Utilitarianism

Ethics Quiz: Paying Ransom For Hostages

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Ransom” is one of several Mel Gibson movies that constitutes a guilty pleasure. A remake of an old Glenn Ford film (also pretty good), “Ransom” is about a multi-millionaire whose young son is abducted, and after initially setting out to pay the ransom, decided to turn the tables on the kidnappers and offer the same amount as a bounty on them. I thought about “Ransom” when I read this yesterday:

The United States and Iran have reached an agreement to win the freedom of five imprisoned Americans in exchange for several jailed Iranians and eventual access to about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue…

As a first step in the agreement, which comes after more than two years of quiet negotiations, Iran has released into house arrest five Iranian American dual citizens, according to officials at the State Department and the National Security Council…when the Americans are allowed to return to the United States, the Biden administration will release a handful of Iranian nationals serving prison sentences for violating sanctions on Iran. The United States will also transfer nearly $6 billion of Iran’s assets in South Korea, putting the funds into an account in the central bank of Qatar…the account will be controlled by the government of Qatar and regulated so Iran can gain access to the money only to pay vendors for humanitarian purchases such as medicine and food.

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And Still More From The A.I. Ethics Files: “Looker” Again Raises Its Perfect Virtual Head In The Hollywood Actors Strike

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Back in March, Ethics Alarms discussed the ethical issues implicated when marketing departments begin using Artificial Intelligence to “increase the number and diversity of our models for our products in a sustainable way,” as one retailer phrased it. The scenario echoed the plot of “Looker,” a 1981 Michael Crichton science fiction thriller in which a high-tech research firm convinces companies that real, live models, even after cosmetic surgery, can’t approach the physical perfection that will optimally influence consumers. In its diabolical scheme, models are offered a contracts to have their faces and figures scanned to create 3D computer-generated avatars, indistinguishable from the live versions, which would be animated by A.I. programs for use in TV commercials. Once their bodies are duplicated digitally, the human beings get lifetime paychecks and can retire, since their more perfect CGI dopplegangers will be doing their work for them. As he did so often during his brilliant, too-sort life, Crichton anticipated a serious ethical crisis arising out of developing technology. “Looker” is almost here.

Last week,the 160,000-member union SAG-AFTRA announced that it would join the the screenwriters union in its industry strike after failing to secure a new contract with movie studios and streaming services.  The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists President Fran Drescher—yes, “The Nanny” herself—- condemned the AMPTP’s “shameful” and “disgusting” treatment of the union’s members. Among the major points of dispute is how to preserve acting and writing jobs that could soon be imperiled by the rapid development of computer technology and artificial intelligence.

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This Doesn’t Mean Wine Aficionados Are Pompous Frauds But It Sure Points In That Direction

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Eric Boschman, once named Belgium’s best sommelier (that’s wine steward in English), now an entertainer, and the team at On n’est pas des pigeons, a Belgian consumer magazine and television program, bought a cheap supermarket wine and entered it at the prestigious international wine competition, Gilbert et Gaillard. To try to fool the experts with a wine that cost less than three bucks, they made up a name for the swill, calling it “Chateau Colombier,” and designed a phony label. They told the judges that it was made from rare grapes in Côtes de Sambre and Meuse (wherever they are). Along with the entrance fee and samples of the wine for tasting, the tricksters provided fake laboratory data of the acidity, alcohol and sugar levels borrowed from a genuine prize-winning wine. Boschman, meanwhile, praised the wine as exceptional to fellow sommeliers and wine enthusiasts, attempting to seed confirmation bias.

And it worked! The supermarket wine won the gold medal, with judges describing it as “suave, nervous (a quality of fresh wine) and rich palate with clean young scents that promise a nice complexity, very interesting.”

As with the wags who submit fake research papers to “peer-reviewed” scholarly journals, this wine charade was dishonest, but I will give it a utilitarian pass for exposing a process that has too little integrity to be trusted, for the benefit of consumers.

Of course, I say this as someone who couldn’t tell a real fine wine from a class of motor oil.

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Source: Oddity Central

Ethics Quiz: The Milking Class Gaffe

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The photo above was taken in a Plains state elementary school in the early 1950s, and depicts a cow-milking exercise. It is, obviously, one of those “Oops!” unfortunate—but funny!—shots that ended up in a local newspaper somewhere because nobody noticed the problem until it was too late.

A Facebook friend posted it on the social media platform for “a chuckle”, and it was clear that the reaction was…restrained.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is tougher than it may seem…

Is posting that photo unethical, as it will be legitimately offensive to some, or is it innocently funny, and only objectionable to the political correctness scolds?

