POEC/PA 5308: Ethics, Culture and Public Responsibility

(Syllabus is subject to adjustment as we proceed. Last rev. 14 Aug 05)

Murray J Leaf
UT Dallas
Office: GR 3.128
W 7-9:45pm
Tel: 972 883 2732
GR 3.606
mjleaf@utdallas.edu
Fall 2005

Office hours: One hour before class and by appt.

This course considers the principle schools of ethical thought in the world's major cultural
traditions, the interactions between personal behavior and cultural groups/norms, and their
implications for administrators.

A central question in discussions of ethics is whether there can be a “situational ethic” or

whether ethics must always involve following fixed rules. Another is whether ethics is
compatible with pluralism or multiculturalism. This course provides a general consideration of
major schools of ethical thought, the interactions between personal behavior and cultural
groups/norms, and the implementation of public responsibility. Topics to be considered
include tensions between personal and collective goals, the nature and limits of tolerance, and
the role of institutions such as the family, government, business, churches and interest
groups.

The format is seminar-discussion, focusing on readings dealing with the ethics of

administrative positions of public trust through time, through history and across cultures. We
will have two take-home examinations and two papers. The first paper will be a proposal,
which will be presented in class and discussed. The second will be the final paper, ideally but
not necessarily based on the original proposal. The weighting of theses for the grade is 30%
or the midterm, 30% for the final, and 40% for the paper. For details of the paper
assignment, click here. Come to class prepared to discuss the assignment for the day. This
includes the first day—read the address by Chief Seattle (there is a link to it in the
assignment).

What we will find is that underneath the enormous cultural, historical, and situational
differences that separate the writers we will study, there appears to be one major recurrent
question and one main answer. The recurrent question is whether one can have ethical values
that respond to different circumstances and different situations, or whether ethics, to be
ethics, must involve a set of absolute rules to be followed no matter what. The one major
answer is that despite the seeming attractiveness of clear and fixed rules, once you think
about it enough you realize that ethics can only be situational. The most basic principles of
ethics cannot be iron rules of behavior of the form “In circumstance X you follow rule Y” but
rather much more like, “To deal with a situation properly and effectively, you have to place
yourself in the positions of each of those involved and ask what principles they might have
acted on that all the others involved would feel bound to accept.” The implication is that to
make proper ethical judgments about a situation you must first be able to analyze it
empirically. This is not necessarily easy but there are very definite ways to do it, which will be
described.

Readings not on the web will be in the bookstore. ALWAYS BRING THE READINGS TO
CLASS.

Date and Topic (numbered heads indicate separate topics):

Aug 24. Introduction

A major theme of the course is that there are two main models of ethics and what ethical
systems. I will describe them today. In that context I will also discuss Roman law. There are
two reasons for beginning with this. The first is that it is in Roman law that we first see the
major opposed views of ethics that we will track through the readings in this course,
essentially the opposition between situational ethics and absolutist ethics. The second is that
in practice, most ethical problems we have as people with public responsibilities arise in
relation to law, and these two models are both present in the law and applicable to the
problem of interpreting and applying it. For many of you this will be new material. For a
somewhat more systematic summary of what I describe in class, click here.

1. Chief Seattle’s speech of 1854, on the nature of a public trust.

http://www.webcom.com/duane/seattle.html

Aug 31. Traditional Asian Administrative Ethics.

2. Chinese Ethical Thought: Confucianism versus Legalism. These are radically

opposed to one another. Ask yourself what American or Western positions each of
them corresponds to. What are our versions of each of the major ideas stated?

Confucius: The Analects. The role of the official, and the place of education in
preparing him (or her) for it.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHPHIL/ANALECTS.HTM

Han Fei Tzu: Legalism. http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/hanfei.html

3. Indian Ethical Thought: the Bhagavad Gita: Karma Yoga Yoga means the Yoga of
Action. The relevant section on the web as of 30 Aug 2003 is from the beginning
down through the paragraph :

"'Therefore, without being attached always perform the action to be done. Practicing
action without being attached,
a person attains the supreme. By action Janaka and others attained perfection. You
also observing what the world needs should act."

This is highly compressed reasoning. Read it deliberately and try to imagine the
scene and situation, then ask what in your own life it corresponds to.
http://www.san.beck.org/Gita.html

Sep 7. Western Foundations: Plato and Socrates versus the Sophists.

The conflict between Sophism and the Socratics, relativism and absolutism (as presented in
Plato ’s dialogues).
These readings introduce the first Western versions of the two perspectives that make up the
main themes of the course: the conflict, or choice, between an absolutist ethics and situational
ethics. In these dialogues, Protagoras and Meno represent the position of the Sophists, who
argue for situational ethics and, by implication, democracy. Socrates, as you should be able
to see, argues for absolutist ethics and, by implication, authoritarianism. Plato, as the author
of the dialogues, was a staunch supporter of Socrates. It was not the custom at the time to
represent the views of one's opponents fairly. In this case, however, Protagoras was a very
famous Sophist and his views were very well known, and Plato appears to his represent his
views and those of Socrates in a relatively balanced way. The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo are
pure Socrates and in them Plato makes the case as favorable as he possibly can.

