Going to the dogs
The animal-loving professor.
Foolish, contrary creatures.
Professor Purple is so engrossed in writing a paper for the Philosophical Society that he forgets he has an ethics class to teach. But as he hurries to the lecture theatre, he sees that a dog has fallen into the lake and is unable to get out. Professor Purple wades in and rescues the dog, but by the time he gets to the class, he’s rather late and the students aren’t pleased.
Professor Purple explains what happened and sets the event as an ethics problem. The students think that he did the right thing by saving the dog.
But the next week, the same thing happens. This time about half of the students think that he should’ve left the stupid creature to its own devices.
The week after, and the dog’s back in the lake and Professor Purple refers the matter to one of the university porters. When he gets to class, he tells his students his new policy. Rescuing the dog every week is outweighed by the professor’s need to get to class on time. As he explains, this is utilitarianism.
But on this occasion the dog drowns.
Professor Purple’s first duty is to his ethics class and not some suicidal dog. However, I’m puzzled why the animal-loving prof neither adopted the dog as a pet nor took it to the RSPCA nor informed the appropriate department of the local council. He did took responsibility for the dog by rescuing it, but hasn’t bothered following through. I do applaud his decision not to save the dog himself a third time – and the porter can be blamed for the idiot creature’s demise instead.
Professor Purple explains what happened and sets the event as an ethics problem. The students think that he did the right thing by saving the dog.
But the next week, the same thing happens. This time about half of the students think that he should’ve left the stupid creature to its own devices.
The week after, and the dog’s back in the lake and Professor Purple refers the matter to one of the university porters. When he gets to class, he tells his students his new policy. Rescuing the dog every week is outweighed by the professor’s need to get to class on time. As he explains, this is utilitarianism.
But on this occasion the dog drowns.
Professor Purple’s first duty is to his ethics class and not some suicidal dog. However, I’m puzzled why the animal-loving prof neither adopted the dog as a pet nor took it to the RSPCA nor informed the appropriate department of the local council. He did took responsibility for the dog by rescuing it, but hasn’t bothered following through. I do applaud his decision not to save the dog himself a third time – and the porter can be blamed for the idiot creature’s demise instead.
Foolish, contrary creatures.
But now the students, being typical hair-brained creatures themselves, now accuse Professor Purple of flouting a fundamental duty to save the life of a sentient creature. This duty allegedly supersedes other considerations such as arriving for lectures on time. (Oh dear. If the prof arrives late because he was saving the dog, the students complain; if he arrives on time, but doesn’t save the dog, the students complain. This is the sort of muddle-headed logic I expect from my students. In fact, I think it’s an international phenomenon.)
Professor Purple notes that if he’d been a surgeon rushing to an important operation and he’d encountered the same situation, he would’ve been criticised for wasting time on some dog. He notes that class agreed with him that his arrival on time outweighed the risk of the dog drowning and adds that in making moral decisions some sort of system for weighing up rival elements is needed.
But the students refuse to have anything to do with sense and reason, and start getting rather uppity with boycotts and graffiti. Is Professor Purple missing something?
I don’t think he is, but his students are. It’s rather like Optimality Theory, but with the constraint ranking not necessarily being the same every time. Professor Purple starts with SaveTheDog » ArriveOnTime and his students agree. The next week, he’s still applying that constraint ranking, but some of his students re-rank it and by the following week, Professor Purple has followed suit. The week after, the death of the dog has caused the students to rank the SaveTheDog constraint (or, perhaps, the SentientCreatures constraint) above everything else. The prof is still applying the ArriveOnTime » SaveTheDog ranking because that’s what his students seemed to want.
Actually, the situation can’t really be modelled in OT terms because you’d then need metaconstraints which affect the order of a constraint ranking and might even lock it. The emotive DeadDog metaconstraint reverses the ArriveOnTime » SaveTheDog ranking, and then locks it and blocks the CommonSense constraint.
Professor Purple can never really win.
Professor Purple notes that if he’d been a surgeon rushing to an important operation and he’d encountered the same situation, he would’ve been criticised for wasting time on some dog. He notes that class agreed with him that his arrival on time outweighed the risk of the dog drowning and adds that in making moral decisions some sort of system for weighing up rival elements is needed.
But the students refuse to have anything to do with sense and reason, and start getting rather uppity with boycotts and graffiti. Is Professor Purple missing something?
I don’t think he is, but his students are. It’s rather like Optimality Theory, but with the constraint ranking not necessarily being the same every time. Professor Purple starts with SaveTheDog » ArriveOnTime and his students agree. The next week, he’s still applying that constraint ranking, but some of his students re-rank it and by the following week, Professor Purple has followed suit. The week after, the death of the dog has caused the students to rank the SaveTheDog constraint (or, perhaps, the SentientCreatures constraint) above everything else. The prof is still applying the ArriveOnTime » SaveTheDog ranking because that’s what his students seemed to want.
Actually, the situation can’t really be modelled in OT terms because you’d then need metaconstraints which affect the order of a constraint ranking and might even lock it. The emotive DeadDog metaconstraint reverses the ArriveOnTime » SaveTheDog ranking, and then locks it and blocks the CommonSense constraint.
Professor Purple can never really win.
Tomorrow, it’s off to the exotic Lost Kingdom of Marjon. But we’ll have to get visas from the embassy.
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