ETHICS & INDIVIDUALS
Our buggy moral code | Dan Ariely
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A Dishonest Study on Dishonesty Puts a Prominent Researcher on the Hot Seat
Is individual ethics a thing apart, or something that varies according to the situation?
Some of history's greatest philosophers, then, agree that wrongdoing tends to be motivated by self-interest. ... Although most assume that an immoral person is one who's ready to defy law and convention to get what they want, I think the inverse is often true. Immorality is frequently motivated by a readiness to conform to law and convention in opposition to our own values. In these cases, it's not that we care too little about others; it's that we care too much. More specifically, we care too much about how we stack up in the eyes of others.
Ellsberg said that every government wants to conceal its mistakes, its lies, and its abuses of power from the public. “Here's what I learned long before age ninety: that many virtues—like loyalty, obedience to authority, and courage—can be put toward dangerous and bad causes," he said. “Officials are reluctant to recognize that loyalty to the President can, and regularly does, conflict with the higher loyalty they owe to the Constitution.”
You don't have to read these unless you wish to, but we might touch upon them in conversation
Goldenberg reviewed existing social-science research on vaccine hesitancy and came to the conclusion that the central argument is really a philosophic one. The public might not know much science, and might be bad at estimating relative risks, Goldenberg writes, but those facts don't explain vaccine hesitancy. Her research found that many parents' concerns about vaccines are similar ... they can't quite mesh the goals of widespread, population-scale public health with their personal goals for their individual children.
... the inherent power of a code of ethics rises no higher than the collective moral character of those who subscribe to the code. Theoretically, a code of ethics sets guidelines for ideal behavior. However, in reality, it represents minimum standards of behavior.
Boxill had more power than Gore, but she was found to have committed the same sin: doing her job. She was called on to keep athletes eligible under a system whose very nature undermined academic standards — standards that, as a faculty member, she was charged with upholding. Pulled in two different directions, she got burned by a voluminous paper trail. The university moved on, casting her aside after nearly 30 years of service, and left its adherence to the “amateur” myth in place.
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There's a history in Chilean music and there's a lot to say about Victor Jara, but Rolling Stone hits some of the key points.
The love and justice songs of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara were apparently so threatening to the military leaders who staged the nation's 1973 coup that they had to murder him. After beginning his career in the theater, Jara took up songwriting as his country endured the social convulsions of the Sixties. He supported the Socialist presidential candidate Salvador Allende, who was overthrown from office by the Chilean right wing and later died under mysterious circumstances. Taken prisoner with thousands of others in a stadium that now bears his name, Jara was tortured; after they broke his hands, guards mocked the singer, ordering him to play guitar. Defiant, he sang a political anthem that translates as "We Will Win." For his insubordination, Jara was machine-gunned to death, his body dumped on a street outside Santiago. A few months later, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs headlined a benefit in Jara's name in New York.
And a current example: Chico Trujillo
Hailing from the city of Villa Alemana, the Valparaiso region of central Chile, frontman Aldo Asenjo (aka "Macha") and guitarist Antonio Orellana - both members of rock-ska band The Floripondio at the time - set up a new music project that focused on mixing the traditional sounds of Latin America with the more contemporary music they were playing. Although the pair experimented with the rhythms of the bolero, salsa and rumba - it was the Chilean-style of cumbia - with its clip-clop momentum, dance-fuelled rhythms and modest instrumental melodies that the guys particularly loved.