Jekyll & Hyde and Moral decision making

     Having read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde previously, it was refreshing to go back and read it with the specific questions regarding moral decision making in mind.  Perhaps it is my realist views of the world in general, but I have always been in the minority camp that believes Dr. Jekyll is not transformed in Mr. Hyde necessarily, but that Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll's true form, or to put it better, the form that he has always wanted to be and it was societal restraints that allowed him to live as Dr. Jekyll for the majority of his life.  My thought is that man by nature is more evil than good in the sense his decisions are based off of self interest and if allowed to run amok, most of the decisions made by man would be considered evil or at the very least inhumane in most societies. 

     The consequential ethics of the time period in which the story is set plays a major role in both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  In 19th Century England, Victorian society has several very strict guideline for what a "gentleman" was supposed to be and Dr. Jekyll had a difficult time living within those guidelines.  It was only when he was able to transform to what I believe was his more natural state, or at least his more natural personality, that he was able to live his life free of the burden placed on him by society.  It seemed that Dr. Jekyll feared being found out not because of the things he was doing but because of what people would think about him after revealing the things that he did.  If not for these consequences of being shunned by the class of gentleman that he had grown accustomed to being a part of, I don't think Dr. Jekyll would've been nearly as conflicted with what was taking place.  If he could live as Mr. Hyde and still keep his place in society, I think he would've done it without thinking.  One could make a case that this aligns with duty based ethics as well, but overall I don't think it's a sense of duty that keeps Dr. Jekyll "good" but rather the fear of losing his status.

     If not for the consequences of trampling the child in the beginning of the novel, or beating to death the elderly man with the cane, the rush that Mr. Hyde felt from these events would be the driving force in many of his other decisions.  The underlying theme in my mind with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one that goes beyond the duality of man theme that is commonly referred to.  I think the undertones are more in reference to the nature of society and how the consequences of going against that society and its norms are what keep a lot of individuals like Dr. Jekyll from turning into a Mr. Hyde.
    
    

The Book of Matthew as it relates to Moral Decision making

I've always been of the belief that the majority of the rules written in the Old Testament were there not because they were commanded by God but because without them society would fall apart.  In my opinion, eating Kosher was  about not catching or spreading disease more so than it was about not making God angry.  I still feel pretty strongly this way today, although there are always subtle nuances that evolve given enough time.  The majority of the biblical writings dealing with laws sent down by God seem to be about building a peaceful society.  Not so much about what God wants or does not want.  They are all very similar to what was written by Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Thomas Aquinas with regards to what is necessary for a society to flourish and for the individuals inside that society to work towards the greater good or the final cause.

After going over the readings for this week, I found the readings from the Book of Matthew to be the most interesting as they relate to the question of moral decision making.  The Book of Matthew reading of Chapter 5:17-48 goes into greater detail about the many laws put forth in earlier scriptures and texts, focusing specifically on the Ten Commandments.  The part that I found to be the most interesting and the most in line with my own beliefs comes near the end of the reading, starting from verse 38 where he states,

       “You have heard that it was said, Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an  evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles." (NRSV Matthew 5:38-42)

The way I read this is the beginning of the Bible version of the Golden Rule.  Matthew continues by stating that you should not only love your family but you should love your enemy.  This aligns with the way I have tried to live my life as well as the way I have tried to raise my children.  None of us are going to get it right, none of us are perfect.  But if we strive for perfection and always try to treat others as we would like to be treated, I don't see how one would not end up after everything was said and done, having lived a good and moral life.  There is literally not one Commandment that I have not broken at one time or another.  That is most definitely not said to be boastful of such things, but merely to highlight that as hard as we try, sometimes we will fall short of doing what is morally right.  But if the intent is there to live in a way that strives to be as perfect as God is perfect, knowing that you may stumble along the way, the end result will end up being a society full of people who are morally sound.  I believe that was the goal of all of the biblical readings regarding laws.  To make a just and successful society.

