Csi

Originally posted by bonkey:

What has this to do with politics?

Not much as far as I can tell. Sorry sparks, this really does belong in humanities, and I'm moving this thread there.

Personally though, I don't know whether that woman displayed a level of callousness that I have rarely seen before, or was so shocked and traumatised by the sight of a bloodied body on her windscreen that she was unable to take action. I would tend to go for the former, but I can't discount the latter, for now anyway.

Ok, tis a Humanities thread now so no more inane chatter. Back on topic which I think is about the bad stuff the human race is capable of.

The ethics of that sequence of events have been debated a few million times over the years and the end result is that we now teach engineers not to allow managers to overrule them on decisions where human life is put at risk as a result - and the end result outside the classroom is that it still happens.

How are engineering ethics related to a womans decision to let someone die in her garage? Im not sure how your jumping from one to the other - you made the point that people need to be taught ethics because *one* woman hit a homeless guy and let him die, found a friend to help her bury him - and when she let it slip the cops were called. It doesnt make sense to then swing into action with new ethics courses for every school child in the country, as the womans actions didnt meet with the vast majority of peoples ethical standards, implying that our moral/ethical standards are just fine and that people do realise its wrong to leave someone to die in their garage - though some might argue she was helping to fight poverty.

And as you say yourself the engineering ethics course is pretty ineffective, as management decisions straight out of fight club are still being made.

Besides which, the course could combine ethics with civics, modern politics and philosophy to give a general "this is our society and here's how it works and how you are meant to live in it" course.

Sounds like the Church to me tbh:|

I was pointing out that just because something seems ethically obvious to you does not mean that it never needs to be taught to anyone.

Ethics cant be taught using books and exams - If that were true every Christian ( or any given religion ) who read the Bible would be a fairly wonderful human being.

And yes, leaving people to die is obviously ethically wrong in my opinion - ehtics being a matter of opinion too - so why bother wasting time and effort teaching kids what they already know?

One person being a sociopath I can accept - but three people?

Well the other two were her friends and *probably* rationalised that she was a good person in general, made on bad mistake and didnt deserve to have her life ruined, that the guy was dead already so no point crying over spilt milk etc etc. In either case if all it takes is 3 occurences against the overwhelming weight of public opinion for some massive state effort to teach our kids that leaving people to die is wrong -and Id also reckon that the woman herself recognised academically ( which is pretty much the angle youre going for ) that it was wrong but for whatever reason did not call for help.

That shouldn't need a criminal case to prompt it, it just makes sense to teach a child about the society she's going to live in and how to live in it.

Kids learn about their own society and their place in it from their family, friends and local area - lets be honest your school course is no competition to their life experience.

I specifically stated that one ethics course for one year of training is insufficent and that it needs to be a continual part of an engineers training.

Thats good - Its not working so lets spend more money on it until it does. We get the government we deserve:|

Which would imply that you need to take such a course, to be frank.

Your denying then that your course is simply a state substitute for the church - to impart morals and ethics on us so that we live our lives according to a given set of ideals be they from the bible or your school textbook?

I believe the appropriate reference is "Lord of the Flies"...

I think the kids who pushed the rock down on (piggy? ) knew it was nominally wrong - they just didnt care, their society demanded certain other ethics from them.

Oh come on! They helped her dump a dead body that was embedded in her windshield in her garage. What did they think, that it was an errant skydiver?

An outside possibility - perhaps they placed it somewhere along the same probability as the woman (their friend ) veering up onto the footpath to mow down the homeless man in a fit of psychotic glee.

Which explains the johnny adairs of this world, but not why we should continue to produce them.

Would your course, and its society, be any competition to young Johnny Adairs society - how far apart are the society that shaped your course and its values and the society that shaped Adair and his values?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's not working because it's not a continual part of the training. You're saying, to use an analogy, that if you train one day a month at running and can't run a marathon after a year, that you should just stop because obviously training every day wouldn't work.

