Occasional Tales

But what about reality? The Biblical story of the good Samaritan is well known enough. He was the only person who went to the aid of another even although people of an allegedly moral disposition (i.e., priests) passed by. But that’s really just a prelude to the main story about a car which has apparently broken down in a remote spot. Other drivers have passed by, but should the modern Samaritan help or keep going? I think most of us would say that he should stop and help. And for his trouble he was shot and his car was stolen. But the story, though a little OTT, illustrates one problem with being a Good Samaritan: it might backfire. I’ve read more than one story about people in China stepping into help others only to find that they end up being sued as if they’re responsible for the original injuries. In the days when I used to travel by bus, I’d occasionally catch people who were standing when the driver would, quite often, brake sharply and send everyone tumbling. But other people w...

You’ll grow out of it. Today it’s the tale of Abraham and Isaac. God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but only stops him in the nick of time and supplies a sheep instead. I’m sure Isaac was only psychologically scarred for a few decades. Anyway, because God told Abraham to do it, I’m sure it was all right. That’s why insane axe murderers just need to say that God made them to it, because then it’s all right. “But God intervened before Abraham sacrificed Isaac,” said the judge suspecting some sort of sophistry. “Very true, m’lud,” said the accused gravely, “but since you aren’t God, how can you predict God’s will?” “That observation I cannot gainsay. But fortunately, God’s telling me to sentence you to life.” “Bugger.” Such situations reveal just how nonsensical religions are because if God is the source of morality, but directs people do behave unethically, then they have the ultimate sanction to do evil. (The action is unethical, but the consequence is beneficial.) In reality, though...

Job. Just the man for the job. Another tale of Biblical ethics today, this time the Man of Patience – Job. Job is a decent sort of chap, but one day God and the Devil decide to make a wager. (At this point I have to wonder how God and the Devil happened to meet at all and why such a meeting would apparently be so amicable. See The Book of Job for further details.) The Devil bets that Job is only good because things are easy for him. But if things became difficult, he’d lose his faith and turn evil. § Obs. 1 The first part is rather like one of the questions in our recent speaking exams about an easy life being a good life. The second part is that old chestnut that morality comes from religion and that in the absence of religion, people lack morality. I think it was Dostoevsky who claimed that without God anything is permissible, which is clearly not true. Gods or no gods, clearly much which we would consider impermissible still happens anyway. Morality, which is inconstant in many res...

A return on your investment. Dilemma 45 is a Biblical tale about a merchant who gives each of his servants some money according to their merits. When he got back, the servants he’d rewarded most richly had doubled the money. The one he’d awarded the least amount to returned it and was cast into outer darkness. I was going to dismiss this as an irrelevant Biblical parable. The discussion at the back of the book says that this story has been used as an excuse to make money. Profitliness [sic] is next to godliness. But I realised that I can actually apply the parable to myself. I dispense the coins of knowledge and get no return on most of them because my little darlings are already in the outer darkness. Let them stay there, although I’d rather not be pouring coins into a bottomless well as I do. So where are the ethics? If my pupils do the work, and listen to what I’m telling them, they’ll benefit. Thus the right thing for them to do is to listen to me. And pigs will fly the day that ha...

“We have to keep our employees in work.” Today’s business dilemma is about German companies and their behaviour during WWII. While no company should be condemned if a government calls on its services in times of war, the way it goes about its business shouldn’t be less ethical than it would be in peacetime. If the government wants to sully its hands, that’s the government’s business. But I.G. Farben sullied its hands as part of the war effort and its directors were tried at Nüremberg after the war. The discussion at the back of the book is also about the ethics of business in general, which is not a subject I’d consider in this case. Basically, business is about making money – minimal outlay for maximum profits – and ethics be damned. The German companies in question had already been engaged in some commercially questionable practices, although such decisions would have appeared to be pragmatic. It reminds me that when Sunday trading came in, M&S refused to join the party, but I’m ...

For the budget-conscious in today’s economically troubled times, several dilemmas for the price of one. Dilemma 40 Sandra, who works in the typing pool, is slacking off. Jackie tries to get Bob to go with her to see Mustafa about it, but Bob thinks that because they can handle the work, there’s no need. This implies that the company could sack Sandra if Jackie and Bob can cope with the work, but this may be a short-term view since the volume may vary at different times of the year (which suggests that they could hire a temp when needed). There’s no suggestion in the scenario that anyone allocates the typing to be done, which implies that the work is done by the first person who’s free to do it. Really, Jackie should bring Sandra’s poor work ethic to the company’s attention. But then Jackie finds out that Sandra’s filching company software. Since that’s theft, then an ethical employee would report the case to management. Also, Jackie is spurred on by Sandra’s indolence, although I’m sur...

