I) On the difference between “efficincy” and “effectiveness.”
II) The facts of Ethics
III) Defining what ethics means
IV) It all adds up to this
V) The benefits gained
VI) On human development
VII) Applications to various fields of study and to
practical life
VIII) Summary and Conclusions
I know: nobody cares… Yet this might turn out to be a popular course!
Do any of you know a Superintendent of Schools; or a member of your local Board of Education? If so, tell them about this proposal for the curriculum. Or, in order to make a difference, in order to contribute constructively, to fulfill an urgent need, get acquainted with one of these officials, become friends, and campaign for adding this course to what is now taught. …a course with the emphasis on classroom discussion and optimal student participation.
{For specifics that could be discussed in each of the above topics in the Course Outline, see the References in the links below where you will find further details.}
Precisely. I have raised this issue with him in a variety of dfferent ways. I don’t think he recognizes that there are value differences that some kind of pure deductive analysis will not reconclie. And what teacher will not filter this through their value system.
I cannot answer this question until you tell me precisely what you mean by “politics.” That word is somewhat ambiguous, to say the least: therefore you are not communicating well to me when you use it …unless you define it.
Precisely. I have raised this issue with him in a variety of dfferent ways. I don’t think he recognizes that there are value differences that some kind of pure deductive analysis will not reconclie. And what teacher will not filter this through their value system.
[/quote
Hi, KT
Please tell us what is wrong with a teacher filtering “this through their value system.”
For, if the “this” is systematic Ethics, as explained in the documents listed below – which by now you have familiarized yourself with – what is the necessity to keep out the notions of
transparency,
of keeping your promises, and
of exercising your right to use the franchise, to have a say in your destiny, in other words:
to vote.
Please, if you would be so kind, tell me clearly why “freedom” is a concept that only so-called Conservatives care about and not so-called Liberals?? …And why does a person have to be one or the other??
Also, remind us of the values that you label as “conservative” and show why the systematic study of Ethics does not endorse them.
Isn’t politics the contest to influence people and establish public policy?
How you can write a book on ethics and not address the issue of lying and not even know what politics is?
Politics and economics are the greatest concerns across the world. And they are heavily involved in ethical and anti-ethical behavior.
School teachers and university professors have become infamous for using their positions to influence the young to think however their political narrative dictates. They use deceptive means to “program” young children into becoming more politically aligned with their political agenda. That has become pretty common knowledge.
Deception is the most often used means (which might explain why you never addressed it in your book). Politics is the underlying goal. I guess you didn’t know that or perhaps you are just one of the actors in the story.
Programming children into acceptable social and ethical behavior is most of what teachers and professors already do. It is called “politics in the schools”. And it involves influencing the young into particular ethical and social standards dictated by political and economic leaders.
How could the actors in deception and political persuasion teach ethics as a course study to the young? Wouldn’t they be merely exposing themselves (unless their version of “ethics” was merely a part of their politics)?
Both the above are very independent set by themselves with some overlaps at their edges.
What is good and evil, right or wrong are invoked in all aspects of life, thus including morality and politics.
What is right or wrong in politics are enacted in criminal laws accompanied by punishments via a legislature, judiciary and policing system which are constructed by various political system.
On the other hand, what is right or wrong within Morality and Ethics are managed within the self-consciousness of the individuals in their brain and minds via the faculty of morality, reason, intellect, wisdom and their conscience within the collective of humanity. The supposedly ‘legislature’, ‘judiciary’ and ‘policing’ are managed and confined within the individual brain/mind and not externally from political, religious or other systems.
Therefore you cannot conflate Morality & Ethics with Politics and qualifications must be made where they interact at the edges [if any].
With your sort of instruction in Ethics, I am not surprised you will churn out students who are brainwashed without the ability to think for themselves [unable to be objective as evident with your views of Trump] and end up hating the other [as in the ‘us versus them’ tribalism].
The last paragraph in the above quote is a blatant commission of the fallacy Argumentum ad Hominem.
Does anyone here believe that Prismatics has read carefully any of the writings listed below in the References? Do they teach “hating the other”
On the contrary.
How many times at this Forum have I posted: Whatever the question, love is the answer. {Intrinsic valuation is a way of expressing love. Readers of my writings know that Intrinsic value is integral to the very definition of “ethics” in the theory. I adopted this idea from R. S. Hartman, the profound philosopher. He first proposed it in his magnum opus, The Structure of Value. }
I do not hate Donald Trump. In him I recognize the same sadism that Jim Jones had when he invited his followers to suicide, recommending that they “drink the Koolade.” Trump has a criminal mind. He is obviously corrupt through and through. Anyone who has ethical sensitivity would immediately detect, when first observing Trump’s conduct, that the man is definitely unethical.
With respect to the first sentence: “I am surprise …etc.” why is it surprising that a teacher or a philosopher would ask a participant in a dialogue a question? I asked Observer for clarity in what he posted.