Itll make SFA difference imo. Perhaps im a uniquely wonderful human being but Im aware you dont take undue risks with peoples lives - known potential cataclysmic faults and astronauts being a good example.

The engineers know this too, Their course reinforced this to some degree. They still make bad decisions or look the other way hoping nothing goes wrong. Because the space program is looking to keep expenditure low. Because if you notice something and your boss doesnt go after it - he doesnt agree or understand how serious it is for example - then youll have to go over your bosses head and *hope* you get some support, and hope you still have career prospects even if you do get the recheck or re -examination you demanded.

Theres not a lot of people with such moral courage. Im pretty sure they didnt get it from a course either.

And a better analogy might be that if you were to stick your hand into a fire, and I were to come along and say "Hey Sparks, dont do that, fire is hot !" - and you did it again anyway then thered be no point wasting my time drawing a cartoon to explain it to you further.

The church gives you a set of rules and demands acceptance of their veracity without proof. That is the core of all religions - faith.

Well being technical I think the church only demands that the existence of God is a matter of faith - that and the infallibility of the pope. I mean, its part of the definition. Their rules and guidelines for living a good life are up for debate/reform and have been hammered out by theologians/philosophers and they have gradually taken on reforms prompted by new understandings. You for example are no longer required to tithe 10% of your income to the church to live a good life but giving generously to charity is part of a good life. Is your course going to teach anything wildly different?

And again lets be honest - an organised , nationwide course is going to be either so freeform as to be aimless or practically as restricting as you consider the church. A stressed teacher and 30 bored kids is not the ideal forum for taking apart our society and our place in it. Maybe Im cynical but theyll just read through the handbook, look at a few slides - any questions? no? good - see you tommorrow.

Sounds just like church.

Piggy was run off a cliff, and the point of the book was that humans don't naturally develop civilisation, it's taught, not inherent.

Couldve sworn they rolled a boulder off a cliff to kill him? Ah who cares:|

As for humans not developing civillisation themselves Id take youre a proponent of the "Start of the book/movie 2001" school of thought?

None of which justifies their decision to dump the body which was the crime they were punished for.

No of course not, they aidded and abbetted and should be punished for it regardless of their own reasoning ( If only people could apply this principal to all things ) - but then I was discussing how they might have justfied helping their friend to themselves.

Adair may have been a poor example - a typical gurrier might be a better example. And recall that the course isn't just ethics - but politics, civics and philosophy as well, the idea being to show how our society works, how you're expected to live in it, and why you're expected to live that way.

Adair was an untypical guerrier so I wouldnt say he was a bad example. And Anto, Bazo and Choco are not exactly going to straighten up when you say "Hey it isnt just about ethics - its about politics, civics and philosophy too!!!!". And their society - or sub society if you will is still a million miles away from the society that gives a flying feck about civics courses.

You might not need a course to tell you not to stick your hand in the fire, but what about more complex dangers? Do you know how much radiation your body can be safely exposed to? Do you know every compound that's poisonous to your body? Likewise, getting dropped into a "management decision" situation without any prior preperation is not conducive to making the right choices. Prior preperation is the key to such problems.

But to know how much radiation I can endure safely or which compounds are poisonous I merely need to train as an engineer - a civics course isnt going to teach me that? To be honest - If you have to tell someone that its not right for example to have unprotected people collecting nuclear waste spillage then youre not dealing with the uninfomred youre dealing with the raving psychotic.

No, they haven't been. The practises of the churches have changed over the centuries, but the fundamental ethical systems have not changed in many centuries. The ten commandments, for example, prohibit polygamous marriages, and homosexuality is strictly prohibited by the old testament. Those haven't changed in over two thousand years, and they are not universal precepts - Islam does not forbid polygamous marriages for example.

What are practises if only the ethics of the church in action? The ethics of the Church of say the 1300s are far different to the ethics of the church of today. The pope is no longer a politician jostling for temporal power of Christendom, excommunicating rulers who go against him.