I’m just not sure about the lyrics. The last of our censorship dilemmas is about offensive lyrics in pop music, which have probably been around long before Thomas Shadwell wrote Nymphs and Shepherds and Dryden wrote Alexander’s Feast . They probably offended someone, but no one remembers who. The question once again, is how bad something has to be to be banned. Where’s the line between tasteless but acceptable, and tasteless and unacceptable? And what of other circumstances? What might be unacceptable in one country might be greeted indifferently in another, just as attitudes vary from one age to another. The discussion at the back of the book notes that censorship is a slippery creature because while it may be the right thing to do in very clear cases, there are others where it isn’t. There are also problems with implications vs. declarations, where the message isn’t overtly stated, but everyone knows what it actually is. This kind of tactic is used in more censorious societies to tr...

Nymphs and satyrs. Today’s dilemma is the hoary old chestnut where art ends and porn begins. I suppose I’d say that it depends on the purpose or intention. If titillation, then porn; if not, then art or instruction (e.g. The Lover’s Guide series). But I can imagine that I might be confused by, say, style, because if someone put the effort in, you could do porn in the style of art. For example, it might be sepia pictures with a nice studio background, but the participants neither engaged with each other nor the audience. It just has to appear sophisticated in the right way and the content becomes acceptable because you can start talking about the composition and symbolism. It also works the other way. If an artist made pictures of people having sex out of vegetables or glitter or ground-up crayons, we’d judge that to be art. It’s curious (perhaps) that the less realistic the depiction, the more acceptable it is. To use two real live humans in photographs would be least acceptable of all...

The best possible taste. Dilemma 37 is all about taste and decency and quotes the transcript of an investigation by the American government into comic books. The publisher seems to think that one cover depicting a man carrying a woman’s severed head and another showing a man strangling a woman with a crowbar are perfectly all right. Maurice has to bear arms once again against this sea of troubles. It’d seem that the public ought to be protected from this sort of material on the grounds of taste. Taste is like morality, both depending on what a particular society finds acceptable. (Or, rather, what the government thinks the hypocritical tabloids find acceptable.) Once again, we have no context for the pictures, although it seems unlikely that the misogyny depicted in them shows some evil woman getting her just desserts. This material is just another example of the material that I discussed yesterday, with comics replacing penny dreadfuls as the source of establishment hysteria. Obviousl...

Think of the spotty Herberts. Today’s censorship dilemma is about tales of actual villains. Politicians, being hysterical reactionaries who believe that the picture of crime in the media causes crime in reality, want Maurice the Censor to become Maurice the Censorious. They even have a little 19th century evidence which backs this up and the opinion of the Chief Constable of Birkenhead in 1936, who thought that depictions of criminal activities shouldn’t be allowed because of the deleterious effects it might have on young people. Surely censorship is good for everyone, especially the young. I got onto the matter of censorship and youth in yesterday’s entry. My inclination is to suspect that claims about censorship being necessary to save young people from their own stupidity is often based on a comparatively small number of incidents where a link between books or film or television and crime can be demonstrated, which results in the generalisation that because some were affected, all s...

That’s the last [ censored ] warning you’ll get. I’m not sure I have a consistent view of censorship. For the most part, I prefer to think that I should determine what I watch or read, but I recognise that different people find different things acceptable so that an official censor may be a necessary evil in order to impose some consistency. Some aspects of censorship may annoy me such as the rather prurient attitude towards porn in the UK, which needs to be relaxed. It’s the [ censored ] 21st century for [ censored ]’s sake. Time the nation grew up and started to behave like the rest of Europe. Censorship, it seems, is a matter of morality rather than ethics. As I said, the UK’s attitude to porn is rather puerile and immature compared with other European nations. On the other hand, the more liberal attitude in the US seems odd for a theocratic nation, but ends up being a constitutional quirk. The inGlorious Motherland is also a little odd, but for another reason. Although porn is und...