I agree that Ethics and Morality are two distinct concepts; I devote separate chapters to explaining each of them. The more moral principles one is devoted to, and faithfully puts into practice, the higher the degree of that person’s morality.
Ethics, the theory, can be applied to the field of Politics just as it can be applied to many other topics. There is no conflation there. [Is yours truly being falsely accused of conflating? It appears so. It’s not about me, though; it is about having an Ethics course being taught in high schools.]
He said that they will “end up hating the other” because of the brainwashing type of methods being used in place of a “thinking for yourself” type of instruction. Merely preaching to others can easily cause hating even if you are preaching to love (just look at what happened with the Catholics).
Your ethical sensitivity isn’t any higher than mine. And I see just the opposite. Perhaps your brainwashing method has done the same to you as Prismatic was talking about. Being brainwashed, you wouldn’t know it of course, despite many people telling you so. That is how evil those methods are.
That would be like trying to apply capitalism to communist China. Communism infects the capitalists instead. Politics is a far greater influence that any preaching of ethics. Politics displaces ethics every time.
And if you had ethical sensitivity, you would know that already.
You are conflating politics per se with Morality & Ethics per-se.
The following are the encompassing perspective of Ethics.
ETHICS-in-General [Source: Greek-Aristotle] which is all encompassing the following;
1a-Morality The Establishment of Moral Principles
1b-Applied Ethics - moral principles applied in practice to all aspects of life.
Since applied ethics is applicable to all aspects of life, as such there is applied-ethics within Politics.
But applied ethics in politics is only applicable to practices confined to the process of political system. For example one should follow whatever rules that are established an accepted by all parties in the political games, like no cheating, bribing, corruption, etc.
Once the political system is set up and enacted, whether one vote of X, Y or Z is not an ethical issue. The exercise to vote is not an ethical deliberation but a political act.
Because Trump was vetted and was legally accepted as a candidate within the accepted political system, there is nothing unethical about it.
It is only unethical if Trump has cheated in becoming a candidate for election.
Playing the political game is like playing a chess game or any other game. Whatever is ethical or unethical is confined to the rules of the games, i.e. no cheating or whatever is dictated by the rules established accepted by all players.
That you insist Trump is not ethical is your personal views and has nothing to do with ethics and morality proper. You are not the ‘all powerful God’ to make the ultimate judgment of Trump and imposing your judgments on others. This is where you are conflating politics with ethics-morality proper.
To be ethical within the political system a voter must be objective in voting for the candidate but you have not been objective but rather is very emotional and psychological in being anti-Trump.
As for Morality and Ethics proper, the deliberation is to promote the morality competence of all human individuals to a point where humanity will establish optimal life systems in all aspects of life other than the ineffective ones we have at present. This means we will establish more effective political systems.
Perhaps we could progress morally to a point in the future where we don’t even need political systems but are capable to self-governance towards optimal living for all of humanity.
One of the aims of a course in Ethics is to help everyone in the class know how to tell good values from bad ones. The good values are those that are derived from good Ethical Theory:They relate to being kind, considerate, responsible, empathic, respectful, authentic, transparent, having honesty, maturity, self-leadership, The course should also develop an understanding of the techniques of ethical habit-formation as well as showing how Ethics applies to practical daily life.
You mean like virtue signalling who to love or hate and like those teachers banning and shaming kids because they praised their President.
Politics trumps ethics every time. And you seem to have no solution for that. So any ethics courses would end up being no more than political programming (“brainwashing”). The Chinese are quite good at it (it comes with socialism and communism).
Donald Trump is not just a narcissist, he’s a psychopath.
I’m not even talking about MY metrics for what a psychopath is… just the standard version.
Psychopaths are great at fucking models, they completely fail at holding the world.
You folks are probably psychopaths too.
The difference between a narcissist (and Donald Trump definitely has this personality disorder!)
And a psychopath is that psychopaths are incapable of feeling guilt. Sound familiar? Donald Trump to a tee.
Donald Trump is literally a psychopath.
Now, I haven’t been alive for the last 250 years, but I’d venture a guess that trump is the very first psychopath president in US history… not only that, he’s the very first post modern / post structuralist / moral nihilist president in US history.
He’s a horrible, horrible example of a human being.
After I plainly explained that the values taught in this course are the following: we are (in order to be ethical) to I-Value everyone, and to efficiently and effectively practice helpfulness, consideration, kindness, responsibility, accountability, self-respect, other-respect, authenticity, honesty, and self-leadership – you write: “You mean signaling … who to hate and shaming.”
Is it possible that you are twisting my words and their meaning?
You wouldn’t do that to a fellow on a Forum about love, would you?! We love Philosophy.
Yes.
I would add to the above list of values that of Cooperation. It is true that cooperation on a worthwhile goal has benefits. We ought to have a democratic say as to what are the goals for which we aim. In a sense, that vote on goals, on policy, is “politics.”
ON POLITICS
We can’t get away from politics since it permeates all of daily life …if by “politics” we mean the policies, practices, norms, and institutions that guide our daily lives. If we want a home built, or a bridge built, it will require cooperation among the workers who do it for us.!! It takes politics to get that bridge authorized and initiated. …the same for a road that leads from our house to a street or a highway that takes us to a food store.
