Evaluate the Moral Permissibility of Clyde’s Conduct
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Evaluate the Moral Permissibility of Clyde’s Conduct
A Flexible Expense Account
Clyde, a businessperson, catches a plane to Seattle to meet an important client. When he arrives in Seattle, it is
pouring rain. He doesn’t have his raincoat with him, and he can’t go to the meeting soaking wet, so he buys a raincoat in the hotel men’s shop and puts it on his expense account ($300).
A few weeks later, the company’s accounting office calls him and says “You can’t put a $300 raincoat on your expense account. We’re returning your paperwork.”
When he gets the form back from the accounting department, he crosses out “raincoat,” writes in “dinner with client,” and resubmits the form.
Clyde defended the change saying, “An expense account is a convenience for the company where I advance the com- pany money to perform my job. I spend it, and they pay me back . . . slowly. Many times, I am charged a month’s interest on the credit card before I get reimbursed. I bought the raincoat in order to represent the company effectively. I didn’t do it just for the hell of it! Also, there are minor expenses I never bother to claim. So, I figure the company comes out ahead anyway. Everybody in the company does it this way, and our competitors are known for padding their expense accounts in order to gain an unfair advantage in attracting clients!”19
Evaluate the moral permissibility of Clyde’s conduct. • Later, Clyde’s expense account submission is noticed
by the company comptroller who attempts to have Clyde fired for submitting a false expense account record. Clyde argues the same points noted previously, but he adds that because he never received the
investigating committee of Congress that he knew the answers to the questions in advance on the quiz show. In the end, he was humiliated, especially given the prominence of his family, and he was also fired from his job as professor. Quiz Show was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1994.
QUESTIONS
If you were on a game show, and were offered the answers in advance, is it morally permis- sible to take them, knowing “it’s only a game show”?
What is the moral permissibility of the show’s producers, sponsors, and the network in trying to get the most appealing person to win (even if that person might not be the most talented)? Do you see any parallels to the television show American Idol?
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reimbursement for the raincoat expense submission, he should not be punished. What do you think?
The Bad Samaritan
David Cash and Jeremy Strohmeyer were friends and 18 years old. They were hanging out at a casino on the California–Nevada border at 3:00 a.m. At one point, Jeremy entered a women’s restroom at the casino. He entered a stall and struggled with a 7-year-old girl. Jeremy was nearly 6 feet tall, and the girl weighed 50 pounds. David entered behind him and tapped Jeremy on the head, knocking his hat off in an effort to get him to stop. He could not get Jeremy to stop, so he left the restroom.
About 30 minutes later, Jeremy reappeared and told David he molested and killed the girl. The victim was found stuffed into the toilet bowl about 5:00 a.m. By this time, the two boys had already left the scene.
Jeremy was ultimately caught and charged with murder, and David is now a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley. David was not charged with a crime because he simply failed to come to the aid of the victim. He said, “I have done nothing wrong.” Most states do not require a witness to a crime to report it or offer aid.
A protest at Berkeley was organized in the hope of getting David expelled from the university, but the chan- cellor said there would be no expulsion because, although outrageous, his conduct violated no law.20
Many students ostracized David and would not talk to him, angered by his being in the position to save a life yet choosing not to.
Evaluate the moral permissibility of David’s conduct. • Is the decision of the university chancellor morally
permissible?
The Ring of Gyges
Following is the story of the Ring of Gyges, which, when turned on your finger, makes you invisible. Glaucon makes an argument to Socrates about what would happen if some- one had such a ring.21
Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where Gyges was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, Gyges descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he, stooping and look- ing in, saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring. This he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the
shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king. Into their assembly Gyges came with the ring on his finger. As he was sitting among them, Gyges chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, whereupon instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present.
He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outward and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inward, he became invisible; when outward, he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen as one of the messen- gers to be sent to the court.
As soon as he arrived, he seduced the queen, and, with her help, conspired against the king, slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and those who argue as I have been supposing will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
What would Aristotle, Kant, and Mill each do if they had such a ring?
What would you do with such a ring?
CSI: Effect on Offenders?
The proportion of rape cases that go unsolved is increasing, and some believe it is the result of television portrayals. Although the rate of cases solved by arrest rate for – violent crimes overall has remained about the same (45 percent), the rate of rapes solved by police has dropped by about 10 percent in the last decade (from 51 to 41 percent).