 

Biblical Readings & Quesion 2

The bible tells many stories that are used as ways of teaching people how they could possibly live their life. While there are those who live exactly by the bible, there are also those who do not live their lives verbatim to what the bible says to do. When reading these passages, I noticed that they were all teachings of how one could live a moral life through the eyes of God. Between the different readings we read, there were many connections to the question that we are discussing this part of the semester.

Exodus 20:1-17 was one of the major readings that related to our question of: what is morally right? In this story, Moses has just lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt, where they were held in captivity by the Pharaoh. They break at Mt. Sinai where Moses climbs the mountain to speak with God. Here is where God bestows the Ten Commandments to Moses. These commandments are supposed to be guidelines that humans should follow in order to live a happy and good life.

This reading really digs into duty-based ethics, which is all about following rules and guidelines in order to determine what is right and what is wrong. The ten commandments speak of violence, lust, false prophets, greed and other topics that we deem today as being "hot-topics". It tells of how to deal with these topics and what is considered right and what is considered wrong in Gods eyes. However, it only speaks in general terms, it is not specific to one event. This leads people to interpret them as they see fit, which can lead to some disputes. Duty-based ethics would say that we as people need to follow the 10 commandments as they are written, so exactly word for word and apply it to any event that falls under its category. So, following the commandments will lead one down a path of good, while not following them will only bring evil. The duty-based people would be Christians who live their life by the commandments.

The second reading I read was Exodus 1:8-22 and it relates to the ethic topic of consequentialist. This was a story of how Egyptian mid wives were instructed by the pharaoh to kill any baby boys that were born, but to let the girls live because the Hebrew population was growing too rapidly. However, the mid wives went against the pharaohs orders and did not kill the baby boys, because they feared God and what he would do to them if they murdered new born children. This relates to consequentialist ethics by showing how the housewives were afraid of what would happen to them if they disobeyed their superior. While the pharaoh was their boss on Earth, they were under the influence of a higher authority; God. They knew that they would experience the wrath of God if they killed those baby boys, so they disobeyed the pharaoh and did what they felt was right, which was to listen to Gods demands. They based their actions off of what they thought would benefit them the most in the long run, and let the consequences of their actions be the determining factor of what was right and what was wrong.

Source Code and Moral Decision Making

     The movie "Source Code" deals with the US government and it's military having the ability to keep basically dead servicemen alive in a state of quasi purgatory so that they may have themselves implanted into another person for a short period of time in the hopes of preventing a tragedy.  I've previously seen the movie but watched it again now that I have questions in my mind going into it.  The moral decision that must be made by the workers, most notably Cpt. Goodwin,  who deals with the soldiers being used in the experiment, due to their close proximity and the bond that they will inevitably start to feel with them is one that I would hope not to ever have to make.  Do you continue to allow somebody who has every right to not want to continue with a project such as this after finding out that they are pretty much dead with no hope of living besides these brief 8 minutes to be treated as CPT Stevens is, or do you go against protocol and let them die peacefully?  Knowing that there is a very good chance that continuing to use these soldiers against their will can lead to lives being saved or people being brought to "justice" for their deeds?  This is a difficult question and one that points to larger issues that go on in the world in which we live.  Though not exactly an apples to apples comparison, a similar question is do we torture individuals in the hopes that we can attain knowledge that will help prevent a tragedy?  Do we as a society force people to remain in a vegetative state even though they have wills that state they want otherwise?  Do we as a society allow for certain amounts of "collateral damage" with regards to warfare or even social or economic projects if we believe they are an acceptable loss towards a greater good?

