Is it worth it anymore to teach kids today ethics?

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Originally Posted by Ice

That's completely false. Part of ethics portion of auditing was reviewing various ethics lectures and literature. If I remember the name of the book I'll post it here, but it basically showed by acting ethically, one smart businessman was able to amass a large amount of wealth without being a slimeball.

Edit: As a first hand example, my father worked his way from the bottom up and was able to succeed in business by acting ethically and not underhanded. He's part of what molded my view on how to conduct business.

It must be painful, Warman, but you can't let one event shape your entire view on something this broad.

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Reminds me of that saying violence begets violence and ignorance begets ignorance. I guess you could say douchebagery begets douchebaggery.

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Originally Posted by Reenk Roink

I get your point here, but I'd point out that here you are already straying away from the field of ethics and rather going into different territory of the Constitution and law instead.

I skimmed the Prop 8 thread (and you do more than fine discussing moral and legal issues) and throughout that entire discussion, the question I had is where is the ethics? I see people looking at factual issues, considering how the 14th Amendment and separation clause relate to Prop 8, discussing the role of the judicial system, disagreeing on what it means to be married and in which sense, and even (though this was by far the least present thing) having impasses on religious and moral understandings of homosexuality and homosexual acts.

What does all of this have to do with ethics? It seems to me that in this case, my point holds, there was a (pretty good) discussion on a legal issue that does dip into religious and moral ground and no recourse to formal ethical methods was needed.

I think your frustration lies with people bringing bad arguments to the table in general, rather than them being ignorant of ethics.

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Perhaps I am straying a bit, but if we are to be realistic here it is quite difficult to separate in a discussion about a proposed law the ethics from the law since the two are very intertwined sometimes. As we have seen in this very discussion, it is very hard just to establish a solid separation of ethics from morality.

In regards to your point about me being frustrated simply about bad arguments: isn't part of the point of a logic, ethics or philosophy class to create better arguments on a subject in order to advance knowledge and expose more details and nuances that could be very important?

I mean of course, there will always be bad arguments, but in my mind there are bad arguments and there are...idk how else to put it but "illogical"(maybe?) arguments. I don't mean to impose an ethics class to make sure there are no "bad" arguments, just that every argument has some backing behind it that isn't riddled with fallacies. Suppose we take the idea that trickle down economics doesn't work, at least the theory had some backing in that "with more capital, more economic creation can be created" which could be supplemented with examples from examples in economic history perhaps. Now, that is different then let's say the argument that we cannot change marriage simply because "it's always been man or woman" or because "god said it was this way" those arguments are purely calls to tradition and authority respectively and are complete logical fallacies. Those arguments are those I want to see removed to make way for better arguments such as from those who were talking about perhaps removing the idea of marriage completely under this, this and this argument which had some backings to them (see Rhyfelwyr's comments for specific examples).

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True, that's why I was thinking more basic academic 'ethics' as a possibility, as cheating is pretty rampant in college. As for the philosophical ethics class in highschool, I suppose I'll soften my rhetoric. If people want to take it, and the school can afford to offer it as an voluntary elective, then sure, have fun. I would personally see more merit in offering an intro logic class in highschool, or even a general intro philosophy class, rather than a specialized class in ethics, but if the school can manage and there is demand, then who am I to say no. However, I would be pretty upset if such a class was mandatory.

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Well I would have to say I agree with this paragraph, my goal in arguing for ethics isn't just for the promotion of ethics classes, I just feel like some sort of class such as an ethics, logic or philosophical class should be advocated for as early as possible to promote better public discourse about political and social issues overall. I wouldn't feel upset if an intro logic class was mandatory to complete high school though. If I was mandated to fulfill a "fine art" (for me ceramics) and a "practical art" (for me cooking) in order to graduate high school last year, then I don't see how at least pushing for one logic class would be crossing the line. And yes, I am not kidding I really was mandated to fulfill a "fine" and "practical" art just to graduate from high school.

Cooking is a very practical art, though.

Sorry for getting back to you so late acin, I get bored of the Org for days on end and I forget that I am involved in discussions. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Perhaps I am straying a bit, but if we are to be realistic here it is quite difficult to separate in a discussion about a proposed law the ethics from the law since the two are very intertwined sometimes. As we have seen in this very discussion, it is very hard just to establish a solid separation of ethics from morality.