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Chapter 4 • Utilitarianism 45
Some observers have speculated that this drop in the clearance rate might be due to more sophisticated offenders who are leaving less evidence at the scene. They argue that television shows like CSI: are informing offenders about the power of DNA evidence and that offenders are making victims shower or bathe and taking other measures to reduce evidence left at the scene. Other observers are not convinced that this change in the behavior of offenders is actually taking place, and note the general decline in the total number of rapes over the last decade, even though unsolved cases are growing.22
If it were to be proven that television shows like CSI: help criminals avoid apprehension, is it morally permis- sible to prohibit them?
Do you have alternative suggestions for addressing the possibility raised in this scenario?
Ethics and Pirates
The battle with pirates off the coast of Somalia came to a head with reports of two rescue efforts. One was a com- plete success. In the other, a hostage died. Were both—or either—ethically correct? The success came when a team of U.S. Navy Seals rescued Richard Phillips, the captain of a U.S.-flagged ship, from a lifeboat where he was being held by three Somali pirates. Navy sharpshooters killed his captors, after U.S. negotiators had refused the pirates’ offer to free Capt. Phillips in return for their own freedom.
The less successful venture came when French soldiers stormed a 41-foot yacht seized by pirates 5 days
earlier. The soldiers freed four French hostages and killed or captured the five pirates on board, but the yacht’s owner was killed during the attack. French government officials repeatedly had warned the two families aboard the yacht, which was headed for Zanzibar, not to sail through the Gulf of Aden, where the attack took place.
Behind these events lie several premises on which we probably can all agree:
Premise: Piracy is criminal, with no moral justification. • Premise: Maintaining sea-lanes free from piracy is
essential to international trade. • Conclusion: Nations should take vigorous steps to
eliminate piracy, by force if necessary—but under what circumstances?
Should nations put the needs of the whole community above the safety of their own citizens? Or should they refuse to put at risk the lives of noncombatants, that is, innocent people who have not signed up for military service? Should hostages be sacrificed in order to convince criminals that no effort will be spared to eradicate piracy? Or should the life of each citizen be more valued than preserving international trade?23
Evaluate the moral permissibility of the two incidents: of the French soldiers to attack, even though it resulted in a death, and for the Navy Seals to attack despite the fact that it turned out well (i.e., if Capt. Phillips had died, would the attack have been morally wrong?)
Key Concepts
Teleological 37 Utility 37 Consequentialism 37
Selfishness 38 Cultivated mind 38 End justifies the means 39
Enforce ethical conduct 39
Notes
Ian Demsky, “Police Defend Prostitution Tactic,” The Tennessean (February 2, 2005), p. 1.
Demsky, The Tennessean, p. 1. 3. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863) (Amherst,
NY: Prometheus Books, 1993), p. 16. 4. Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1822) (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988); Cesare Beccaria, An Essay on Crimes and
Punishments (1764) (Indianapolis, IN: Branden Publishing, 1992).
Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 17. 6. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 18. 7. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 20. 8. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 23. 9. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 24.
Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 27.
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Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 28. 12. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 29. 13. Jonathan D. Glater, “Prosecutors Send a Message: Are
Executives Listening?” New York Times (March 14, 2004), p. A11.
Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 31. 15. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 35. 16. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 37. 17. Mortimer Adler, Desires Right and Wrong: The
Ethics of Enough (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1991), p. 127.
- Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 45. 19. Sam Grace, “The Theory and Practice of Expense
Accounting,” Esquire (August 1997), p. 109; Anne
- Fisher, “Expenses: Fiction, Maybe, but a Crime?” Fortune (October 16, 1995), p. 42; T.F. Gautschi, “Survey Uncovers Possible Lack of Workplace Ethics,” Design News (March 25, 1996), p. 170.
- Cathy Booth, “The Bad Samaritan,” Time Magazine (September 7, 1998); see also Alan Gomez, “Witness to an Assault: Must You Report It?” USA Today (October 29, 2009).
- Plato, The Republic (ca. 370 B.C.) (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), Book II.
- Audrey Dutton, “More Rape Cases Go Unsolved,” Newsday (New York) (September 19, 2006).
- Rushworth Kidder, “The Next Great Moral Test,” Ethics Newsline (April 13, 2009).
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Evaluate the Moral Permissibility of Clyde’s Conduct
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