fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, September 13, 2011]

Current Mood: awake

Entry tags:

ethics

Ethics [Tuesday, September 13, 2011]

"Hello, class," Anakin said. "Welcome back ~~to this, the second day after my granddaughter's wedding...~~ I trust that by being in class, you have recovered from the weekend and are no longer praying for death or amnesia, and will be able to participate fully in this discussion."

He went to the board and scrawled: "Utilitarianism: it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong," then turned to face his students. "Do you think this is true? If what gives the majority pleasure is watching Christians getting eaten by lions, or a four-day-marathon of Fear Factor, does that make it right? What will protect the rights of the individual--who in this example might be a Christian who enjoys PBS--or do those really matter?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Suppose we have to choose between building a new sports stadium and building a new hospital. Should we build the stadium if there are many more sports fans than sick people? What about the sick people? Aren’t we sacrificing their interests?"

"Build the stadium," Topher said easily. "There's plenty of hospitals already. Go with what the people want."

"What happens when the sports fans get sick?" Toby had to ask. "Are they going to remember that they forced the hand of whoever made the choice of stadium versus hospital to build the stadium, or are they just going to remember that there's no hospital?"

"They can go somewhere else for a hospital," Topher shot back callously. "Not like we're gonna run out."

Actually that was exactly what it was like, Topher.

"Sports and entertainment are fun but they aren't necessarily to live," Angelica said. "People need hospitals if they get sick or hurt. Those are more important."

Peter raised both of his eyebrows.

"Context is everything," he said, mildly. "You can't make decisions based on that data alone."

"Build the hospital. The sports fans will live, sick people won't. If they bitched and I had the power, I'd tell them to start their own league."

"My first instinct is to say build the hospital, because physical health is important in order to be able to enjoy things like sporting events to their fullest," Toby admitted. "But what if building the sports stadium gives the city the revenue it needs to eventually build the hospital, and make other improvements? If there's a way the patients could be taken care of somewhere else without overburdening the system- overburdening it too much," he corrected himself, "then maybe it could be doable."

"Use government funds to build the hospital, get money from the private sector to build the stadium. If the people want it that bad, they can build it."

"Build the hospital," Hanna replied. "They're more important. What if the players at the new stadium got injured and they had no place to go for treatment?"

"You're not seriously saying people would build a stadium if they needed to build a hospital instead, are you!?!? That's just wrong!" Hank was horrified. "I mean, if it was a TV studio, I'd understand, but a stadium? Really?!?"

"What good is a sports stadium gonna do," Richie wanted to know. "And a hospital building doesn't do any good if you haven't got doctors and nurses and whatever. I think you need to go with what's best for the people, not what they want. Needs. Not wants."

Even if just getting your needs met kind of sucked when you were a little kid who just wanted something fun once in a while.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ethics [Tuesday, September 13, 2011]

Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]

Re: Oooh, a hypothetical [9/13]