BOAZ watches Pericles and MikeM going at it..... :)

guys guys.. it seems u 2 are more interested in coming out of this looking 'ok' rather than exploring the philosophical underpinning of Ethics.

But Mike mate..I'm getting a distinct odour of intellectual arrogance drifting in from your corner..Whereas Pericles seems more to be defending his intellectual integrity ?....

My reading of Russells "The History of Western Philosophy" (Probably the only secular book on Philosphy I've read) was illuminating.

From Plato and Socrates to Mill, and Hume and Sartre and many others, the problem of ethics arose just a microsecond after they set aside any reliance on revealed truth.

Mike.. I did read that link you gave about the Lift thing in which a worker was killed, and the design issues. The ethical issue is clear to me "Do for others as you would have them do for you". The article distinguished betweent he 'legal' requirements and the 'moral obligations' but it all comes back to the golden rule.

As soon as we depart from it (the "do unto others..." ) and depend on the 'legal' situation, people will soon get the message "As long as I'm covered legally... it doesn't matter how I do things"

Which seems to me to be a most inadequate foundation for a society.

I conclude (as I began) by saying we need a 'reason' to be ethical, and it had better not just be 'or I'll get sued or jailed'. How wonderful life would be if we built our communal values on Loving God and Loving our fellow man.

BD states:

"we need a 'reason' to be ethical"

Well, maybe you don't have one and that's why you have to refer to a book for 'guidance', but the majority of human beings have what is know as a conscience. We use these to determine whether we have done a bad thing or a good thing, BD.

Humans are naturally a societal creature - this means cooperation, hence the development of a conscience. This ability to cooperate and communicate is what assisted us to become the dominate species on earth.

We had already populated vast tracts of the planet thousands of years before Judism, Islam and Christianity. We had a sense of right and wrong then - we're not just little robots.

True there are people who have no conscience, they are classified as psychopaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath - for your edification.

The majority of us, however, care about our actions and their consequences. Some better than others - this is true and this is where the teaching of ethics can strengthen our natural inclination. And it is why I recommend the teaching of philosophy and ethics as a part of school curriculum rather than as a last resort at University.

To Pericles and MikeM - if you keep it up you'll go blind.

;0)

Thanks, Scout and BD.

You have brought a not very interesting debate (over whether Bill Gates was the most evil man who ever lived) back to the issue in the original article. Macquarie University vice-chancellor Steven Schwartz asks, should the number one priority for universities be the teaching of free thought and ethics?

Scout, you may be pleased to know that I can still see.

BD, I reject Christianity as the basis of ethics, considering it (along with other religions) as a sometimes ugly side effect of an ethical sense genetically embedded in most humans. We are, as Scout points out, naturally social animals. That leads to behaviours where cooperation is more common than conflict.

Scout, I don't imagine that Steven Schwartz thinks that ethics should be taught at university to the exclusion of ethical teaching by parents and in schools. He does not intend "a last resort" but continuing education in dealing with increasingly complex issues.

Schwartz is saying that ethics teaching should not stop with home and school. In modern society it raises complex issues: genetic crop modification; stem cell research; global warming; species extinction; animal use for medical research.

Ethical issues are more complex than what children learn at their mother's knee.

In my first post on this thread (6 April, 11:47:12 AM) I provided links to web sites describing current university level courses in applied ethics specifically relating to professional training. I find it odd that anyone objects to including that material in tertiary courses.

Building on the ethics that university students should have when they arrive, Eric Claus wrote in the article at the head of this thread:

QUOTE
If an ethics subject were rigorous, the BCA and Australia would be getting graduates who knew how to think deeply and critically about complex issues. Everybody wins.
END QUOTE

Anyone who has trouble grasping that there is more to ethics than the Ten Commandments might visit the St James Ethics Centre's "What Is Ethics" page, http://www.ethics.org.au/things_to_do/ethics_workout/what_is_ethics/index.htm

MikeM, you do like to go for the easy explanation, don't you?

>>Ah, Pericles, so... You are a propellor-head<<

You couldn't be more wrong. But I do happen to know all the protagonists in the Bristol case, whereas you simply select your comments from a couple of cursory searches on the internet.

>>a not very interesting debate over whether Bill Gates was the most evil man who ever lived<<

Yet another example of how you continually grasp the wrong end of the stick.

Bill Gates has never had much to do with the commercial aspects of the development of Microsoft as a company. He is a programmer. All he ever wanted to do was to “write really neat software”.

Bill is in fact one of the least evil individuals you could wish to meet, but the business he founded has over the years been run by others with far fewer scruples.

>>Ethical issues are more complex than what children learn at their mother's knee<<

So you keep saying.

But it is the issues that appear to be more complex. The ethical toolset with which to resolve them is not.

It is the one that mother taught.

Take for example the “dilemmas” you cite: “genetic crop modification; stem cell research; global warming; species extinction; animal use for medical research”. Explain please, exactly where in dealing with these situations you need a level of ethical awareness above and beyond that which most people learn in their early years at home.

(I notice you didn't include search engine technology, I assume you now realize what a dumb example that was.)

My point is this: the ethics “industry” has been concocted by a bunch of academics to provide an easy ticket to the gravy train. Since no two elements of society are ever going to agree absolutely on what “doing the right thing” consists of, it is the perfect sinecure.

“Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any[one] goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we?” - Douglas Adams

Pericles,

You are still off-topic.

Dills who spent $10 million in legal costs to attack Microsoft, not get what they wanted and extracted what, at best, was a rounding error in MS's P&L, were smarter and more ethical businessmen than the Mainsoft executives? Mainsoft were commercially reasonable, reached agreement with MS and have a flourishing business. This proves Microsoft is unethical? Puhlease.

It's risky to analyse someone on the basis of forum posts but I'll try. The Myers-Briggs personality type indicator classifies people according to four dimensions, explained at http://conferences.alia.org.au/newlibrarian2002/documents/MBTIforNewLibrarianSymposium(static).pps (type ").pps" on the end of the link to find it.)

If I am not mistaken Pericles, you are (like many people in the ICT field) a classic INTJ personality: introverted, intuitive, unempathetic and judgemental.

Intelligent - often. Possibly successful in your job (although you could choose smarter employers). But you lack skills to connect with others, are quick to reach conclusions and close your mind before knowing full facts.

Ethical considerations with search engines? Of course there are.

* Site ranking
* Ongoing battle between SEO companies and the search engines
* Debate over google.cn's censorship agreement
* US Justice Department's recent demands from search engine companies for data
* Paid vs algorithmically prioritised listings

But I was reluctant to be repetitive.

Your imperviousness to the knowledge within philosophy in general and ethics in particular reminds me (an analogy for BOAZ) of a heathen savage who worships gods of the forest, has never been introduced to the Holy Gospel and cannot imagine its existence.

Sounds introvertedly & intuitively judgemental to me.

Meantime if we are going to continue this thread, can we get back to Claus's original piece?

Claus is a professional engineer. He has found that ethical considerations figure in his discipline. He quotes Steven Schwartz, whose university is concerned, amongst other things, with turning out properly trained and employable professionals. He has found this too.

You, Pericles, sit in your little midden of cerebrum saying, with no discernible evidence, that these people are speaking nonsense.

Don't you feel slightly, uh, awkward?

I can't help but think that most posters here are confusing professional survival attributes (how to utilise risk management strategies) with ethics. But perhaps this is another ethical dilemma?