Jotting #3 - Why Study Ethics

Assignment: Explain why we at North Park want to study ethics, giving at least one idea and at least three supporting details, particularly evidence from Dr. Clifton-Soderstrom's lecture.

My Response: Knowledge can be attained through many different avenues. There are numerous colleges and countless online courses that will teach you essentially anything you want to know. Sites such as Wikipedia give a tasty appetizer to humans giving them access to over 7 million articles (2 million of which are in English) of just about anything they would want to know about. But simply knowing how many feet are in a mile or what organism causes cavities in your mouth will not benefit you unless you know how to appropriately apply that knowledge. This, in turn, is why an ethics course at a University such as North Park is important. As mentioned before there are so many sources of information in the world today that it may be more prudent to save your money from tuition costs and discover the knowledge you seek in other ways. In fact, it may even produce better results for someone who is a business major to work there way up in a company and know how it works instead of taking classes at a 4 year college or university. However, these alternative methods of education do not directly address the issue of ethics; “the study of how to live a good life and choose right actions”. Dr. Clifton-Soderstrom made it quite clear that one of the most basic questions of ethics is “Should I . . . “. The question of “should I” readily takes a back seat in the mind of someone who has just realized that they can make a handsome profit off of selling endangered turtle eggs for gourmet soup. An argument of this nature can not simply be answered by saying “Oh, those poor defenseless turtles”. There is often more to the story than what is first believed. In understanding the ethics of the situation it is important to realize what ethics is not. Dr. Clifton-Soderstrom outlined three details to understanding what ethic is not. First of all it is not sentimentality. You can not “feel bad” for the turtles and in turn reach the conclusion that it is ethically wrong. Furthermore it is not moralizing. Simply because you may have grown up believing that the destruction of endangered species is wrong, does not make your argument that much more valid. Finally, Dr. Clifton-Soderstrom states Ethics is not politics, “legality is not the same as morality”.
It is important to study Ethics at North Park because without it we simply become another means of attaining information. Without asking the question of “should I” the world becomes, to say the least, an altogether unfriendly place. There are no easy answers to ethics questions but avoiding the topic altogether is even worse. The education that one receives must not be void of asking the question “Should I”. Furthermore, it must be understood how to appropriately address the fullness of the situation without including sentimentality, moralization and politics.