Ethics Headlines
#83

Volume 2, Number 29                                               Friday, August 4, 2006


Ethics Headlines is an ethics-in-the-news clipping file published each Friday by Polytechnic School teacher Greg Feldmeth. It contains news items from the media in the past week that deal with some area of ethical inquiry.

SUBSCRIBE. You can receive the file via email every Friday afternoon with links to the original articles. Just email your address here and put Ethics Headlines in the subject line. If you know of others who would be interested, please forward the page to them.

This week's headlines--select the headline to read the article
  • The last laugh: using humor to discipline a bully. One Tuesday morning, I opened my classroom to find shredded paper shoved under the door. Sweeping up the mess, I discovered that the torn strips used to be a sign that I had posted three years before that asked my high school history students to "Leave all excess baggage at the door." It was my first personal effect to be vandalized since I started teaching, though I didn't give it much thought.
  • Everybody's business. The old injunction about minding your own business has always been a little problematic, because carried to formal lengths it distresses other laws, laws that have to do with being one's brother's keeper. From large-scale national perspectives, there are the laws that translate into maintaining balances of power. You can try to ignore it when you hear that Hitler has ultimate solutions about how to deal with Germany's Jews, but meanwhile it makes sense to maintain your fleet in good condition, never mind if regulating German Jews is other people's business.
  • A skeptic on 9/11 prompts questions on academic freedom. Sipping on a bottle of water and holding a book about the history and future of Islam, Kevin Barrett ticked off a few examples of what he saw as evidence that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an “inside job.”
  • Ask the ethics guy: ethics quiz results. True or false. 1. Ethical principles vary from religion to religion. Answer: FALSE. The five fundamental ethical principles are: 1. Do no harm. 2. Make things better. 3. Respect others. 4. Be fair. 5. Be loving. These are the bedrock of every religious tradition and spiritual belief system.
  • Morality play. A University of Idaho professor says college athletes are ethically impaired, but can be taught to think differently.

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