Ethics Problems – Chapter 5, A slice of Samurai culture

Section Two Ethics Problems

From Thiroux and Krasnow’s Ethics: Theory and Practice 11th Edition

Choose ONE of the following Ethics Problems and answer it to the very best of your ability. These questions are fairly complex, and will require a minimum of 4 full pages (double spaced, not including the title/header) pages to answer completely.

Chapter 5 – A slice of Samurai culture – Are ethics relative?

In her much anthologized article, “ Trying Out Ones New Sword,” philosopher Mary Midgley (1919 – ) present’s a variation of the problem of ethical relativism that demonstrates the trouble we often have in understanding cultures strange to us.[footnoteRef:1] Specifically, she talks about “moral isolationism,” the view that because we cannot understand another culture, we cannot judge another culture’s Ethics. [1: Mary Midgley, Heart and Mind (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1981).]

The word tsujigiri in Japanese literally means “cross-roads cut.” However, as used in Samurai culture it meant something like, “to try out one’s sword on a chance wayfarer.” It seems that the only test that would guarantee that a samurai’s new sword was sharp enough was to slice a human being in half diagonally from the shoulder to the opposite hip. In order to accomplish this test, the samurai would wait at the crossroads for the next (unfortunate) traveler. Is this practice morally acceptable?

 

Sharpen your mental sword and see whether you can cut through problems associated with ethical relativism and moral isolationism. Discuss these problems and offer reasons to support your position.

Chapter 6 – Freedom and Control: Are Freedom and Human Happiness Incompatible?

For many, human happiness and freedom are incompatible. If people want to be happy and secure, then what is needed is not freedom but control. Dostoyevsky’s (1821-19881) “Grand Inquisitor” boasts that he and his church “…have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy.” Individuals who demand autonomy and free choice are in ongoing rebellion against God, and such individuals continually make trouble. People need to be controlled to be happy.

Twentieth-century psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) argued that humans must get “beyond freedom and dignity (moral autonomy and choice) if they wish to be happy.” For Skinner, the controls are put in place through technology (“a technology of behavior”) and social structures that are rationally and scientifically engineered to produce certain defined (controlled) results. Because we live in an increasingly secular world, the controls will be set through various types of social engineering, not religion. The key to happiness, well-being, and a good society is intelligent control, not freedom.

 

Do you agree that freedom is a barrier to happiness and well-being? Do you feel that our society is on a path similar to the one Skinner suggested? What kinds of social control are currently being put into place? List the various mechanisms by which our lives are being controlled. Does this control make you happy? Discuss the relationship between freedom and control. Noam Chomsky (1928 – ), and American philosopher, linguist and political activist, criticized Skinner’s works as being highly conducive to justifying or advancing a totalitarian state. Comment on the paradox of freedom and control.

 

Chapter 7 – Who gets to stay on the lifeboat?

Ecologist Garratt Hardin (1915-2003) proposed the metaphor of a lifeboat to help us think about resource distribution in a world fast approaching limits.[footnoteRef:2] Hardin’s view, called “Lifeboat Ethics,” looks at trends such as population increase, resource depletion, and the carrying capacity of land to make a case against helping the poor. Although we all have basic needs, some people must be denied. Lifeboats, metaphorically, refer to wealthy nations. [2: Garret Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics: The case Against Helping the Poor,” Psychology Today, September 8, 1974, 38-43.]

Consider the example of a lifeboat with a capacity of 50 persons. The ship is sinking and there are not enough lifeboats. You are safe on a lifeboat filled to capacity, but there are still 100 people in the water. What do you do? All need to get in the lifeboat, or they will not survive. But, the lifeboat is full. Who should stay and who should go, and why? What criteria do we use to make decisions in a world of limited resources? Do an internet search on lifeboat ethics and also see Alfred Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat.

Chapter 8 – There is no Ethics Problem given in this chapter.

Explanation & Answer

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