     As far as the first question goes, Whether or not I would allow Cpt. Stevens the dignity and honor with which he deserves and let him die peacefully, the answer is absolutely yes.  At that moment at least, whether or not it may make it harder to avert a tragedy is irrelevant, since it's a tragedy itself to keep an individual in the state that Cpt. Stevens is kept.  He, along with any person deserves to die with dignity.  Dignity being defined by them and not us.  It is not our decision as to whether or not to allow it.  I would hope that at least as individuals, we would all believe this.  That even though scripture may teach us that life is sacred and that people should not commit suicide, I can certainly empathize with somebody who is terminally ill and in a lot of pain just wanting it to end.  It is not for me to judge.  Although I can see the slippery slope that is created and one that could eventually take society down the path towards ancient Athens or Sparta where children born with the smallest of defects were simply thrown down a well.

     With regards to the rest of the questions that inevitably came up when thinking about this first question, I still don't have an answer.  I would like to think that as individuals we would be against the things I listed above, but I understand that as a society or should I say as a government, certain aspects of the moral decisions need to be made in order to benefit the whole of society.  Perhaps if we all thought with more morality as individuals there would be far less instances where governments felt the need to intervene and end up surrendering the few for the benefit of the many. Basically I'm confused.  There are inherent Duty-Based Ethics that Cpt. Goodwin goes against when she allows Cpt. Stevens to have his life support terminated (although he does not ultimately "die" as far as we see).  But there are also some very serious Consequential Ethics at play.  Again, confused.

    

Source Code

Source Code was a really interesting film that dealt with the classic categories that we are currently talking about. The film really hit on two of the three ethics, in my opinion. The virtue that seemed the most prevalent was Consequentialist Ethics. Second to Consequentialist Ethics would be Duty-based Ethics. Between these two I thought the film was packed full of examples that shaped my view on what these ethics mean.

The reason why I felt that the movie mostly related to the topic of Consequentialist Ethics was due to the fact that the entire basis of the movie was to help change a future event for the better. Colter was placed into the source code to find a bomber that had blown up a train in Chicago. His goal was to find the bomber so that he could notify Goodwin, the person monitoring him, so that they could arrest the bomber and thwart him from making any other terrorist attacks. Any actions he did while in the source code affected his time and what happened to him in the code. For instance, when he was instructed to find a gun in the closet, he was stopped and tazed which made him lose time while in the code. Each time he went back into the source code he would become better and smoother, to the point where he caught the bomber within a few minutes. However, his actions in the source code did not affect what happened in reality, at least that's what we were told. When Goodwin finally pulls the plug on Colter's life support, time seems to freeze while in the source code, but then begins to continue after a few seconds. Colter finds out that his actions in the source code did in fact affect life outside of the code. He had sent a text to Goodwin from a phone within the source code, and a few minutes after his passing, Goodwin received the message. Every action Colter made in the source code affect life in a different world. It turned out that the source code wasn't memory reassignment, but actually a type of parallel world creator. This was the Ethics category that I found the most obvious throughout the movie, because it was all about Colter's actions.

 The second Ethics category that I found relatable to this movie was the Duty-based Ethics category. The entire film was about how Colter needed to fulfill his duty as a special type of soldier. Even though he was basically dead, he was kept barely alive in order to fulfill the mission in the source code. At first, Colter didn't understand why he had to do the job of searching for the bomber, but after a while of running the code and hearing about how proud his dad was of him, Colter realized that he had an important job to fulfill. This changed his mind set. He knew that he had to save thousands of people from the bomber in the real world, so he knew that it was his duty as a soldier to find the bomber in the source code and identify him for police in the real world.  

Group Meeting #4

Source Code: Classical Categories

Source Code is a mind trip of a movie.  U.S. Army Aviation pilot Caption Colter Stevens wakes up on a train to Chicago, except he's not himself.  Christiana, the women sitting across him, keeps calling him Sean, and when Stevens looks in the mirror he realizes he's not in his own body.  Still trying to grasp what's happening, the train explodes and the next thing he knows Stevens is waking up strapped to a chair in a capsule.  As the movie progresses we find out that he has been dead for two months and has since then been the lab rat for "Source Code", an experimental device used to reach alternative timelines.  He now has to find the bomb as well as the person who planted it in order to stop future attacks in the present timeline.  In typical movie fashion, Stevens saves the present timeline and figures out he can continue to live on in the alternate timeline through his new identity as Sean Fentress.  So where does classical categories come into this?  What part(s) involved moral decision making?

Stevens:  "Any soldier I've ever served with would say that one death is service enough." Rutledge:  "...And Captain Stevens, I'd like you to remember that it's not only about you, but it's also about two million real world Americans.  Now, you may not value your own life.  I do, however, ask that you value theirs."

First, we can look at Colter Stevens.  Once he finds out he is in fact dead, Stevens essentially freaks out and says that the Source Code project is unethical and they should of have let him officially die.  The creators of Source Code see their project as ethically right because they are trying to save lives.  In the eyes of Stevens - in the eyes of the experiment - service to the country has been paid.  He served, he died, and now he should have his peace.  Why does he have to be the one?  He didn't have a say in any of this.  The emotional strain is too much (or at least it can grow to be too much).  Working through these thoughts, Stevens comes to terms with his fate.  Without him they have no hope.  This isn't about him anymore, his time has already gone.  Now it's about those that are living, it's about saving them.  Consequentialism says that the importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain.  Stevens takes the ethical altruism route as he takes the action that has the best consequence for everyone but himself.

Goodwin:  "Sir...we told Captain Stevens that we were gonna let him die."  Rutledge:  "Let him die?  He just saved millions of lives today.  How many other disasters might he divert down the line?"

 Second, we can look at ethics through the eyes of Goodwin and Rutledge.  Once Stevens finds out he is dead, Rutledge tells him that once the mission is complete they will terminate his life support.  Later, Goodwin, when she allows Stevens to return to the alternate timeline one last time, tells him that she will terminate his life support once the eight minutes is up.  Goodwin intends to keep the promises made, but Rutledge has other plans.  In his eyes, the world needs Stevens and it would therefore be unethical and selfish to terminate one life that could save millions more.  Goodwin, on the other hand, feels that a promise is a promise and if Stevens wanted his life to be terminated then it would be ethical to honor that right.  Her ultimate goal is to keep her word to Stevens, but the path to get there involves her lying to and disobeying Rutledge (not to mention she will probably lose her job).  All of that doesn't matter.  All that matters is the end result:  honoring her word to give Stevens happiness.  I also think that by this point Goodwin really wanted to know if time went beyond the eight minutes, so she sort of disobeyed Rutledge for her own curiosity, too.  Consequentialism says that to act in an ultimate end manner is to act in faith rather than rational.  Rutledge was acting in a rational manner when he lied about terminating the life support in order to save more lives.  Goodwin was acting in a faithful manner when she lied to Rutledge about performing the memory wipe in order to provide Stevens with (hopeful) happiness.

Overall, Source Code showed me how one situation can be viewed ethically in multiple ways.  Through the eyes of the doer (Stevens), the initiator (Rutledge), and the middle man (Goodwin).  I still find it difficult to distinguish between the three normative ethics, though.  Maybe it's because I feel that not one in particular is always used.  Like if you knew that millions of people could die if you don't find this bomber, aren't you morally obligated to indeed find the bomber?  At the same time, aren't you going through pain to help the greater good?  And even more so, isn't this considered virtuously ethically?  Confusion ~

Virtue Ethics

Among the three normative ethics – virtue, duty-based, and consequentialist – virtue ethics seems to make the most sense.  For example, in terms of lying, a consequentialist would argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences that are produced.  A deontologist, or duty-based ethicist, would argue that lying is always wrong, regardless of good potentials.  Finally, a virtue ethicist would focus less on lying and instead consider what the decision says about one’s character and moral behavior – thus choosing to lie on a case-by-case basis.  To me, this makes the most sense because not every situation is the same, and, therefore, you can’t always follow the same set of rules.