I thought it was funny when I saw it. I also thought my friend would get a fair amount of flack. But the more I think about the factors involved, the more uncertain I am of the answer to the quiz question…

  • Is posting the photo in a public forum a Golden Rule breach? Obviously the photo embarrasses the teacher who, as my freind wrote, “probably wishes she had been standing for the photo.” My friend, however, was a professional performer, in a field where being able to laugh at moments that would humiliate normal people is essential.
  • Based on the period of the photo, it is certain that the teacher by now must be either dead or too old to care about an old newspaper clipping. Does that take the Golden Rule off the table.
  • It is more likely that the children shown might be embarrassed by the photo, or were when it was originally published. Does that matter? Was showing it more unethical then than now, when parents (unethically, even though “everybody does it”) post videos of their children in embarrassing (but funny!) situations constantly?
  • Some people thought  the photo was very funny, and appreciated seeing it. It brightened their day! Is that enough to make showing the picture ethical? What formula should we use to determine whether utilitarian analysis justifies an action where the benefits are tangible and the “harm” is ephemeral? If the photo brightened one viewer’s day, isn’t that enough?
  • One critic of the photo sniffed, “Photoshopped!” If so, and I note that there is always someone who will try to discredit any photo they object to as photoshopped whether it was or not, does it matter to the question at hand. If it’s funny, it’s funny. Or, since it is theoretically funnier if genuine, does being photoshopped change the utilitarian analysis? Should it?
  • Can showing the photo be justified as a social statement and attempt at a course correction, echoing the common lament that the culture is becoming humor adverse thanks to woke-poisoning, and it is a serious problem?

Judge Ho Strikes Again! Is His Yale Law School Ban Unfair Discrimination Or Justly Utilitarian?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I could have easily made Judge James Ho of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals an Ethics Hero for the second time in 2022, and maybe I should. (The first time was in February, when he tossed his planned speech at Georgetown University Law Center to chastise the school for its treatment of Professor Illya Shapiro, who dared to utter an opinion that was insufficiently supportive of “diversity” as greater value to the Supreme Court than actual legal acumen. This time his principled stand has more metaphorical teeth, but we should at least consider its ethical validity.

In Judge Ho’s keynote address to the Kentucky Chapters Conference of the Federalist Society—you know, the fascists—- the judge deplored speakers being shouted down and censored at law schools across the country. Then, after singling out Yale Law School as being particularly hostile to non-compliant viewpoints and determined to engage in ideological indoctrination rather than legal education, he announced that he would no longer be hiring law clerks with Yale Law degrees, saying, “Starting today, I will no longer hire law clerks from Yale Law School. And I hope that other judges will join me as well. I certainly reserve the right to add other schools in the future. But my sincere hope is that I won’t have to.” Continue reading →

At Yale, An Unethical Question And An Ethically Ignorant Answer

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) was recording a live episode of his podcast “Verdict” at Yale with his co-host, conservative writer Michael Knowles. The topic was the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next member of the Supreme Court, but a student, “Evan”, asked Cruz a question that was juuust a bit off-topic.

“Assuming it would end global hunger, would you fellate another man?” Evan queried as the audience guffawed. Hahahaha, you’re an asshole, Evan. The question is rude, unserious, and designed to embarrass a U.S. Senator. It’s Golden Rule breach, of course, because the question is of the “when did you stop beating your wife?” variety. For a conservative like Cruz, any answer would get him into trouble.

I would have shut the student down, myself, and asked him to leave. A question like that is the live equivalent of trolling. Instead, Cruz threw the question to his co-host.

Big mistake.

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Ray Fosse And A Lesson In How Ethics Evolve

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

People who don’t read the baseball-related posts here miss the point: sports in general and baseball in particular create ethical problems that clarify ethics in all fields. The story of former catcher and broadcaster Ray Fosse is a prime example.

Fosse, was an All-Star catcher, a multiple Gold Glove-winner, a two-time World Series champ, and a long-time broadcaster who died yesterday, of cancer at the age of 74. His claim on immortality is the famous play above, which ended the 1970 All-Star Game, back when baseball’s “Mid-Season Classic” was more than just a chummy parade of stars playing baseball with the intensity of an office picnic softball game.

In 1970, Fosse was in his first full big league season with the Cleveland Indians, and signaled that he could be one of the all-time greats at his position. He won a Gold Glove, received some MVP votes, and had a 23-game hitting streak from early June into early July (That’s a lot. especially for a catcher). Fosse made the All-Star team that year and had his rendezvous with destiny when, in the bottom of 12th inning of a tense, tie game, the Reds’ Pete Rose, famous for his hustle and trying to score the winning run from second base, was beaten by the throw home but smashed into Fosse at home plate, causing the catcher to drop the ball and winning the game for the National league. It was a thrilling play, one of the most memorable in the nearly 90 years history of the exhibition, but Rose separated and fractured Fosse’s shoulder. Fosse continued to play for the rest of the 1970 season but because doctors didn’t discover the injuries until the following season his body never healed properly. Fosse would suffer lingering effects from play for the rest of his life. He also was never as good a player again.

