Case study in ethics

.Now with respect to the case study, the moral problem proposed in the original post, wherein one is to imagine that one is a member of a city-council with an important decision to make. ---- {What follows is my take on the matter.}

As a local city-council member it would be ideal if you have creativity enough to visualize a shopping mall with open green spaces interspersed. Those spaces would contain Native-American burial sites that have been preserved. Each would have an engraved commemorative plaque, near the grave marker, as a deliberate feature of the mall! It is likely more expensive to construct such a mall than if the city just plowed over the whole area but it would raise the city’s tourist income to have such show-piece sites as focal points in the mall. The city could advertise that it cares, that it preserves its Amerindian heritage!

Thus, by promoting this policy, you will provide jobs for many who are out of work, you will collect more for the city’s treasury by the new taxes that come in from the new property owners at this mall, you will be able to reduce property taxes for the majority of city residents, and you will attract income-producing tourists to your city!

Of the choices you could make, this particular choice is less likely to cause harm to anyone or to anything!


That last-mentioned criterion ought to be a part of any systematic analysis you make when faced with any moral decision
…according to the Business School of The University of Texas at Austin.

Also, what did you think about that paper entitled “The Beautiful Simplicity…”? Did you gain some insights from it? Tell us whether you liked it. Tell us if you believe it fits in with what you know about ethics.
Here, if you overlooked it, is a link to it:
myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 … ncepts.pdf

How would you have resolved the Moral Dilemma presented in the o.p.? Any suggestions?

What if you think it is immoral to build malls. Like you view them as destroying smaller family owned businesses. That they are almost universally aesthetically unpleasant. That they tend to have products that are meant to be used for relatively short periods of time then thrown out - malls have a tendency to have products that have a high component of fashion and trend involved in their value. That is, malls are bad for the environment. Malls are generally coupled to cars. One drives to the mall and malls are surrouned by parking lots. Rather than stores in a thriving center of town, often easily reachable via walking or public transport. IOW malls contribute to the loss of neighborhoods, the social life of towns, dependence on oil - leading to occasional wars.

That’s all just as examples. I am sure there could be other arguments on ethical grounds from other perspectives.

Then there could be arguments for the mall which are considerate or ‘considerate’.

Don’t get me wrong, being respectful of native americans sounds fine to me. But what if they don’t want their cemetary in the middle of the grounds of a mall. I wouldn’t. Even with the nice plaques.

What if capitalism itself is immoral?

How does your system give us a common ground from which to work out which set of morals and how do we prioritize them?

Yes. Asking the local Native-Americans what they wanted to be done with the burial site is a critical part of producing an ethical solution. It’s completely missing from Thinkdr’s solution.

I had to keep in the Business School because it seemed like such an odd authority choice.

In any case…
What if something causes more harm then other options but vastly more good?

Also, how does one feel confidence in one’s ability to predict. Even a relatively simple example like the Mall - compared say than a Senator deciding whether to vote for or against a war, for example - leads to an unbelievable amount of effects which in turn become causes. In my previous post I raised some possible concerns, mainly from the Left, perhaps some also from the Right, but there are many other, I am sure, areas of effects when one decides on going ahead with a mall in a specific location -and generally with tax easements and other local financial and other support. These causes and effect head off down lines of complicated causation for, well, ever. Where do we get the confidence to make a consequentialist decision? How many years forward are we trying to predict? How do we decide on the values that evaluate?

How do we weigh centralized access to consumer goods when also evaluating how a mall affects traffic and use of downtowns? So many values intersect in such a decision. And, then we have the ‘respecting other cultures’ thing to be weighed against jobs, to be weighed against…All these different kinds of categories of value. It is hard enough to make decisions when the value conflicts are just in one area.

Greetings, Karpel Tunnel

Very well said! You bring up lots of quite-relevant points.

And Phyllo too …also is ethically aware. Yes, the local Native Americans are to be heard on a project like this. I was naive to assume that they would be pleased to have attention brought to their heritage and their legacy; they might indeed vote to “leave our burial ground site alone.” They might demand the city find another site to build on.

I agree with you, Karpel, on the value of keeping a small town square atmosphere for shopping and interacting. Decentralization rates high in the Unified Theory of Ethics. It finds that 'small is beautiful., as the the book by E.F. Schumacher was titled. The subtitle he gave it is: “Economics as if people mattered.” It is a classic, and is concise, clear and profound, all at once. It’s worth reading :exclamation:

Business schools these days, because they teach some students how to avoid the pressures and temptations of corruption, are the main centers of applied ethics in the country. [I offered a link earlier to the website ‘Ethics Unwrapped.’ If you go visit there you will be surprised how much work has been done by Dr. Robert Prentice and his colleagues to boost Ethics.] I could only say, “Awesome!” [size=83] I was relieved to learn that I don’t have to do it all myself!!! Ethics has already found its way into the school system![/size] Eugene Solte, a professor at Harvard, has also made a contribution to this field and is using ‘The ethical fallacies’ material that I called to his attention - written by the Political Scientist, Wm. Kelleher, who like myself studied the philosophical output of Robert S. Hartman, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Hartman - a true genius if there ever was one.

Check out this essay if you want to know more about where ‘I’m coming from.’
The Beautiful Simplicity of Ethical Concepts
myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 … ncepts.pdf

I’d like to hear more about the ethical understanding of KT, and Phyllo, as well of the views of anyone else that cares to comment!

