for its website.

Noting that he was a struggling freelance journalist who visits the Times website often, he asked if it was unethical for him to use his parents’ free access to the content, since they are subscribers.  Then he Mused about other scenarios. “If I buy online access, can I share the password with my live-in girlfriend, even if I move to New York for the summer? What about our other housemates?” Continue reading →