Some thoughts for the new management : Comments

By Margaret Somerville, published 18/11/2013

One ethical person plus a few ethical friends who all support each other really matters ethically.

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"And we ignore our feelings at our ethical peril. Science is now backing up what we've always known in these regards, but have denigrated in recent times, namely, that moral intuition and examined emotions are important human ways of knowing, especially about ethics. We are not just logical, cognitive beings, essential as the human capacity to reason is; rather good ethical judgment requires that we use all our human ways of knowing and we, including politicians, should not be frightened of doing so.

So, I wish Australia's "new management team" bonne chance and bon courage in creating an ethical future for all Australians and Australia."

Talking of ethics - this might be a good place to start:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/refugees-and-human-rights-abuses-we-cant-pretend-that-we-do-not-know

"Arendt provides a useful framework to think about Tony Abbott’s extraordinary statement in Sri Lanka: his comment that, though his government "deplores the use of torture we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances difficult things happen".

On one level, the Abbott "torture happens" line might be understood as old-fashioned realpolitik. Because Australia wants to repatriate Sri Lankan asylum seekers, Abbott needs to paint the authoritarian regime there as evolving to democracy (despite Amnesty International’s assessment that "the government is slowly but surely dismantling institutions, including the judiciary, that protect human rights".) Because Abbott seeks co-operation against people smugglers, he’s willing to provide warships to one of the most bloodsoaked militaries in the world."

Ethics should encompass our world view - not merely wrap us up in an insular self-righteous coziness.

Posted by Poirot, Monday, 18 November 2013 9:01:10 AM

your..quote..deserves repeating
plus a link?

<<.. Rats and lemmings…

Philosophers are using computers to create sequential, computer-generated, decision-making sets. They generate, for instance, five thousand consecutive decisions or ten thousand consecutive decisions.

In one of these experiments, the philosophers started with two equal-sized groups of decision makers: one they called rats, the other lemmings. The rats (the bad guys) were represented by tiny red squares. They always decided just in their own self-interest and without regard to the welfare of others.

The lemmings (the good guys) were yellow squares. They did the opposite; they tried to protect others, their relationships and the community, as well as themselves.

At first, the rats won hands down. Initially, the yellow squares disappeared very quickly; the lemmings were losing badly. But eventually, the lemmings started to come back; yellow squares began to appear among the red ones.

What was most interesting and the most important message from this study was that as long as a small cohesive cluster of lemmings remained, they were not lost forever; they came back - eventually ethics was spreading again throughout the society.

But if that small group was lost, if their number fell below a small critical mass, the whole graph turned red and could not be reversed.

So, one ethical person plus a few ethical friends who all support each other really matters ethically.

It's a message that's both hopeful and fearful..

yeah..but god said as long as one person gets it
none of the rest will get it..[we gota track down..the hold-out]
and let..the games end

im..so tired of the games peoples play

Posted by one under god, Monday, 18 November 2013 9:21:23 AM

< One ethical person plus a few ethical friends who all support each other really matters ethically. >

Really?

I don’t think so, Margaret. It ain’t so, if it is within a culture of unethical bevahiour.

Even a whole lot of ethical people, perhaps the big majority of MPs in a government or employees in a business, can’t bring about a significant change for the better if the overall culture prevents it.

As far as politics goes, there are enormous impediments to the achievement of a much more ethical style of governance.

For example:

1. The enormous vested-interest power that the big-business big-donations-and-big-favours-of-all-sorts fraternity exerts on government,

2. The short-term what’s-in-it-for-me attitude of a very large portion of the votership,

3. The need for a major party to compete with the other major party and offer what appeals most to the voters,

Etc

Your conclusions are all very noble:

< First, hope, in particular for a future world - this requires honesty and authenticity in facing difficult situations and not making empty promises.

Second, wise ethical restraint – the old virtue of prudence - especially in the interests of the generations who will follow us – this requires a strong and healthy sense of obligation and an absence of one of entitlement.

And, third, courage, especially the courage to stand by what you believe to be ethical and rejecting that which you believe to be unethical, when doing so involves a cost to yourself, such as risking your future in politics. >

However, if only one of the major political parties was to exercise these, it wouldn’t stand a chance at the next election.