What brought about this change and changes like it? The counter reformation and the serires of debates and philosophising and conclaves, much like Vatican II. Im not a practicsing catholic and I find it funny that Im here defending the Church but merely because its a slow moving organisation (or seems to be - its a huge, anceint structure which cant be easily turned on its head every few years ) doesnt imply that it doesnt reform itself or debate the ethics it requires from its membership. The vow of celibacy is going to be up for debate as the Church gets more and more worried about how few Priests are joining.

As for the ten commandments, I actually went and found a bible cos I was almost certain the ten commandments never mentioned homsexuality - Soddom and Gommorah or soemthing you might be thinking of? or polygamous marraiges but basically pretty basic pointers to a good life, once you got past all the "I am the Lord your God", stuff like dont murder people, dont steal, respect your mother and father, dont make false accusations about people.

As for the Old Testament, if the Church held to that alone theyd be Jewish :x - they dont for example keep up with the rules and procedures for marrying foreign women into the tribe for example.

Semi going off point but those ethics for the decent honourable way of marrying foreigners are now merely footnotes in history - the ethics of the Church have moved on:|

There are several ethical precepts that we require today that the church condemns - equality of people regardless of sexual preference for an example. Also, the course contains several aspects that the church just doesn't teach.

So the rules of your state church will be a bit different. Thats nice but it is still sounds like Church to me:|

The same argument could be used regarding the teaching of english poetry. Yet it gets taught. Specific sources are listed and studied and questions prepared.

But english poetry is taught badly in schools - Its taught to enable students to pass exams, not to write reams of poetry or to take up poetry reading as some sort of hobby. You can give people keywords and summaries of other peoples viewpoints and basically brainwash them into spitting out such summaries and even believing them - thats not debate or philosophy, I could get a fairly intelligent parrot to do the same thing with patience.

Consider the range of philosophies that can be compared - from Kant and Voltaire through to Strauss. And then you have political structures from dictatorship and anarchy through the various kinds of democracy to socailism and communism. If you think all this is not of interest, maybe you could explain why there's so much written on these subjects, why more continues to be written and why this thread had 185 people reading it when I started this reply? Hell, just tell me why we keep discussing politics, ethics and civics in this forum!

Hey, hey, lets save something for the wasters doing arts courses shall we Youre accelerating from a basic civics and ethics course to a full blown ( and no doubt extremely subjective ) soap box on political thought ad theory - absolutely none of which is of any connection to your original concern about the woman not knowing it was wrong to not call the cops. What would Voltaire do is what I always ask myself when Im not sure of the right thing to do.

And it probably is of interest but it is pointless and not effective regarding your problem with the womans actions and societys morals/ethics in general. Malthus views on our dark future are interesting but theyre also wrong and thus pretty pointless, the study of them lending them a credence they dont deserve imo:|

Also afaik 185 views doesnt mean 185 people have read the thread - it just means some amount of people have viewed the thread 185 times. Ive probably read this thread about ten times between here and work for example. As to why we keep discussing stuff here and in politics - for the sake of argument I guess, better than arguing over whose gonna win wrestlemania 33 or whatever theyre on by now.

Oh, don't be assinine. My statement was that civilisation is a learned behaviour - it doesn't arise spontaenously, but did so over a very, very long period of time through necessity and occasional brief periods of vision by one or two people, as with the Magna Carta and so on.

Id argue that it (civillisation ) isnt learned, its developed, and different groups can yeild fairly different civillisations - those kids on that island were developing their own civillisation.

And the Magna Carta isnt a great example of vision on the part of one or two people - it was basically English barons reducing King Johns power and increasing their own when they had him over a barrel. Despite people interpreting it later on as a great democratic move its architechts werent in any way democratic. The same can be said of many other apparent milestones in history.

I mean, this wasn't keeping quiet about how their neighbour was having an affair, or running a sprinkler during a hosepipe ban - this was a dead body embedded in her windscreen!

Im going to step out of this circular argument right about now.