If we discover a skeleton that could reveal scientific truth, should the natives be allowed to prevent the study of the find due to their religious beliefs?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick … ontroversy

As a perfect example of the vast range of causes and effects consquentialists seem to think they can manage.

My vote, as it happens, would be yes, they get to prevent it. But I make no claims that this is a correct prioritization. I am sure the scientists can find some other way to help people or have an interesting investigation.

Interest, consideration and respect, for the people involved in the situation, are key to finding an ethical solution that works.

But often, we have an individual or group arrogantly imposing his/its values/ethics/morality on others. Maybe involving outright unethical actions which are justified by a greater good. Which leads to anger, alienation, resentment, mistrust.

Sure, the intentions may be wonderful. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

karrpel tunnel writes:

[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick) ... ontroversy

Karpel:

Which theory of ethics do you prefer as an alternative?

My theory cannot be accurately described as Consequentialist, although I do see some merit in that approach; namely, its concern to aim for public policy that makes for the well-being for the vast majority. For that reason I am willing to learn from it and to absorb its best features into my theory. A Unified Theory of Ethics is a synthesis of the highlights of Shinto, Buddhism, Confusious’ teaching, the Golden Rule, and the three or four traditional schools of academic ethics. Check it out. - myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BREAKT … %20all.pdf

or myqol.com/wadeharvey/A%20UNI … ETHICS.pdf

Your evaluation? Your comments?

I think it worked out ok in the end. I saw a video about it where the scientists appealed to the natives who were sympathetic to the gathering of useful info before returning the remains, and then the researchers returned to present of the information about their genetic heritage which the natives found interesting, so the story had a happy ending because people were willing to relate to each other in communication and be considerate, but we’re lucky that dogmatic insistence didn’t prevail.

You want to go out and I want to stay in, so who wins? The natives are in pain everyday the bones aren’t in the ground and the scientists are in pain everyday the bones are in the ground, so who wins? Someone is going to be hurt no matter what.

Yep.

I’m sorry, it’s not Kennewick man, but Clovis Boy.

sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/ … ontana-boy

nature.com/news/ancient-gen … te-1.14698

I can’t find the documentary video. It was probably taken down.

It’s interesting that you frame it in terms of winning.

Well that’s what it is… one want vs another want. Who wins? It’s a coin flip.

That’s one way to think about it … Ethics : a competition with winners and losers

Phyllo wrote:

Although there will be pain on both sides, Phyllo showed us that when the archeologists consulted with and collaborated with the native-Americans there was less pain.

One could construe that the cooperation that occurred as “a win-win” outcome …which is just what the Hartman/Katz theory of Ethics proposes we aim for in each situation where human interaction takes place. Be a value creator!

Phyllo added: "… we’re lucky that dogmatic insistence didn’t prevail."

The dogmatic view is often a case of “either-or” or “black-or-white” thinking. Such thinking fails to see the many beautiful shades of colors, the alternative perspectives, that a more reality-based view has to offer.

I also agree with Karpel Tunnel that in our calculations - when confronted with a moral dilemma - we are to proceed ‘as if people mattered.’ (That’s Dr. Schumacher’s phrasing.) Hartman taught us that in our setting of priorities we are to place people above things and stuff; and things above unsubstantiated opinion - above ideas not backed by solid evidence.

What say you?

You didn’t attribute the quotes correctly.

It seems disrespectful to me to build a shopping mall around a burial site, even though the solution does avoid sacrilege.

I would build a structure around the site, an architectural marker of some kind, to allow people to visit and honor or at the least be aware of the site, have it in their conscious. This would be a celebration of life.

Yes, thank you. I apologize to all for any confusion caused. That was a gaffe on my part.

Serendipper gets the credit for the quotes. He earns a high Morality score!
Pedro and other contributors to this thread are also ethically sensitive as well.

For more case studies to analyze and solve, see:
ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-studies

.

Here, for example, is a super-dilemma with which to grapple:
Banning burkas; is it freedom or is it discrimination?
ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/wp-co … nation.pdf

Also, you may enjoy reading this essay on ethical facts and applying the theory:

myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 … ncepts.pdf

I’m not sure if less pain resulted, but possibly more pain because the natives took on the pain of the scientists via empathy. Of course, in the video, Sarah Anzick was feeling pain as well because of her empathy, so she wanted to alleviate her pain by reducing the natives pain by helping them understand the situation. So, empathy on both sides saved the day and we’re lucky it happened that way.

[i]Both Doyle and Anzick (who notes that she is acting for her family, not NIH) say they are agonizing over how, and how soon, the child should be reburied. They worry that reburial will destroy data that might be retrieved years from now with better genetic techniques continue to improve. Schurr agrees: “This is why scientists are fighting against NAGPRA repatriations of Paleoamerican remains, as much can be learned from these ancient samples.”

But Doyle and Anzick insist that the child should be reburied out of respect for his Native American descendants. “The boy has given us an amazing gift,” Doyle says. “Now we must repay that by putting him back where he belongs.”[/i] sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/ … ontana-boy

That’s probably the crux of ethics: make an effort to understand my side of it; relate. We can’t have a relationship without relating otherwise it’s a sinking ship.