this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2024
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It deepened on where you go, but we definitely still require Ethics as a gen-ed at a lot of schools. In fact, I teach it.
Speaking of which, this whole case made for some very good conversation toward the end of this last semester in that class. As it shook out, we were reading MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail that week.
There’s a bit in there that’s particularly relevant here:
“One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
For my money, the US healthcare system degrades human personality.
Are you talking about US high schools? This is an Australian community so it would be nice to have some context (or if possible, comparison) so we can better understand your perspective. My high school never touched philosophy or ethics in a formal manner, beyond a couple of mentions of academic concepts like plagiarism.
I mean US colleges.
My mistake on not noticing that this is an Australian community. I was sorting by new.
Edit for clarity: I teach at community colleges (think local, cheaper, and with a mix of trades and academic programs). The fancy schools require ethics classes too, but theirs are more “how do I justify myself?,” which is less ethics and more business wearing philosophy’s clothes.
I took Ethics to fulfill a social science requirement, but none of the schools I've gone to required it specifically.
How would you describe the difference between just and unjust without a reliance on a higher power, andcalso accounting for the fact that 'what is moral', while often similar across the world, isn't always the same.
In other words, would you have an interpretation of the same concepts, but able to be applied more universally?
That’s a great question. MLK is absolutely appealing to a higher power in this letter, which you’re picking up on. Pretty much anything under the “natural law” perspective sort-of requires that belief. Some try to go without it, but it’s rare in this branch of philosophy.
I also think it’s notable that just about every “western” legal system in some way sits on the ideas of natural law ethics (either through Thomas and Augustine or Locke, etc… and there’s a lot of variation there. Thomas and Locke have very different ideas about property and individual good, for example). I think it’s important to wrestle with that, especially in our pluralistic societies that can’t impose a belief in said higher power.
But, back to your question. I’m not personally a natural law thinker, mostly because I chafe at the idea of law to begin with. It just doesn’t quite square with my more anarchist tendencies. So, I’m less interested in “just” and “unjust” and more in what makes something wholly “good.”
On that front, I borrow my definition of good from a guy named Ivan Illich: something is good when it is uniquely and incomparably appropriate in it’s given setting. This accounts for the situational nature of things, but also for the variance between cultures. There’s also more of a simplicity to asking if something is good then if it’s just. Justice can be hard to define, but goodness is pretty easy and obvious.
It’s rarely good to be hungry, thirsty, and tired, for example; so it’s good to give people food, water, and rest.
If I remember correctly, this definition of the good comes from a paper of his called “Needs.”
Thinking with something like the US healthcare system, we can ask if it’s good (that is, uniquely and incomparably appropriate) to receive lifesaving care. The answer there is an obvious yes.
If we ask if it’s just… then we find ourselves dealing with what people deserve, what can be afforded, and a million other ways of weaseling out of responsibility for doing the right thing.