Another sense of the word “politics” is: “Get on our bandwagon! We are going to win!! We tell one crowd one thing, and another crowd something else: we are deceiving. We are opportunistic. We hope the public has a short memory, so they won’t remember what we promised them.”
This is closer to the definition you offered us in an earlier post. I fully agree that your definition is a good one.
The latter concepts of “politics” have no place in a classroom. Who needs that kind of politics!!!
Who needs a President that lies thousands of times, so often that fact-checkers can’t even keep up with him? Who wants a President whose reality in his ind is distinctly different from the reality of the rest of us?
Who wants a hypocritical President who himself votes by mail-in ballots yet who doesn’t want anyone else to vote that way?
I suspect that your idea of philosophy and mine are different. I think philosophy is about questioning dogma and coming up with rational answers. Preaching a version of ethics is NOT philosophy. It is paramount to religion.
Except that you favor spreading lies. Spreading lies is not being rational. It is anti-rational.
So far you seem to be promoting (in schools) both religious style dogma-ethics and deceptive propaganda (socialism). Philosophy (and especially science and rationality) seems to be the last thing you favor.
There can be no actual democracy in the midst of spreading lies - deceptive propaganda (socialism).
So rather than keeping politics out of the schools, you are now saying to include it as part of “ethics” sermons.
Rationality and logic get around politics. Preaching virtues is religion (which is just an older style of politics).
Yet so far you have proposed no way to keep it out of the schools, which means that your “ethics” class will quickly turn into merely a political propaganda class. You are saying that you cannot prevent it.
And now you demonstrate that you really are a victim of that propaganda that you say cannot be avoided. I have very closely watched for those reported lies. I found that almost every case is provably the lies of the reporters/media - the propagandists of which you have been blindsided because you had no ethics concerning spreading lies.
That is one of the many simple minded scams promoted by the political propaganda that you have no means to keep from yourself or out of schools.I could go into why the things you believe about Mr Trump are all lies, but I’m pretty sure that you are not interested in finding that out. You prefer the lies. And you call that “ethical”?
Now I will say that not only is my ethical sensitive “as high as yours” but is in fact greater than yours because I believe in going through the due diligence of examining and finding out who it is that is really lying. I believe that being truthful is a big part of being ethical. You seem to have no concern about it.
And another teacher thinks that the values in order of priority are: independence, freedom, developing greatness, entrepreneuship, creativity, respect, dignity and treating others with mutual respect. These may or may not be compatible with your list, but the liklihood is that they can lead to
radically
different behaviors, laws, policies, guidelines, ideal character traits, senses of what one is responsible for and not responsible for.
Heck, even accepting completely your list could lead to very different conclusions about how to behave, depending on the interpretation of those words and how they are prioritized.
Think about how tough love, for example, has led to a wide range of behaviors and how these were seen as kind regardless of the differences, let alone the differences from those parents nad institutions that would not consider tough love in some way kind.
Thank you for a fine contribution to the discussion. I believe I grasp your position: I see where you’re coming from.
That “other teacher” of which you speak does not seem to be adhering to the major concepts of the curriculum here proposed. He does not show a familiarity with the system of Ethics on which this proposed course is based. Does he actually define Ethics the way The Structure of Ethics booklet does?
Yes, I agree that “Even accepting completely your list could lead to very different conclusions about how to behave, depending on the interpretation of those words and how they are prioritized” You have found a difficulty. Does that mean we should not go ahead with the project …because there is a difficulty?
I have been assuming that what is taught in the References given below was rather clear and understandable. Maybe I was wrong. I realize I cannot make a student care if due to his upbringing and his background experiences he has already been conditioned to cheat, to embezzle, to be selfish, to give in to any temptation, to corrupt himself, and to be quite dishonest. One course, even if it assigns doing a good deed as homework, will not make that student care about not hurting others. Most of the other students, though, who take this course may learn to care about someone other than themselves.
If they do already care, so much the better. They will then learn even more skills in human relations and moral awareness. [Unless we already have the educated conscience of a Mohndas K. Gandhi, an Angelo Roncalli, or a Dr. Martin L. King, most of us can develop more.]
As you know, this course does teach Individuality to be a high value ! Conformity is the least in value, and individualism is better, but is only E-value. In contrast, individuality is Intrinsic value applied to one’s self-concept.
Frankly, I don’t know how ‘tough love’ got into this, but I will think about it. Of course I am aware that different individuals interpret points differently. Every teacher faces that experience sooner or later. What can we do about that in a free democracy, and why would we ever want to change that? That is how we all learn. I venture to say that in any classroom, the teacher is the one who learns the most (and who is most eager to learn more
Thanks again for continuing the dialog. Nice going.
It is looking like in the US lying cheating and stealing win the day so any “ethics” courses would be for naught. It would be better to just start teaching Chinese language and ideology (again).