And if both parties did it, and the big-business fraternity and indeed the whole community didn’t fully support it, it would go nowhere just as fast!

Maybe we need to face the fact that we are an unethical species, living in unethical communities, and that there is unethical behaviour all around us… and we have the unethical government that we deserve!

Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 18 November 2013 9:29:34 AM

Pollyanna nee Margret, it easy to build simple "Reductio ad absurdum" models to show anything. Did my econometrics time, you can have 20 straight off (please supply desired answers) and I'll chuck in a Climate model for free. The most moral are those who anticipate consequences and allow for it. You "Moral™" types those merely in trade as immoral but I see the reverse, they work, create and earn their benefits, whereas you use coercion (the State) to be given some of theirs.

Let's see your "Morality™" is making people freeze to death in Europe (Green energy fiasco), go blind in Asia (Yellow rice fiasco), and loose their jobs in Western Sydney (MRRT and carbon tax fiascos).

Anyway, its not New Management time yet, they are still sweeping the streets after the storms of the confusing Labor personality cult regime/s just turfed out. Gillard and Rudd were somewhat Yin/Yang but the polarity was worse and worser; from either direction.

Posted by McCackie, Monday, 18 November 2013 10:00:51 AM

Wow. What an article. To answer, critically, will take a books worth of writing!

But one point that I address is:

Quote : " And we ignore our feelings at our ethical peril. Science is now backing up what we've always known in these regards, but have denigrated in recent times, namely, that moral intuition and examined emotions are important human ways of knowing, especially about ethics. We are not just logical, cognitive beings, essential as the human capacity to reason is; rather good ethical judgment requires that we use all our human ways of knowing and we, including politicians, should not be frightened of doing so. "

The above are very noble sentiments. But politics is about power ie. power over people and how one obtains that power is a moot point. Ethics and morality are wonderful debating points but there appears to be little place for these sentiments in the real world of power politics. The " feelings and emotional" card is played to invoke sympathy. Does one think for one moment that a crying public figure on television is displaying genuine emotion

Posted by Kilmouski, Monday, 18 November 2013 10:09:22 AM

one thing that the emily's list failure taught us that having females in power does not equate to morals or ethics. They made previous Governments look like saints. This is good for Abbott as he does not have to perform to well to look much better than the failed experiment.

Posted by runner, Monday, 18 November 2013 2:58:11 PM

"Anyway, its not New Management time yet, they are still sweeping the streets after the storms of the confusing Labor personality cult regime/s just turfed out.'

Beautifully put McCackie, congratulations. And we are going to need a lot of garbage trucks to get rid of the debris.

Posted by Sparkyq, Monday, 18 November 2013 6:40:47 PM

Posted by one under god, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 8:04:20 AM

Margaret is of course a right-wing "catholic" and is closely aligned with that charming deeply misogynist essentially fascist outfit Opus Dei

Posted by Daffy Duck, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 10:01:47 AM

Speaking of new management, "catholic" ethical restraints and moral feelings too perhaps this site provides clues as to the double-minded nature of how conservative "catholics" really operate behind their closed doors and on the world stage too.
http://www.vaticancrimes.us

Posted by Daffy Duck, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 10:24:12 AM

And of course like all right-wing so called conservative governments our new government is fully committed to Looting Planet Earth as described in this essay: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1116
Indeed they are fully commited to abolishing any red or green tape which puts restraints on this now accelerated looting process.
Thus letting the so called "free" market rule.
They are also fully committed to the historical exploitative/looting process depicted in this stark image
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel21.html
And the politics of cruelty promoted by their friends in the right-wing USA stink-tanks as described here:
http://www.logosjournal.com/hammer_kellner
The looming Trans Pacfic Partnership Agreement will help to accelerate this process. And severely circumscribe the capacity of ordinary Australian citizens to protect themselves and their communities from/against the power of global corporations enforcing their "rights" under the new agreements.
They will of course also completely disregard the scenarios described in Guy McPherson's Nature Bats Last website.

Posted by Daffy Duck, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 11:23:44 AM

What an oxymoron. Ethics & academia, in the same article for gods sake.

Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 12:43:27 PM

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