Sunday, June 03, 2007
Take the Carnegie Mellon University Survey on Ethical Standards
This is a survey on ethics developed by workers at Carnegie Mellon University for readers of the New York Times [Survey on Ethical Standards]. We can take the survey thanks to John Tierney and his blog TierneyLab: Putting Ideas in Science to the Test [Test Your Ethics (or Lack Thereof)].
The nice thing about this survey is that you can instantly see how you answered the questions relative to everyone else who took the survey. I was very pleasantly surprised at some of the responses. If you take the survey, make sure you do it alone and in a private place. You must answer all questions honestly and you may not want friends or relatives to know your answers. Try it, and then see how everyone else answered the questions.
I've been trying to stimulate some discussion about ethics without much success [Ethical Issues in Biochemistry]. There's a growing tendency in science education to include classes on ethics but nobody seems to be able to define ethics in a way that makes sense to me. What, exactly, is an ethical issue? [see, Ethics on Wikipedia] Take the survey to see if your sense of "ethics" agrees with others.
The other problem is how do you teach ethics to undergraduate science students? What are the basic principles of ethical reasoning? Is ethical relativism a valid philosophy or are there some "rules" that every undergraduate should memorize? [see, Moral Relativism on Wikipedia] I've encountered scientists who claim that we need to teach students that ethical relativism is a failed philosophy and there really is a "right" and a "wrong."
Here's a question that's not on the survey. Does whether or not you would have your genome sequenced [Sequencing Jim Watson] count as an ethical question? I don't think so. It's a question about personal preferences and the answer depends very much on how you feel personally about issues such as privacy. This isn't "ethics" as far as I'm concerned.
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10 comments :
Wait a minute, Professor. You can't get a handle on ethics? Ethics is hot. Ethics is right up there in Gods mind in heaven. Ethics, essence, cognition, and framing - four buzzwords and you-is-hot and ready for ordination, law school, and/or tenure in humanities.
Ethics are located in the mind and cause everything both good and bad, in case you didn't know. All is mental, metaphysics, and framing the mental. Cognitive scientists study cognitions which "arise" in the mind like the spontaneous generation of maggots, sinfulness, bad hair, and wicked PMS.
If you don't like somebody's behavior, you know that they are suffering from the wrong ethics, right? Of course, what else? Nothing conditions ethics - ethics arise in the mind like I said.
Whether you burn too much carbon or too little, it's because you have the wrong ideas in your head - the wrong ethics. So it's very simple, you just change the ethics and shazam the world is transformed. You don't even have to frame anything anymore because everybody has ethics - the proper ethics, too.
Where do the ethics come from, you ask? Along with spontaneous generation in the mind and unlike everything else in the world, they always were and always will be. It's in the catechism of cognitive science with a little quantum indeterminacy thrown in for scientific flavor. Paul Davies collected big bucks from the Templeton theologians for just such deep mentalistic bullshid called, The Mind of God. George Lakoff is nursing at the big explanatory cognitive teat at this very moment
Thanks. That's a big help.
(And it pretty much describes how I feel about teaching ethics.)
I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one who doesn't quite understand what "ethics" means -- and I have both extensive formal education in the subject (as a branch of philosophy) and professional experience with it. (Mr. Spezio is right; ethics is "hot." You can get grants for it, and fill seats at talks.)
I think -- maybe -- the word has been debased to the point of referring to almost any "difficult" question, or perhaps "controversial" question (meaning pretty much any question on which there are different points of view held firmly and passionately).
I'm afraid I've come to see most "ethics" discussions as just shuckin' and jivin'. I usually don't know what these people are talking about or why we should take them seriously.
Philosophical discussion of "ethics" began with some rather practical and down-to-earth remarks by Aristotle, and it's been pretty much downhill since then.
Steve,
Isn't the 'of "ethics"' part of your comment redundant?
:-)
I wonder why the questionnaire is so based on questions related to sex.
There should be more on other social relations, particularly economic. What do you think about compensation for work? What is a too high or a too low salary? What about ethical investments and slavery? Why are some people rich and some people poor?
There could also be questions about medicine and science. Should people be allowed to sell their organs? Would you take an organ that you knew was taken from a non-consenting person? What do you think of experimentation on people or other living beings? In other words, does your personal, or the general, interest mean that the ends justify the means?
Don't get me wrong. I am only offering the questions, and I am not an animal "rights" freak.
There are many more such questions that one could find.
ned asks,
Should people be allowed to sell their organs?
Let's take this question as an example for discussion.
Is it a question about ethics? If so, what exactly is the ethical dilemma that makes this a difficult question?
To me the answer to the question is clearly "yes" and it isn't a difficult question to answer at all—at least in the abstract. I see no reason to prevent an informed adult from selling an organ. As far as I'm concerned this is not a question of ethics. At least it's not a question about my ethics.
Is the ethical question about whether the majority can impose their version of proper behavior on the minority? Is this the same as the abortion issue?
Or is this really a question about informed consent? Does the debate revolve around the question of whether someone who elects to sell their kidney really understands the consequences? If that's what causes the dilemma then does it qualify as an ethical question?
hope hear from you soom,to know if the museo want to buy
hope hear from you soom,to know if the museo want to buy
I searched this site for relativism and wanted to see what you think about the use of the r word by Patricia Churchland and Jesse Prinz. Not only is the r word a minority position among philosophers it is a pejorative term. I have read all of Pat's books including her 2011 book Braintrust. On two videos discussing Braintrust on The Science Network she uses the r word in a positive way. I approve and hope you will encourage her. Go to minute 41 of this video http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/ethics-and-the-brain/how-the-mind-makes-morals and minute 49 of this video http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/pat-churchland-s-braintrust/brain-trust-a-public-conversation-about-morality-and-the-brain. She also discusses relativism after minute 24 of podcast episode 41 at The Partially examied life. http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/category/podcast-episodes/
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