Of course they won't - much. But they'll change a little - and their kids will change a little and so on. That's how society changes - or did you think that we just came up with the idea of commerce and law and order and human rights in one sitting? Besides, you'd be surprised how fast some Anto's tend to listen when you start talking about the perks of being a counciller or union leader or what have you.

Heh, youre the one trying to cover the whole thing in a school course Sparks, thus perhaps underestimating the scope of it. You must have gone to a different school than I though if you reckon those 3 lads would give a ****e about civics, politics and the great thinkers.

You see, you know that - but that wasn't always so. As the US and UK proved by testing radiological and chemical weapons on their own populations and military.

And what was the breakthrough that led to this change in policy?
The dangers becoming more apparent or the development of a sudden realisation that it is wrong to exspose people to dangerous items?

Tradition. The ethics of the church have had a long-standing contradiction with their practises, as shown by walking past homeless kids in dublin sleeping on the streets in front of locked churches.

Your saying this the policy of the church then?

The specific rules relating to homosexuality come from the old testament and call for the offender to be stoned. The same punishment is called for in the case of bestiality, adultery, and a few other crimes as well. The case of polygamous marriages I chose as it was permitted in some sects and not in others: and that's just within the Christian set of faiths.

So homosexuality is not one of the top ten core concerns of God according to Moses anyway? Also Id remind you the Church is not Jewish. The New Testement was the work of Christians, being as the name suggest followers of Christ. The Old Testement they recognise and accept but they didnt write it - and whole sections of it are routinely ignored or broken. That would imply that it has reformed or adapted its teachings and is capable of doing so. It currently teaches homosexuality is wrong, but theyve moved a bit away from burning them at the stake, and in time they will come to ignore or reform their teachings on homosexuality as well - just as states have done in the formation of their laws. And the Church is light years ahead of the ethical standing of many states.

That's because you're not reading my posts:

I believe youll end up with a course thats taught like poetry - a creative subject thats reduced down to a given set of viewpoints which the kids (at least the ones listening ) will memorise and spit out when exam time comes around. You cant teach someone to be creative:| Hell, theres even a danger people will stop making their own minds up about things and start borrowing other peoples viewpoints, slogans and simplistic interpretations - though the rot has already started imo.

I dunno - if the subject matter's covered, we could eliminate those arts courses that aren't actually worth their degrees, and thereby do a huge service to the arts courses that actually are worthwhile (and there are a few).

Id prefer if useful stuff was covered first and foremost rather than memorising the philisophical arguments of dead people:| Include it as a history module maybe but its not worth an entire course.

I wouldn't say subjective in that manner - of course it has to be subjective, but it's easy enough to get a reasonable mix of texts. Granted, my list is leftist and humanist in nature, but then I'm a pinko commie leftie hippie by nature

So there you go: Either we go with your hippy interpretation of what ethics and being a good person involves or we go with mine, or hey we can call your buddies in Rome and ask them to do the course for us.....Or we can go for some design by committe approach and well check back in a few years if theres any movement on whether its okay to kill someone given a set of circumstances ( in a war, threat to yourself or others, euthanasia, abortion )............. You see the problem with such a subjective course?

And it's a damn sight more worthwhile than Religious Instruction - and if you were worried, you could add that to the course without much in the way of comprimise by actually taking a reasonable look at other religions

Ive never believed religious instruction is worty of education time either - weve churches for a reason:|

But I went to a school ran by a religious order and that was part of the deal:|

Incorrect - studying failures is how you learn to avoid failure. That's why most high-risk professions like aviation have a habit of making a point of analysing failures for their underlying causes...

But Malthuas views are wrong because theyve no economic basis, people with a good understanding of economics and some statistics should be able to analyse their credibility without any special training.

But that's my point - we pick this topic because it's more interesting than who will win whatevermania.

Yeah, we do - and even we ( or I anyway) find it highly boring after a while, because you see the same arguments time and again and it becomes more effort than its worth to tackle them again. And Anto, Bazo and Choco will be watching wrestlemania long before they pick up the politics/current affairs section of a newspaper.