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I don't think it's hard to formally separate ethics from morality (you did it quite nicely). It's just that the words also carry a colloquial meaning it.

Agreed that it is hard to separate moral issues from legal issues though, and the Prop 8 example is basically a major disagreement on a religious/moral understanding. Notwithstanding arguments on both sides that try to avoid the basic religious/moral pronouncements. But again I'll reiterate that ethics really doesn't come into play in any formal sense.

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In regards to your point about me being frustrated simply about bad arguments: isn't part of the point of a logic, ethics or philosophy class to create better arguments on a subject in order to advance knowledge and expose more details and nuances that could be very important?

I mean of course, there will always be bad arguments, but in my mind there are bad arguments and there are...idk how else to put it but "illogical"(maybe?) arguments. I don't mean to impose an ethics class to make sure there are no "bad" arguments, just that every argument has some backing behind it that isn't riddled with fallacies. Suppose we take the idea that trickle down economics doesn't work, at least the theory had some backing in that "with more capital, more economic creation can be created" which could be supplemented with examples from examples in economic history perhaps. Now, that is different then let's say the argument that we cannot change marriage simply because "it's always been man or woman" or because "god said it was this way" those arguments are purely calls to tradition and authority respectively and are complete logical fallacies. Those arguments are those I want to see removed to make way for better arguments such as from those who were talking about perhaps removing the idea of marriage completely under this, this and this argument which had some backings to them (see Rhyfelwyr's comments for specific examples).

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Well to be fair, those appeals to tradition and authority are what convinces a ton of the general public to go out and enact bans on same sex marriage. They are logical fallacies only if the authority or the tradition is wrong - but you will find almost no one who bases his or her argument on this authority or tradition to consider it wrong so they will see no fallacy, even if others do.

An argument is only as convincing as it's premises, which is why the "logic" of the argument usually plays a very distant secondary role. The reason for the impasse on the Prop 8 stance is mainly because of impasses on 1) the religious/moral view on homosexuality, 2) the view of what marriage is, and 3) the role and influence of religious and moral views on law.

You'll likely never be able to convince either side on the Prop 8 issue to change their moral view on things. Now, Prop 8 (and related) pro arguments can be struck down because of conflicts with the Constitution either with regards to the separation clause or the 14th Amendment, which is what I believe the judge did. The supporters of such a ban on same sex marriage do have an uphill battle in legal terms due to the nature of American secularism and the 14th Amendment.

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Well I would have to say I agree with this paragraph, my goal in arguing for ethics isn't just for the promotion of ethics classes, I just feel like some sort of class such as an ethics, logic or philosophical class should be advocated for as early as possible to promote better public discourse about political and social issues overall. I wouldn't feel upset if an intro logic class was mandatory to complete high school though. If I was mandated to fulfill a "fine art" (for me ceramics) and a "practical art" (for me cooking) in order to graduate high school last year, then I don't see how at least pushing for one logic class would be crossing the line. And yes, I am not kidding I really was mandated to fulfill a "fine" and "practical" art just to graduate from high school.

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I definitely agree with you about the logic class. I don't know why they don't offer (or even make mandatory) an intro to logic class in highschool. You'll probably only learn the "informal logic" of arguments and fallacy theory along with basic propositional logic, but the benefit in just that is huge. From personal experience, just the exercise of extracting the premises and the logical form from a written argument (and vice versa) is extremely helpful in both reading and writing. Doing logical proofs while extremely tedious, helps a lot if you take higher math, not to mention it makes it a bit easier to grasp the proofs for things. Learning logical fallacies is also very helpful, although sometimes it is a doubled edged sword as some people get the wrong idea of logical fallacies that they somehow demonstrate faulty reasoning in all cases or even worse demonstrate falsehood of a conclusion.

The thing is, I think most high school kids are definitely ready to learn basic logic, even as early as their freshman year, and it would help so much in so many other classes, but somehow most kids are only exposed to such study when they get to college. :juggle2:

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Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

Cooking is a very practical art, though.

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You do need cooking skills to live. :clown: