After reading the article linked below, agree or disagree with the following statement: "Trying to become more ethical — or teaching people how to — would seem doomed. . . ." Elaborate the reason or reasons for your response. Your response is due no later than midnight, Monday, Jan. 27.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/your-money/in-life-and-business-learning-to-be-ethical.html?
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I added these as illustrations:
http://www.purduereview.com/5/professors-deliberately-ignore-shooting-endanger-students/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/harsh-penalties-prompt-rampant-test-cheating-nuclear-officers-say.html?hp
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Saturday, January 11, 2014
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Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
28 comments:
After I read the article, some aspects of the article gave me the idea to agree with the fact that it may seem that becoming more ethical or teaching people how to become more ethical can seem to have an unfortunate outcome. The article stated, “it’s just that how we teach ethics has to catch up with what we know about how the human mind works.” I agree with this statement because I believe having good ethics comes from how people were once taught by their parents or elders as they were growing up. In addition, it is how you feel after you have made the decision; as in whether it was ethical or not. Did you feel content with the decision you have made? A person’s ethical morals is what makes a person distinctive, which is why I strongly suppose that you can teach someone to be ethical, but it does not necessarily mean that they will be ethical. You can teach a little kid not to play with fire, but does that mean they are not going to play with it? We cannot say that teaching someone to be more ethical will seem doomed because not everyone may agree with what others may think is ethical or not. Trying to become more ethical or teaching people how to does not necessarily have to seem doomed. The way people think is the biggest challenge for people to make ethical decisions. The article states, “We don’t willfully do bad things, but when we’re under threat our initial instinct is to downplay or ignore problematic situations.” If people ignore the thought of looking like a fool or what other people will say, I believe that will lead to people making more ethical decisions.
I believe it is possible for people to be taught to behave more ethically. The article suggests that various business crimes are the result of people "turning their backs" on what they believe to be ethical. Since these crimes are defined as unethical by society, an individual acting ethically in a amoral business institution would not involve the individual refusing to turn a blind eye to the malpractices and looking inside themselves for the ethical action, but instead turning to an even larger institution, society, for the right thing to do. The article suggests that the reason people act unethically in groups is because they fail to listen to their inner ethical being, instead going along with the group. What they really need to do is go along with the even larger group of society.
When the people in the study lied about what side their coin landed on, they were acting unethically, I suppose, but I have to note that the decision to lie about it isn't exactly a major moral crisis.
I think (since yesterday's class, anyway) that people have an innate sense of ethics, but it is a very simple, clan-based way of looking at the world. It is the ethics of pre-agricultural revolution man. Things are far more complicated these days; it isn't just the extended family that we must be ethical towards, but the entire globalized world. Basic morality cannot be taught, but advancing that morality to function in the modern world can. This is why there are classes in ethics.
The people in the coin-flipping study were dodging ethics, and they should learn to act more morally. However, their ethical foible is very understandable. As far as I can tell, the people in the study did not know each other. It's hard to have empathy for a stranger. I believe that if the subjects knew each other, they would be more likely to be truthful, not wanting to stick their friends with the shit task.
This is where morality can be taught. If the study was conducted with subjects that knew each other, they would act more ethically because of the aforementioned basic clan morality; they have empathy for those they know. What can be taught to empathy for ALL, whether you know them or not.
I believe that despite everyone knowing what ethics is and understanding how to apply them in certain situations not a lot of people truly apply them in real life. I agree that the issue of conforming and allowing peer pressure to cloud one’s mind of the "right thing to do," is a serious issue but can we really change a person? In class it was said that your family isn't your ethics but I strongly believe that your family is what stemmed your ethics. When we grow up we learn what is right and what is wrong as basic principles of life but from those basic principles we grow and they do as well. I agree with Elizabeth that the environment in which the person is raised definitely impacts the person’s ethics. An individual who group up on the streets and all they saw growing up was people steeling and lying to purely survive; their ethics would be warped compared to a child who grew up in a healthy home environment. I believe a person can be taught how to be ethical but I believe it’s only up to that individual to put those lessons into effect. The issue of turning our backs is not an easy issue to resolve. We, even I feel the pressure of people around me in situations that call for an ethical decision. It's this gut wrenching feeling that I’m not sure is so easily manipulated to go away in our subconscious. Kristen Renwick Monroe stated in the article, "I was only one person." Sometimes it takes only 1 person in a situation that calls for an ethical decision to enlighten others around watching, how important it is for someone to stand up and not be afraid. I believe it is moments like those that truly inspire people to bring their ethical sides to the surface and the next time they are in an ethical situation they won't think twice.
This article was extremely thought provoking to say the least. After re-reading it about three times, I came to somewhat of a conclusion, at least based on my own situations and what I've seen in others. I absolutely think that people can be taught to act ethically, but only if they are willing to do so. The article stated "First we need to be more aware of the ways we fool ourselves. We have to learn how to avoid subconsciously turning our backs when faced with a moral dilemma." A lot of people when faced with a moral decision will know the right thing to do, but not act on it...this reminds me of anxiety. When people have anxiety they are trying to avoid the fear and the emotions that come with the situation, regardless of if the outcome is going to be positive or not. I think ethics is almost the same kind of thing. If I do the right thing, it will make me very uncomfortable to do so, so I'll just let it slide this one time. Eventually, brushing off acting ethically one time, will lead to you doing it without even realizing it. The more you do something, the more comfortable you become. It's human nature to stay within your comfort zone, and I don't think that people realize that small decision making ultimately leads to your development and decision making in the long term.
According to the New York Times article only 10 to 20 percent of the population base their decisions of what they know to be right. While the rest of the human race allow individual desires or needs decide when confronted with ethical decisions. The article goes on to quote from Professor Philip G. Zimbardo, the creator of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, who believes that by instilling the rest of the population with knowledge will allow more people to make ethical decisions. In my opinion, the Heroic Imagination Project only teaches people the potentially compromising social behaviors they may encounter without providing them with ways to choose what is right. Within my own experience, my knowledge of things like the bystander effect has only made me aware of what the right choice is, although I would probably choose to tend to my desires rather than ethics. Personally, I believe that even if I had extensive knowledge about these ethical dilemmas I would act for my own needs before considering ethics. For example, I asked my friend the question in the title and received the answer: “Ethics are for the weak.” As cocky and ridiculous as it sounds, it brought me to think of how easy it is for people to convince themselves that their behavior is ethical, while very little people will admit their own ethical shortcomings. I think most people that claim to adhere to a code of ethics are looking for some type of acceptance or attention from those around them. In that respect, even the people that may do the right thing, only act on their personal desires.
Thankfully, I do not believe that teaching ethics is a lost practice. The author of the article made a good point, explaining that most people know how they SHOULD act but don’t necessarily execute this thinking. They went on to suggest that if we could teach people ethics and arrange situations for practicing these principles, acting ethically would become automatic and people would begin to do the right thing in actual circumstances. The author also explained that people oftentimes act for acceptance and opt to make decisions that will earn them friendship and approval from those around them more than anything. Perhaps if everyone were taught how to behave ethically, the popular decision and the moral decision would be the same.
While I am hopeful, of course I know that teaching ethics is not so easy. Each person comes from a different background and upbringing and not everyone will view the same decision as moral or ethical. This discrepancy in humanity and culture also makes teaching ethics difficult, but not impossible. As you explained in class, oftentimes the question will be of right vs. right, which is more challenging than matters of right vs. wrong. I think the most important step we must make in our quest towards ethics is to stop making choices based on the reactions of others. This problem is evident in our society with all matters, but I believe that altering this mindset will greatly improve our ability to make ethical decisions.
After reading the article, I would have to disagree. I think that becoming more ethical, or teaching people how to, is possible. However, it can be difficult depending on the person’s upbringing and innate sense of character. When we were younger, we learned most things from following by example and being lectured by our parents. This didactic method of learning can only go so far. As we grow up, we face different moral dilemmas and situations that bring out our ethical being. If we don’t experience these challenging dilemmas, along with their consequences, our ethics cannot be shaped. We can change our instinctual method of decision-making, but only if we have the willingness to do so. If we can “become aware of our natural inclinations” when we go through these dilemmas, then we can start to rewire how we behave in moral dilemmas. This is a very difficult thing to do, but NOT impossible! Now that more information and studies about the brain are coming out, we can learn more about different ways we can control our decision-making and different exercises that can trigger emotions when put in certain situations. The more we are subject to these anxieties and emotions we face when going through these dilemmas, the more we can control them. I’m having trouble with settling on an answer though, because it truly depends on the willingness of the person!
After reading the article on the NY Times website, it definitely made me take a step back and think about my own past choices and times when I may have wished I did or said something else. Whether a given incident or situation is big or small we've all been taught what the "right" thing to do is. But as stated in the article, even though we may know something to be right, we rarely follow through with it. A major cause of this, as expected, is our constant need to feel accepted or be well liked. The article also stated that in order to become more ethical we "have to learn how to avoid subconsciously turning our backs when faced with a moral dilemma. And then we must be taught how to challenge people appropriately in those situations." I feel like this is much easier said then done, making the correct ethical decision does not get easier as you get older but rather easier as you become more aware of your own personal ethical beliefs and as you experience more challenging situations. People do have the ability to change and while certain upbringings, such as economic standards, religion, and family, can hinder your ethical decision making skills, once again the best way to combat this is to be aware of it and how it effects you. It comes to no surprise to me that the biggest hinderance to us making the ethical choice is our constant struggle to wanting to feel accepted. This makes me always ask, why? Why do we care so much? Shouldn't making the right choice outweigh wanting to be liked? Time and time again this has proven to be untrue. I believe in order to make the correct ethical decision we need to first work on and face our fear of wanting to be accepted by our peers in order to accept yourself and the ethical choices we make.
After reading the article, I disagree with the statement “Trying to become more ethical — or teaching people how to — would seem doomed...” I believe that becoming more ethical or teaching someone to become ethical is a challenge, but it is in no way impossible. One example that comes to mind is teaching a child not to lie. Children often lie, but are then taught by their parents that lying is wrong. The author said many people know how they should act; yet they still don’t act in an ethical manner. I disagree with this because I believe there are so many people in the world today that have no idea how they should be acting and are so oblivious to their surroundings. While it would be a tremendous challenge to change how these people act ethically, I think it could definitely still be done with enough hard work. It would take a lot of time to break the person's habits, but that goes with all things in life.
After reading "In Life and Business, Learning to be Ethical," I agree that you can become more ethical and teach people to become more ethical. Some people are raised or learn along the way what's right from wrong. Of course people have different perspectives on what's right and wrong. However, it's up to the person to put those ideals into every day situations.
But when people are faced with difficult situations, people forget all about what they've been taught. They try their best to not intervene because everyone is focused on themselves. It's an ongoing cycle that people wait for others to deal with difficult situations. People should begin to become more courageous in situations. I believe that people are capable in becoming stronger and standing up for what they believe in.
I feel that people are more worried about what others think rather than taking action. Just because you were raise a certain way doesn't mean you have to stick to those ideals and it also doesn't mean you can force your ideals down people's throat.
People with more money or power doesn't necessarily have the right to make the decisions. A good example was the article about the shooting, just because teachers have power in the classroom, doesn't make them necessarily right when situations like this come to play.
Philip G. Zimbardo is a great example that you can teach a group of people about being ethical no matter if you're a student or a professor. If we can teach people a specific skill than we can teach people about morals.
I would agree with the statement as far as teaching ethics SEEMing doomed. It amazes some people that somebody with the title of “Director of Campus Emergency Preparedness and Planning” could even exist given the response of faculty to a school shooting, but it shouldn’t be so unexpected. Our culture has progressively become populated by people who would rather not be responsible for anything. I particularly enjoyed this quote from the Tugend article: “We don’t willfully do bad things, but when we’re under threat our initial instinct is to downplay or ignore problematic situations.” This explains all three situations very well as well as countless others in our society.
When people enter situations such as jobs, they enter them for very shallow reasons. Our society makes income necessary. That’s all a job has become. When people are living their day to day life, they don’t consider the monumental roles that they play in their respective aspects of society. A perfect example is the launch officers who control some of the most dangerous positions in the world. The knowledge that even they don’t seem to take their jobs seriously is incredible.
With all this in mind, the concept of instilling ethics back into society (if it existed to begin with) is daunting. I do, however, think it is merely a matter of showing people the problem. People are shocked at the things that happen in these articles. People still don’t seem to grasp the Zimbardo study. When people realize that they aren’t the moral, upstanding citizen they see themselves as, maybe they will be open to the lessons. Thinking about whom one is and what one’s actions represent is integral to reintroducing ethics. It may seem doomed, but it’s too important to turn away from.
I think it's completely possible to be taught to be a more ethical person, and therefore trying to become more ethical — or teaching people how to — would not seem entirely doomed. However, the creation of a more ethical person, to me, doesn't lie in the teaching of ethics. Someone can be “taught” to be more ethical; we are original taught to be ethical when we are very small, but the formulation of our ethics from our teaching is more so based on if we practice these ethics and are continuously held accountable for them. In this, they are “etched” into our brain and thus ethics can be taught/learned to the point where it is very visible they were taught/learned. In my opinion this is why some people exemplify ethics stronger than others. Most of us are taught the same sorts of ethical behavior, but not all of us end up following these ethics for the reasons previously stated. You can know what is ethical from being taught was it ethical, but that doesn't mean you will behave ethically.
And this doesn't change as we grow older, especially considering what the article said about the transition of ethics from a philosophical foundation to a more behavioral based approach to what is right and wrong, which I fully agree with. If we based our ethics and our display of these ethics from the understanding that these things are right because they simply are what is the good, truthful, and just thing to do, there wouldn't need to be such accountability and reinforcement of doing the right thing. People would simply just do it because in the battle of good and evil, people generally side with good. But that's not the way it is anymore. I personally feel as though this is partially because any religious standard of right and wrong once had much more weight in people's lives than it does to day - whether that is good or bad is a conversation in and of itself. This then leads to what Jonathan Haidt said in the article, that ethics isn't black and white anymore and is viewed through not a philosophical, but behavior lens, that is more about why we do what we do and not just simply how we act. And since being ethical is not about the ethics you are taught, but how you choose to illustrate said ethics, the question of “why” is really what should be highlighted.
And as the article suggests, our survival instinct leads us to want to be liked and included. But if the general concept of ethics and the expression of them no longer are ingrained in our general philosophy toward life, it is easy to see how the common compliance of everyday ethics is flickering out. The most common example of all this is mob mentality. You can't tell me that in a large grouping of people, not one will do anything about someone getting attacked because they weren't taught ethics and do not understand the ethically right thing to do. They simply are not acting on what they know, because they refuse to stand alone in a situation. So ultimately, if we want people to have better ethics, the focus needs to be placed not necessarily on teaching ethics, but taking the ethics already taught and applying them regardless of circumstance - a lesson entirely different and a separate struggle all together.
Teaching people how to become more ethical would easily benefit our existence. I think our “survival of the fittest” depends heavily on ethics even more now than ever before. Let’s just take, for example, the 3 R’s: “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” Through this phrase alone, 1) school programs have developed 2) home recycling has become a widely practiced process 3) discounts at coffee shops for having reusable tumblers have been offered. All of this consciousness has helped humanity and the planet. The 3 R’s has created an ethical awareness. The Civil Rights movement created an ethical awareness. Macklemore’s performance at the Grammy’s had instilled an ethical awareness. I do not think it is impossible to teach people how to be ethical. In fact, I think people would like to be more ethically inclined. The problem becomes: "HOW can we teach ethics?" It’s not the people, it’s the process. Of course ethics would make a better world but how do we go about it on a grand scale? Most people’s every day decisions aren’t passed into law or appear on national television. So, HOW can we take these major messages and incorporate them into our daily decisions? I feel as though so many people see ethics as, "the difference between right and wrong." What happens when you're right and could be more right? What happens when you're wrong but could be more wrong? On what spectrum can we place our choices and say, "Hey, that is an ethical decision!?" For me, it stems from our childhood's favorite phrase, "The Golden Rule---Treat others as you would want to be treated." Now, that’s fine and works for the mainstream examples that I presented…. The problem with modern, every day ethics is the structure of power. For example, top-down management on worksites. I think too many people fear loosing their jobs knowing that they need the money. We are slaves to the system. In THAT sense, ethics seems doomed. People are laced in a web of power. Even pharmaceutical companies want the currency, not the cure. In order for ethics to be taught, it would have to take the WHOLE village, but HOW?
I disagree with the statement that becoming, or teaching people to become, more ethical is doomed. Looking back in history there have always been ethical issues that effect specific groups of people (like countries, states, religions, etc.). It is not as if now, all of a sudden in the last 10 years, we have become less ethical. I feel like now with all of the different media sources we have, non-ethical decisions in the news become more important than ethical decisions. We are more likely to hear about a dirty businessman scheming his way to millions of dollars rather than the clean one who donates millions to charity.
Teaching ethics is a funny subject to me because I don’t believe that you can teach someone to be a good person. Yes, it is easier for someone’s good family-oriented upbringing to teach them how to be a good person but there are plenty good people from bad childhoods who are more ethical than those from a “proper” background. I think ethics cannot be fully taught because of the pressures that come along with decision-making. When Ann E. Tenbrunsel, professor of business ethics at Notre Dame says that “when the time for action comes, the ‘want’ self dominates” — I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to be punished,” she hits the nail on the head. Everyone who needs to make a decision always knows what the right ethical decision will be, but there are so many outside factors that impact our ability to immediately make that decision. It can be something as small as lying to a friend so they don’t get upset, to something like exposing a major clothing company owner for unsafe working conditions to jump-start a career in reporting. Everyone has loved ones, friends, or colleagues that they think about when they make decisions. Peer pressure is not a physical thing that can be removed, it is part of our natural instincts as humans. Unless peer pressure and things similar to it can be taken out of human interaction and decision-making than teaching someone how to become a good person will always be more successful than teaching someone to BE a good person.
The main reason I don’t believe that our ethical future is doomed is because people’s brains are like sponges. They absorb what they hear and see. For instance, I watched the move “Wolf of Wall Street” and after exiting the theatre everyone was talking about how cool of a life Jordan Belfourt lived. Even though the guy broke almost every ethical rule both in business and socially and served jail time for it, people still wanted to be him because of the presentation of the film putting more emphasis on the fun things than all the bad things. Exposure to ethical decision-making in both news and entertainment can strongly aide the fight to become more ethical.
Once I read the first question, can we learn to be ethical or do we want to? it brought me back to thinking about times where I have caught myself in unethical situations and making the best decision at the moment. I believe being ethical is like having manners. The same manners learned at home should be applied when it comes to a business level. It establishes a line of respect and creates a “law” for managers to follow. Trying to become more ethical should be an opinion that people should take more seriously, or even as said in the article, “teaching people how to” should also be considered. I agree with that statement because being ethical and making ethical decisions is a long-term learning process. You learn how to make ethical decisions every day when you are in the business world, you learn from case that you deal with and he experience that you have gained from certain situations. Along with that you can always teach someone how to handle a situation more ethically if you have the experience in general. Being ethical and making ethical decisions should be part of life, especially on a business type of level.
I agree with the fact that you can have resources to relate back to when you are in a very tough situation, such as the site to pull together extensive research and resources on the subject of business ethics and to making institutions more ethical. I believe that there is nothing wrong with displaying more knowledge about this matter. One part of the article that really stood out to me was the fact that in the studies made with the coins, so many people cheated their ways and made vey unethical decisions like flipping he coins to the side where they wanted it to be. Realistically, we are all human and we want things that will benefit us. Does that mean that we are unethical? No, but it does mean that we are looking for our best interest and if it means to sneak for the better, we will do it. Therefore I feel like this a great example to having these handbooks and sites that can teach and give tips of how to make a much better ethical decisions. A positive feedback about the article is that I also gives a solution and ways to think about certain problems and how, if it were you, would feel if something unethical was done to you. I believe there should be nothing wrong with always continuing to learn and be open to experiencing tough cases in the business world. That’s why I’m for the statement "Trying to become more ethical — or teaching people how to”. There is no reason it should be doomed. Many people cheat, not saying that it’s okay or if that is the right thing to do, but I believe every work place should have ethical rules and should teach employers how to make ethical decisions. Even if they are tough to handle.
I cannot say that I completely agree or disagree with the statement “Trying to become more ethical—or teaching people how to—would seem doomed..” Learning to be ethical does not involve a concrete set of rules to follow. It also completely depends upon the person considering that each human being thinks and processes things in a drastically different way. Therefore, this statement seems very broad to be able to apply it to every person.
I believe that a lot of times people are a product of their environment. Of course there are exceptions to this but a lot of times people act a certain way because of the way they were raised. How can a person make an ethical decision if they do not know any better or have never seen anything different? After reading this article, I do think that people can be taught to act more ethically, but only if they are willing to do so. Brooke Deterline discusses the initial reactions people have when they are feeling anxious or under pressure. People tend to make fast decisions that may not be the right ones but make them feel better in the moment. ““We all have automatic thoughts when we feel anxious: ‘I’m going to get fired, I’m going to look like an idiot,’ ” she said. The point is not to listen to those thoughts, but to be aware of them and override them. And to do that, we need to practice.”
Some people will make a decision that is considered to be ethically immoral and find themselves feeling guilty while others do not. The ones who do feel that guilt may think differently the next time around when making a similar decision. I liked the example the article gave about the woman who stood by and watched while Jews were being tossed into a truck but then later saved more than a dozen. This is a perfect example that people can be taught to become more ethical and I think experience is a huge part of this process—not only learning about it in a classroom.
After reading the article I would say that I agree with the statement that teaching ethics would seem to be doomed. I find the phrase "would seem" to be crucial in my agreement. The adding of these two words makes the statement in more of a gray area, rather than the black and white of saying that the teaching of ethics IS doomed or is NOT doomed. I think this because I feel that if I was attempting to teach ethics to a person or a group of people it would be very difficult because of the many varieties of people and their situations that there are. It is easy to teach someone right from wrong, such as it is wrong to kill or to steal--we have all been taught this before we could even read.
As the article showed, when people were put into a room to flip a coin for a desirable result or an undesirable result, only 10% of the people were honest about the side of the coin because they did not know they were being watched. Even though lying about flipping a coin is not the worst thing in the world you can do, the low amount of people who chose to be truthful makes me cynical towards the ethics of other people. The teaching of right from wrong or even the teaching of a proper method to making an ethical decision only can go so far. The practice of being ethical and making ethical choices depends on the individual.
Ann E. Tenbrunsel states that “When people predict how they’re going to act in a given situation, the ‘should’ self dominates — we should be fair, we should be generous, we should assert our values,but when the time for action comes, the ‘want’ self dominates” — I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to be punished." The beginning of this statement represents the teaching of ethics, that people believe that when looking forward to a certain situation, they will act a certain way, generous, showing values, ect. However, the second half shows that even though people know what the right thing to do is, they may not make this decision when actually faced with it based on other factors.
With this being said, I am not undermining the teaching of ethics. I think that it is a very important thing to be taught for personal and business aspects. People should always be aware of ethics and many people that ARE aware of what the ethical thing to do, do not always decide to do them. I just think that no matter the teacher, teaching of the concept would seem to be doomed regardless. You can teach people to be ethical until you are blue in the face but there is no guarantee that an ethical decision will be made even if the person knows better.
After reading "In Life and Business, Learning to Be Ethical," I do believe people can be taught how to be ethical. But in my opinion, they are too many social/personal stigmas that is incorporated into ethical decision making. I believe as humans when faced with something ethical, our decision making falls by the waist side. The quote "you can lead a person to the water, but you cannot make him fish" is the perfect example of this. Basically what am I saying is you can give us the lessons as what good decision making consists of but it is up to us to use it in our daily lives. I do understand the importance of ethical decision making and the importance of dealing with a moral dilemma. In order to have good ethical decision making you have to start with a good foundation (i.e. family upbringing, church, etc) but just because it is taught to us, the circumstances in our lives dictate a different response from us as we experience different life experiences. The article states ".. we must be taught how to challenge people appropriately in those situations" and "we have to avoid subconsciously turning our backs when faced with a moral dilemma." We have to be comfortable stepping outside of our comfort zone to do what makes us feel good at the end of the day. I believe that learning how to be ethical is not doomed, it is a matter of silencing those personal thoughts that cloud our minds and just focus on doing the right thing.
As much as I would love to type that I completely disagree with the stated quote of “Trying to become more ethical – or teaching people how to – would seem doomed”, and as much as I would love to explain why it is completely possible to literally teach people to become more ethical, I would be lying. I believe that an individual will not come out of a Media Ethics class having had a revelation about the way they act and suddenly turn into a virtuous human being striving to live life by their own golden path. I think the most that an ethics class can do, or any sort of ethics education, is serve as a reminder as to what is socially accepted and sometimes be a guide as to what someone SHOULD be doing. It will never actually force a person to do those things or change their opinions on contested matters regarding ethics.
The main point I am taking away and trying to emphasize now from the New York Times article “In Life and Business, Learning to Be Ethical” is that it is much harder to simply ignore ethics than to confront them. It is easier in a situation to ignore what you consider is the right thing to do than to go against the group norm which is different than your own view. It has been my experiences to view friends or family literally try to transform themselves in order to just try to appeal to those around them. People seem to try with everything to seem more likeable and personable to those who they want to seem attractive to and more often than not, it is their ethics that are lost. I feel as if this trend continues, then ethics will never surface to become a priority in people’s decisions making. Even if people know that a certain choice may not seem to be the ethically correct, they will ignore that and then later try to justify those actions in order to somehow make it ok. Just because we are teaching people what is ethical does not mean they will take the theory into practice.
On a different note, I think it is impossible to have people learn to become more ethical when there are college professors who ignored student’s pleas to take security measures in the event of a shooter on campus. I think it is completely ridiculous that such established professors would be so completely ignorant in the face of such a serious threat. If they do not hold the correct ethical standpoints to listen to their students in that time of fear, I do not have hope for the general population.
After reading the posted articles, I wouldn't say that attempting to teach someone to be ethical is impossible and neither is the idea of learning to be ethical. From an early age we are all taught right from wrong and I do think that those ideas tend to be a constant factor in my decision making. There have been few times where I have done something that may have not been the right thing, but later have gone back to correct it because I have the worst conscience in the world. I do believe that a baseline of ethics is in everyone, but certain situations will cause someone to be more or less ethical than they would be based on the options in front of them. I do agree with what was said in the NYT article that people may not always do the right thing if it would benefit them to do something wrong. I also think that people might not be thinking about the consequences of their actions and only think of the instant benefits which then doing the wrong thing may seem more appealing to them rather than if they were to sit down and think through their decisions a bit more.
I disagree with the notion that the learning or teaching of ethics is doomed. Ethics can be taught as evidenced in the rearing of a child. We teach (or should teach) our children not to lie, steal, cheat or hurt others, and to apologize when they do, in order to stress that those things are inherently wrong in our society. A major responsibility falls on mothers, fathers, caregivers and all those who assume the societal obligation to raise a child to be an ethical human being.