Toss the coin and be done with it. John Brown has been badly injured in a motorbike accident and is now in a coma. Dr Doe informs his parents that there’s no chance of recovery. Mrs Brown thinks there’s hope. (What a modern parent – she denies the truth about her child.) The doctor explains further that although John can be kept alive, he’s using up real estate and resources. She lets them think about it. The hospital philosopher, Dr Gnatt, then comes and visits the Browns to determine what John might’ve wanted depending on his philosophy and beliefs. Since Mr and Mrs Brown haven’t the faintest, Dr Gnatt outlines their two choices: keep the machine on or turn it off. He gets a coin out of his pocket and asks, “Heads or tails?” What should the Browns reply? Of course, it’d be unethical to toss a coin to make such a decision, but if the parents were stupid enough to let their son own a motorbike, then this is an easy and impartial way to make a decision about their son. I suppose the dil...

“Well, Mrs Blank…” Mr Purplepatch tells Mrs Blank that she probably has Witherspoon-X disease, which only affects one in 100,000. The test is 95% accurate.1 To fight the disease, they’ll have to remove Mrs Blank’s kidneys and liver, which means that she’ll need constant medical care. (Hopefully, she’s not an alcoholic otherwise she’s really screwed.) Should she undertake the treatment or hope the test was wrong? There’s some maths going on here which I don’t understand exactly. All right, not at all. The brief discussion at the back of the book says that the odds are better than they appear with one correct test for every 4,999 which are wrong. No, I have no idea where that number comes from. Without understanding the odds, I obviously can’t make an adequate judgement. Instead, let’s look at this according to a strategy I saw online about how to deal with ethical dilemmas. I’m assuming, as any ordinary person would, that the odds are heavily stacked against Mrs Blank. (Blame the non-ob...

Act III: The Nobodie Rules! Scene i. [The phone rings. Dr Blur answers it.] Dr Blur: Dr Blur’s office. Dr Curie: ’Allo, Dr Blur, c’est moi. ’Ave you seen ze article about ze optic nerve transplants in ze BMA Journal? Dr Blur: I’ve got it, but I haven’t looked at it yet. Hold on. [He picks up an envelope on the desk, opens it and tips the journal out. He begins flicking through the pages.] Dr Blur: Oh dear. The whole optic nerve. I’ll have to tell the Nobodies. Dr Curie: I sink Uncle Angel might’ve been right as well. Dr Blur: Him? He’s a f_cking idiot. Well, thanks for letting me know. Bye. [He hangs up before picking the receiver up again and dialling a number.] Dr Blur: Hello, Mr Nobodie… It’s Dr Blur from the Clinic for Obscure Diseases. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. There’s an article in the BMA Journal this month about Felix’s condition, which says that it requires the whole optic nerve from the donor for the treatment to be successful. In the light of this resea...

Act II: The Nobodie Rules memo. Scene i. Mrs Nobodie: Well, the thing is that not only is George not compatible with Felix… Dr Blur: Sibling rivalry at such a tender age. Mrs Nobodie: …but he’s also got his own problems. Dr Blur [laughing mirthlessly]: So much for the heir and the spare parts. As I said at the time, there was no guarantee of a match. Mr Nobodie: That’s why we’re back. We want to guarantee that the next baby will be a match. Mrs Nobodie: You read about it in the paper all the time. Dr Blur: Look, I’m sorry that the new child was unsuitable, but it would be possible to do what you’re proposing. I’d have to put it before the Hospital Ethics Committee. Deliberately manufacturing a baby for spare parts might raise a few eyebrows. Mrs Nobodie: So might plastic surgery, but no one objects to that. [Fade out.] Scene ii. Dr Crippen: …and then I sewed him up good as new. Omnes: Ha ha! Dr Crippen: Now, shall we get down to business? The first matter is Mr and Mrs N. Ac...

Act I: Felix and the Eye problem. Scene i. Dr Crippen: You were quite right to bring Felix to me, Mrs Nobodie. He’s losing his sight because of progressive damage to the optic nerve. It’s a rare degenerative complaint. If I were you, I’d go and see Dr Blur at the Clinic for Obscure Diseases. He’s the leading expert in the field. Scene ii. Dr Blur: Dr Crippen’s diagnosis is correct, but Felix’s condition isn’t incurable. It’s possible to get the optic nerve to regenerate using donor cells, but they’d have to come from someone who was a close genetic match. Perhaps you or your husband or a sibling. Here’s a lab where you can get your DNA tested. I’ll have them send the results to me and let you know when they arrive. Scene iii. Dr Blur: Take a seat. Well, I’m afraid the news is not good. Neither of you are a close enough match to donate cells to Felix. The only other possibility is if Felix had a younger brother or sister who might be a sufficiently close match. Mr and Mrs Nobodie: ...

