In a University intro to ethics class, John Dolan once asked whether the right answer to ethical questions could be something really strange, something nobody would guess in a million years -- in the way that, for example, the answers to some questions in physics are strange and unexpected. I thought then that the answer had to be "no." Lately I am not so sure.
My spouse recently rented a popular book from the library, to avoid waiting a month for a circulating copy. Nobody protested. But when someone in the butcher shop one night tried to buy a better place in line, the other meateaters were scandalized. Had Mr. Rich simply ordered his meat delivered, no one would have blinked.
Another case: lots of society is easy with capital punishment, but only if doctors supervise so it's painless. People don't worry about the pain caused by the years of waiting to be executed. And people would be horrified at the thought of doctors causing measured amounts of pain to criminals on some regular schedule, as punishment -- or amputating their crime-enabling parts, as a condition of release. The predictable pains and humiliations of incarceration are however taken as normal, acceptable, part of the package.
I don't understand ethics.
Posted by shea0017 at June 16, 2004 10:21 AM