I cannot get behind the idea that those of us in society who act ethically are heroes, however. Praising an ethical person for acting in a way that they believed to be right is not a hero, but simply a good citizen performing their duty to humanity. Of course, there is a line. A person who risks their life for another is a hero. A person who calls 911 when a crime is witnessed is not, as they are performing their ethical duty. I feel that Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative is the basis for which an ideal society can ethically function and morally thrive. In essence, he states this: I should only act in a way so that I may will all others to act the same. In an American elementary school, it’s the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/your-money/in-life-and-business-learning-to-be-ethical.html
As Brooke Deterline encourages in the article, we need to use discomfort as an ethical cue to know when to act ethically, regardless of who else is acting in an ethical or unethical way. This could only apply to those who are aware of the fact that they could act more ethically, though, not to those unaware. Eventually, this thought process could have a positive effect on those who are unaware and to the children of future generations.
I believe it is possible to condition someone to better identity ethical dilemmas and what choices are the "right" ones but I do not believe this means people will consistently ACT ethically outside of their own will to do so. I would not say society lacks ethics - ethics are inherently imprinted on through cultural osmosis as we mature - but rather society lacks the incentive to act ethically. From a Darwinian perspective acting ethically often puts the self at risk (in one way or another), which directly contradicts how we are shown to achieve success in America. Social Darwinism is the method most prominently portrayed to us by our cultural idols for success (often through a televised medium). Capitalist societies define success as a monetary value that also equates to social status. Wealth is equal to power and as history has shown ethical abusive is prominent with both. Therefore, I submit that society receives mixed messages when it comes to ethical dilemmas. Act with regards to ethics because it is the "right" thing to do and risk jeopardizing societal advancement OR learning from example act with regard to the self and further your chances for success. One can be "trained" to act ethically out of obligation but without a natural ethical desire to begin with I do not think it said person would act consistently.
If everyone thought like the quote "Trying to become more ethical — or teaching people how to — would seem doomed," than we would all end up like Rob Ford...cracked out and powerless.
I agree with the article. The way we think we act and what we actually do are two different things; I think that is often based off of poor judgment in situation we are not comfortable with, rather than a lack of ethics. If anything I would say we are more cowardly than we are moral-less.
With the example like the coin-toss study where only 10 percent of participants told the truth, people look out for themselves and even that they are inherently lazy. My point is not to hate on everyone, but rather to point out that it is not the singular trait of ‘bad ethics’ that drives people, but rather many unfavorable attributes (laziness, cowardly, self-absorbed, wanting to fit in) that tend to tip the scales in favor of lying and having poor ethics.
Despite all of this, it is not accurate to say that trying to teach people ethics would seem doomed. I don’t think anyone would say “Yeah, the education system in our country is flawless so there must be no hope!” No. There are ways to teach, there just needs to be more self-awareness from an early age, as the articles states. Then, most importantly, we must be taught how to challenge people appropriately in moral dilemma situations. This can’t be done through the “Just say no” crap that is spewed out to children since fifth grade. It needs to be applied in their daily education AND socially as well so when the time comes for a child to stand up for someone, they won’t be afraid to simply because they want to fit in.
If we are raised to want to be ethical, then it can happen.
After reading the article and taking into account my personal experiences, I have decided that I agree with the statement. I think people intuitively have a set of morals. It is something that as a child, authority figures have the ability to mold the basic set rules at a raw level. However, once the subject reaches a certain age, I believe it is their own personality and opinions that determine ethical principles. As the article states, people like to believe that given certain situations, they’d be heroic and choose the right option. However, case studies have revealed that people tend to make excuses for their immoral decisions. They tend not to account for their own mistakes or take responsibility for them. That being said,I think that past a certain circumstantial line, I think it becomes difficult for people to take the time to truly think and act beyond the conformity that has molded them into their ways. The fact of the matter is throughout life, people overwhelmingly tend not to be brave enough or confident enough to think for themselves and stand out above the standard. If more people did act in an unconventional manner, the concept of a heroic figure wouldn't be so outstanding. I think people may consider certain situations and consequences to be minor and therefore, not fully take into account the larger meaning for the situation. The coin toss experiment is a good example of this in action. My guess is that those who didn't abide by the rules, didn't see any direct consequences to themselves or anyone else for that matter.
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