“Plato taught that among the many admirable virtues there were four of utmost significance, which later became known as the cardinal virtues:  wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice.”  “Aristotle taught that good moral character should be formed in youth and, thus, it is the responsibility of adults – especially parents – to instill in children the habits of good character.”  Your life should be devoted to achieving balance – achieving all things in moderation.  Too much courage leads to rashness, while too little courage leads to cowardice; too much ambition leads to greed, yet too little leads to laziness; and so on.

Doing a little further research I found that there are three main branches of virtue ethics, according to this article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:  eudaimonism, agent-based, and ethics of care.  Eudaimonism is loosely translated as happiness, contentment, and fulfillment, and is a means to live and fare well.  It is the life of virtue - activity in accordance with reason, man's highest function.  By their very nature, human beings act rationally, which allows us to make decisions, change our character, and allow others to hold us responsible for those decisions. Agent based ethics focuses on our common sense intuitions about which character traits are admirable, such as benevolence, kindness, and compassion.  Ethics of care, developed mainly by feminist, calls for a change in how we view morality and virtues by switching from masculine terms (like justice and autonomy) to more feminine terms (like patience and self-sacrifice).

Because virtue ethics makes the most sense to me, it is the ethic reasoning I use the most.  I’ll give an example of something I do on a daily basis:  speeding.  When I’m on streets, throughout town and such, I tend to drift between the speed limit and five miles over.  On the highway, however, my average speed drifts between 80 and 85.  Why do I do this?  Well, on city streets there are more dangers, if you will.  There’s more stops made, more congestion, more pedestrians, more turns, more cops, etc.  The highway on the other hand, is open road, and you just go.  Now, I speed on case-by-case situations and obviously go the speed limit and follow the flow of traffic when there’s an accident, congestion, bad weather, and road work.  I don’t dangerously traffic weave while going a million miles an hour and never braking or using turn signals; I usually don’t ride close behind people.  I just like going fast and getting to my destination.  I my eyes, I’m not harming anyone. [Duty-based ethics wouldn’t speed because it is breaking the law, while consequentialist wouldn’t speed because the consequence is a ticket.]

When it makes sense to follow the rules, I do.  When it doesn’t make sense to follow the rules, I don’t.  I try to go through life using reason to achieve happiness and contentment.  Life is a balancing act - it's something you always have to work on.

Ethics

  I felt that this weeks readings were really interesting. Ethics is a super cool topic that I love talking about. What's right? What's wrong? It is very fun to talk about, because there is no real right answer. Every answer can be refuted and debated, making the topic rather subjective.

Out of the three types of ethics, Duty-based, virtue and consequentialist, I feel as though I use the consequentialist style of ethical decisions when I make my life decisions. I am definitely one who tends to think about the consequences of my actions, whether they be good or bad. As a normal human, I always try and benefit myself in every way, so I would say that each decision I make is always trying to be beneficial to myself. I don't intend that to come off as selfish or greedy, but if it is looked at in a biological approach then it makes quiet some sense. As humans, we want what is best for us, because best tends to lead to survival, so basing trying to make my decisions so that I can get the best out of a situation really just comes back to our basic human instinct of wanting the best. I guess that Ethical Egoism or the Social Contract Theory would be similar to what I'm saying. Every action we make is intended to benefit ourself. The only part of that theory that I disagree with is the fact that it means that any action you do is right because it is in the intent of making you happy. Killing a person is a great example to disprove that theory. Sure, killing a person might make a person happy, but it clearly does not make the victim happy, because they're dead. When your quest for the best interferes with the happiness of others, then that is when it becomes wrong. Also, it tends to justify selfishness which is not something that is right.

  Constantly being selfish will lead one to an unhappy life, which contradicts what the whole point of consequentialism. My goal when making my decisions is to bring the most happiness to me, and while I may receive short term happiness from being selfish, in the end I will just be alone and unhappy which is not my goal.