Rose was unapologetic, and most conceded that his tactic was a clean play. Fosse was blocking the plate, and the only way Rose could score was to reach home while making him drop the ball. The controversy was over whether it was ethical for Rose to risk injuring another player in an exhibition game. Had Rose epitomized a sporting ideal by playing hard to win—after all, he could have been hurt too—or had he engaged in poor sportsmanship?

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Ethics Quiz: Shock Therapy For The Disabled

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

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Here is an issue from July that I never had time to write about…

In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a Federal the ban on the use of electric shock devices to modify destructive or otherwise problematic behavior by students with intellectual disabilities. The Food and Drug Administration sought to prohibit the devices in March 2020, saying that delivering shocks to students presents “an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury.” The court ruled, however that the ban was a regulation of the practice of medicine, which is beyond the FDA’s authority.

The now banned ban only affected a single school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Massachusetts. It is the only facility in the United States that employs the shock devices to correct self-harming or aggressive behavior. The center serves and houses both children and adults with intellectual disabilities or behavioral, emotional or psychiatric problems.

What ethics approach do we use to assess such a practice?

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Comment Of The Day: “Tit For Tat Ethics: The Anti-Biden-Pro-Trump Flags”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Mutual assured

Chris Marschner, in his Comment of the Day, once again raises the persistent ethics problem of when or whether unethical methods to foil the unethical acts and strategy of others become necessary, justified, and thus, except to the Absolutists, ethical. It is one of the great mysteries of ethics, and one that has never been answered to my satisfaction, or anyone’s satisfaction. This has many implications: the ethics of war is part of the controversy. So is capital punishment. And, of course, politics in general.

Here is Chris’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Tit For Tat Ethics: The Anti-Biden-Pro-Trump Flags”:

There is something to be said for the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction which is the ultimate Tit for Tat. The vitriol expressed against Trump and his supporter if left unchallenged will become the tactic of choice for all future challengers to the Democrat machine.

Political pendulums swing back and forth. The pendulum will not swing if sufficient numbers are not convinced that they are not alone. Complaining about what the AUC does has proven to be ineffective. Pick your poison – vulgar flags or riots. Flags such as these, while crass and vulgar, are simply tools to communicate that others feel as they do which gives more people an impetus for speaking out. The electorate seeks safety in numbers. These signs are no different that the BLM or End Racism signs in yards or “Tolerance” stickers on automobiles.

When the bully gets a taste of his or her own medicine the bully tends to behave differently. If there is a better way for the average person to broadly communicate a reasoned alternative perspective, when your local paper limits the number of letters to the editor for their position but promotes the printing of the paper’s preferred perspectives for whatever reason, well, I am all ears. These signs reflect who we are. Only when people see themselves in that mirror will they see just how ugly their own actions were.

Personally, I am tired of talking about the AUC [JM: For infrequent visitors here, the AUC is Ethics Alarms shorthand for the “resistance”/Democratic Party/ mainstream media alliance I call “The Axis of Unethical Conduct” for its behavior in response to the 2016 election.] and I am looking for ways to ethically combat their tactics. I will not, however, allow my liberties to be stolen through unethical practices so that I can be called an ethical player.

Prelude To “The Pandemic Creates A Classic And Difficult Ethics Conflict, But The Resolution Is Clear,” Part III… Ethics Quote Of The Century: President Donald J. Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

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“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.”

—–President Donald J. Trump, writing on Twitter in October, after he tested positive

When everybody is attacking and insulting the President now, especially those who didn’t have the guts to do so when he wasn’t a lame duck and they were still afraid of him, this seems like a propitious time to give him due credit for an important and perceptive statement that perfectly expresses the message of the final installment of an Ethics Alarms series that began way back in May.

The sentiment the President succinctly and eloquently expressed was quintessentially American, as well as identical to what other leaders have been lauded for in the past. President Trump, in contrast, was attacked and condemned for expressing this simple truth. He “downplayed the deadly threat of the virus” said the Times. “He isn’t taking the pandemic seriously!” erupted Vogue. After all, the virus “ruined” Amanda Kloot’s life! How dare he not tell as all to be terrified, and to make all of our plans and calibrate our decisions and goals based on the assumption that doom was nigh.

Funny, I don’t recall historians condemning FDR for “downplaying” the threat of the Great Depression when he said,

I don’t recall the British accusing Winston Churchill of downplaying the threat posed by Nazi Germany while hundreds of thousands of British troops were nearly trapped an Dunkirk, and he announced to Parliament, “We will never surrender!”:

This is because the news media, tunnel-visioned health experts, and elected officials who want to make Americans dependent of the government psychologically and factually, want the nation to be fearful. They want us to surrender to the pandemic. They want us to allow it to control out lives. And for most of this year, it has.

President Trump is among the Americans I would view most unlikely to utter an ethical statement, much less a great one, but this was a great statement, essential, inspirational, and right.

I assume this is sufficient notice of what the conclusion of Part III will be.

[If you review the linked post, note that every one of the ten stipulation I laid out in May are still accurate.]