Isn’t going to make this medicine go down. Dilemma 31. Back in 2006, an American company, Parexcel, began testing an arthritis treatment called TGN1412 on volunteers who were paid £2,000 for a few days of their time. The information which volunteers got was pictures of video games, pool tables and signed cheques. The effects of the drug aren’t described until the back of the book, but although they’d been tested on animals and other primates without, apparently, any adverse effects, that was no guarantee that the drug wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on humans. In fact, TGN1412 had some really unpleasant side effects. It seemed to be considered that this should be perfectly acceptable if the testing was somehow going to be for the public good, which it was: no one else was going to be taking the drug. If TGN1412 had been used to treat arthritis without being tested on human subjects first, then things could’ve been much worse. In spite of the unfortunate effects which the drug actual...

“Who is your father?” Nescio. I was vaguely hoping that I might be able to surpass the number of posts I made here in 2007, but because I can’t do that without spamming the place to death, you’ll just have to out up with another ethical dilemma. Dilemma 30 is about anonymous sperm donorage. Women now have the choice of being inseminated anonymously the old-fashioned way at DIYBabies (fertilisation guaranteed; high-quality donors) or the in vitro clinic which has problems with misconceptions and the destruction of embryos. DIYBabies sounds like the sort of place where eventually a story will emerge about a woman who went there to get pregnant and realised that the donor was actually her husband. This seems to be another matter of natural vs. unnatural means of conception, the choice being determined by the circumstances. The latter might be used where other means have failed or are not possible or are undesirable for the woman in question. But that’s the point: it depends on the circums...

Who tends to get overheated. I thought it was about time I updated the old laptop. I don’t really use the machine any longer except when there’s something on it which I don’t have on the new one, and normally I don’t go online from it. Anyway, since I’m here, it’s time for another ethical dilemma. The question is, “Would it be unethical of me to throw the more annoying pupils in my classes out of the window to confirm that there really is gravity because any means by which we reconfirm some evident truth is acceptable?” [Due to certain typographical errors, the ethical dilemma outlined above superficially seems to be of a rather different nature to the ethical dilemma actually under discussion. This has now been corrected. –ed.] The 29th dilemma is another about babies in Diktatia. Like the previous dilemma, there are still designer babies, but the basic job of combining eggs and sperm is done in the lab before the embryo is implanted. Other businesses offer surrogate mothers to bear t...

Question b. We gave the little darlings a Progress Test yesterday. I asked Glen to devise the test, while like lemmings, our pupils mostly opted for the same writing task, viz. Which is more important, better grades or better knowledge, or are they the same thing? It looks interesting enough superficially, but it fails as a question because grades are the result of testing knowledge. To say that one is more important than the other makes no real sense. The question ought to have been something like Which is more useful? Theoretical or practical knowledge; or are both equally as important? I’m not sure that this topic is any better because it leaves the particular field of knowledge unstated. In everyday life, for example, practical knowledge is clearly more useful. An alternative question might be Which is more useful: breadth of knowledge or breadth of experience? Or are both usefully applicable under the right circumstances? Again, this probably isn’t really a good question since any...

Well, that’s what they used to be made of. Today’s ethical dilemma is about designing babies to order. The insidious government of Diktatia is having babies screened to eliminate certain genetic defects and add certain desirable genetic traits, while allowing parents to choose whether their children might have a few kinks. The Vicar of Diktatiaville thinks that God’s job is to pick and choose babies, not the government’s. My position would be somewhere in between, I suppose. Where the quality of a child’s life might be seriously affected by some unfortunately accident of genetics, then genetic manipulation is for the good of the child. But picking and choosing characteristics should generally otherwise be left to the chance union of egg and sperm (which the vicar would think is the God part; we must permit him to be wrong because unless he chooses to be persuaded, we’d be no better than proselytisers ourselves). There might be a few exceptions where the editing of the genetic code migh...

More ethical dilemmas. Because the school wanted a topic for English Corner during the culture week, I was reminded of the ethical dilemmas book which I was working through until I got a little bored with it. I was thinking that some dilemma might be a good topic of conversation, but I then thought better of it. But I’m now minded to resume my examination of these problems. Today, the matter of eugenics. Socrates quizzed his friend Glaucon about how he bred his hunting dogs and birds; who used only the best ones at the right age. Glaucon agreed that if he let them breed as they pleased, the quality of the animals would deteriorate. Socrates then wonders about the same principles being applied to humans with the best being allowed to breed as often as they like, and the inferior being prevented from doing so. I can imagine Socrates, who lived in a very xenophobic society, rather liking the whole idea of eugenics. When I did Greek at university, we read an adapted version of a prosecutio...