  The second ethics theory that I would relate to would be the Virtue Ethics. This one seems to be societies general view as to what is ethical. The way I think of it is that these are your manners. What your parents teach you and how you are raised based on society. People who's parents did not teach them socially acceptable manners are seen as bad influences and are frowned upon by society. But the question with that is what manners or virtues are right and which are wrong or is it just which ones are socially acceptable? One person can think that having elbows on the table is a trait of a bad person, while I think that there is nothing wrong with having ones elbows on the table. Which one of us is right? I think that it really just comes down to what your society accepts. This also makes life interesting because you get learn about the different virtues of different societies.  

Most Sensible Classic Category

After going through the readings for the week and trying to figure out which of the classic categories most fits how I make moral decisions and which one is more sensible, I learned that like most things, there is a grey area in which I use rationale from all 3 when making a fair amount of my decisions.

I would have to say that I think the most sensible is Virtue Ethics, since it argues that ones actions should reflect the character of said person.  If you want to believe that you are a moral person you must do moral things.  Whether or not somebody is watching.  In a perfect world I would think virtue ethics would be all that was needed.  But even Aristotle and Plato, the two philosophers most commonly mentioned in reference to the virtue eithics, realized argued that there was a constant battle for balance in the virtue ethics because certain virtues could lead to non virtuous activities.  An overabundance of courage could lead to recklessness.  Even the virtue of justice or even what the word just means is a thought that Plato cannot fully wrap his head around in The Republic.  Often times seeming to be almost sarcastic in the way he describes human nature as it relates to why people are just or why people truly obey the laws of society.  Claiming they do so more out of fear of having unjust things done to them than in actually wanting to follow the laws.

Where it relates to my own life, I found the duty based ethics to be my primary "go to" category.  The example of whether or not to speed on the way to class was particularly interesting to me since I live forty five minutes from campus on a good day and usually have to park a few blocks away due to the serious lack of parking during the current construction.  On almost a daily basis I have to use duty based ethics along with a dash of consequential ethics.  Duty based ethics is what our country and most modern Republics are founded upon.  Individual rights require a respect from other individuals in order to be fully attained.  I can have the right to not be stolen from or beat up but if there is a person in society that does not follow that way of thinking, my rights actually mean very little.  Having said that, I understand that speeding is against the law.  But as a former police officer, I also know that the chances of a police officer pulling me over in a major metropolitan area for going about 6-7 miles over the speed limit are almost non existent.  I still use duty based ethics to not go faster than what I refer to as the "unwritten speed limit", but use consequentialist ethics to determine if the risk is worth the reward of not only being on time to class, but not being the guy who shows up late, sweating, and having to knock on the door of the class while everybody stares. 

There are certainly times when I use Virtue ethics while making decisions but those are usually decisions that meet two requirements.  First is that it is a serious issue being dealt with.  Life or Death or something similar.  Second is that it is not something that will necessarily effect me directly.  Meaning that if I want to do what I think is best for other people who are in serious need, I tend to use Virtue Ethics.  My best example would be my time in the military, specifically my time spent deployed to the Middle East.  I was tasked with leading other soldiers and had to make decisions that often would have no bearing on my life whatsoever but would no doubt have very lasting impacts on others around me.  I would do my best to maintain the balance that Aristotle and Plato spoke of and that St. Thomas Aquinas took even farther with his four laws.  My soldiers and I went out of our way to not cause harm to anybody unless it was blatantly clear that they meant to do us harm.  I personally went out of my way not to send my soldiers out somewhere without proper guidance, training, or preparation in order to keep them from being injured.  By balancing courage and recklessness, just and unjust, at that moment the best or at least the most suitable classic category was virtue ethics.

So I guess after all of this ranting, I've come to the conclusion that what is most sensible or what suits me best has more to do with my environment than me.  I would fully expect the moral compass of somebody living in a worse neighborhood than mine or a worse country than ours to not point the same direction as mine when I sit in my house in this country.