BellaOnline Forums Education Distance Learning Would you Enjoy Learning about Ethics?

Jill brought up an interesting idea in a different forum area, one that hadn't even occurred to me. I think it's worth exploring.

I adore talking about ethics and philosophy and what-if situations. I love looking at issues from various angles. To me that is thrilling and fun.

Are there people out there who would dislike an ethical discussion? If so, what part of the discussion would be the part you did not enjoy?

To me it is like watching a House episode, watching the ethical situation unfold and then talking about all the angles of it with my boyfriend. I love the mental gymnastics, the all-angles with no right or wrong.

Is the unhappy feeling for some that there *is* no right or wrong? That there's no solution? Or is it something else?

Hi Lisa

The title of your post made me think you were talking about structured learning. Are you more talking about discussions?

I find ethics interesting, and quite often see multiple sides of a situation. I also believe that ethics may have cultural, family and societal roots.

You asked if (and tell me if I have this right!) unahappiness in some can be due to their belief that there is no right or wrong. I have always found science fiction and fantasy interesting because they explore the limits of good and evil, and have wondered how it would be if we did not have these concepts - for how can you have good without evil, how can you have right without wrong? It would be interesting to know if there were words for right and wrong in every language of the world (I expect there might be words, but they could mean very different things).

I loved my ethics class in college and all the discussions.I would definitely be interested in joining in a class like this.

Sarah Redhawk

Asha -

I am currently taking an online six week ethics course - I'm in week 2 of six. Our course material is a book with essays on various ethical situations along with videos that illustrate similar situations. The videos are *great* because they're unscripted. They take a real manager and sit him in a room and say "An employee who has worked for you for 5 years is about to come in - let's see how you deal with what he says." So the manger is given only a brief synopsis of his relationship with the guy and then he has to react off-the-cuff to what comes at him. It is fascinating to watch. You learn a lot.

So anyway, as students we read an essay and watch a video. Then most of the class is us talking in the forums with each other about the ethical aspects of what we saw and read. We do write a 2 page paper at the end of each week to submit to the teacher, but most of what we do is the classroom discussion.

The teacher does not "guide" the discussion in any way or direction. It is up to the students to examine all the angles. Some students don't do that though. Some students have one solid point of view, from one specific angle, and that is that. They get very upset if you express any other view because to them it is clearly "wrong" (if not "evil").

To me that is like the proverbial blind man holding onto an elephant's tail and saying "It's clearly a rope! The rest of you are wrong!"

In terms of words in other languages I found this fascinating discussion about the word "fair" being perhaps only an English word -

Fair in English Only?

Apparently other languages have words for "justice" and such but not for the special flavor of word that "fair" is. Especially Russian apparently.

I can't find any pages about "right" and "wrong" in other languages - my google searches aren't able to get the word "wrong" as a word. They find me results about things that ARE wrong

As I wrote in that other forum, you can't know what you would do in a given situation until you are there. Too many variables. Talking about what you would think you would do is annoying mental masturbation in my mind.

Fair enough, it's fascinating how different people approach situations!

I do like talking about what I think other people might do. Like in our House scenario.

That might help me a lot too. So there is a difference between discussing just what the person in the example should do, based on their background, vs talking about what you the reader would do? One would be a subject you would want to discuss and the other would be a subject you'd rather not discuss?

Right. There is no way you can know personally what you would do in a given situation. IMO. You don't really know what you are made of - you can only guess. When I worked at Outward Bound I DID get to see what I was made of, in plenty of survival situations where leadership was called for. It comforts me to know I can do what a group needs of me in those situations. Still, that was then. This is now. We change, we grow, we slide back...in a new cusp, all i can really do is guess how i would actually react to ANYTHING. It boggles the mind. I simply think too literally to enjoy talking about what I would personally do because I do not know for sure. So even thinking about such things is exhausting and tiresome.

Or there may be other circumstances. The variables. Maybe your MIL is dying and needs the money for an experimental treatment. Maybe your car just died and it's the fourth one you've bought in 12 months and would be utterly isolated in your remote home with no transportation and you are seriously mentally ill in the first place. Maybe you are thinking of killing yourself and your last ditch action to live is taking the money and disappearing for a while to backpack across Asia.

Maybe your house just burned down. Or maybe a cascade of less dire things is occurring. One can't just snottily say, "oh, this money is dirtyyyyyyy. I am above keeping such things for myself." Maybe you do give it away to charity and THEN you have an emergency and need to live off it for the next six months, or someone you love is in need.

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See, i get too worked up when it's personal. But talking about it remotely, as in what would a certain character on TV do - that is just playing.

That is good to know, thank you for the insight!

Until you are faced with a decision I doubt if anyone could say for certain what is ethically correct; far too many variables. It is interesting you bring up House. I recently discovered the show since I have had so much down time. I am not a big fan of TV. Really decided I liked the show, ended up renting it from season one. George and I have had a wonderful time discussing the ethics of many of the decisions made. I will have to admit, I have often surprised myself when pondering all the alternatives that would conclude a right or wrong answer, if there is a right or wrong answer.

I definitely agree that to me a defining aspect of ethics is that there are no right and wrong answers and that the shades of grey alter with every new variable you add or remove. So to me that is why I enjoy it so much, there are limitless possibilities.