2. The Protagoras is in Off Campus Books and also on the web at

http://eserver.org/philosophy/plato/protagoras.txt
The Meno, Apology and Crito are in Plato Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito,
Meno, Phaedo -- by G.M.A. Grube (Translator); Paperback 6.95 @ Amazon. The
Phaedo is also highly recommended.

Sep 14. Medieval Absolutism: The Aristotelian Tradition and Aquinas.

Platonism gave rise to Aristotelianism, and both of these were absorbed into the broad
Hellenistic synthesis that dominated Mediterranean intellectual life from about the second
century B. C. Judaism as we now know it, Christianity, and Islam all developed in this context
and all absorbed Socratic ideas to some extent. In Christianity and Judaism, the main initial
leanings were toward Plato. In Islam, which preserved and built upon far more of Greek and
Hellenistic science, they were toward Aristotle. The Emperor Justinian declared himself a
protector of Christianity and closed down Plato's Academy in 385 AD -- the last pagan
university in Europe.

By the time of Aquinas, the major centers of learning were in the Islamic areas of southern
Europe, north Africa, and the middle east. The European (Catholic) church was in conflict with
the rising European cities. The cities were increasingly interested in science and promoting
trade, and the obvious people to trade with and to learn the latest science from were in the
Islamic areas. Aquinas represents the opening to this attitude within the Catholic Church. In
philosophical terms, it was phrased as dispute between Platonism and Aristotelianism.
Aquinas' great work, the Summa Theologica, attempts in an Aristotelian manner to establish a
single, complete, and monolithic philosophy that includes both all knowledge and all law. It
defines, literally, a place for everybody and everybody in their place. There has never been a
more consistent application of the basic Platonic/Socratic vision of a universe obeying just one
absolutely clear ethical system before or since. It continues to be influential in two main areas.
It is still viable theology in the Catholic tradition, and it continues to serve as an exposition of
one of the important versions of the idea of "natural law."

3. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica . Natural law and the hierarchy of authority.
This is a beautiful website that lets you expand and contract the work according to
its logical construction. The full Summa is far too large to read. The important thing
is not really to read the whole thing, however, but to see how it is organized and
how this applies to our concerns. The website does an excellent job of bringing this
 out on the screen, showing the kind of thinking that Aquinas must have been doing
when he composed it. This is the ultimate attempt to make all law and all ethics
seem to follow as one single system from one set or premises. Understand the
hierarchy of principles Aquinas is arguing for and click back and forth between the
levels to see how this works in the argument. For class, print out the list of all four
parts (that is, just the page and a half summary), then in the Second Second Part
go to justice and then to question 57 Articles 1 to 4, Question 58 article 1-12,
Question 59 articles 1 to 4, question 60 articles 1-4, and Question 61, article 1 and
print them out. Go up and down the chain a few times; the point is to see how
completely hierarchical the argument is. In class we will mainly concentrate on his
idea of law: where it comes from and what it consists in.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

Sep 21. The Foundation of Modern Skepticism and Situational Ethics: Kant.
Skepticism arose when the scholars of Plato's academy, a couple of generations after his
death, turned the Socratic method on Socrates own assumptions, asking questions like “What
is the essence of essence?” or What is the definition of definition? The result was that the
assumptions could not hold and Socrates' supposed absolutism gave way to a new version of
the original Sophist position it was aimed at rejecting. Skepticism has continued as the main
alternative to the Socratic tradition ever since. In the second century A D it received its first
major comprehensive formulation in the work of Sextus Empiricus, from which we get the
term "empiricism," the method of experience. Empiricism in turn was reframed by Galileo as
the method of experiment, and this continues to be the foundation of the modern physical
sciences. Matters of law, thought, and mind, however, remained without a foundational
skeptical analysis until Emanuel Kant. Kant is often treated in the philosophical literature as
an idealist, although a particularly difficult one. Kant's own statements, however, make it
absolutely clear that he saw himself in the Skeptical tradition, building on David Hume. As
Aquinas' work is the foundation of modern absolutist ethics, Kant's is the definitive foundation
of modern situational ethics.
Kant’s argument is the only that is good in itself is a good will. Everything else is good
contingently. The big question, then, is how we judge whether some is good or not
contingently. What is his answer?
The key ideas to dig out of Kant's argument are how he distinguishes between something
good in itself and something good for what it leads to, what he means by a good will,
"judgment," duty, universal law and the role of reason in moral judgment. The other main
point to note is that it is an empirical argument. He is not talking about morality "out there"
somewhere but rather analyzing our own basic assumptions. Does what he says get at what
you, most fundamentally, already recognize? As a guide to following Kant's argument, look
at the Fall 2003 final exam questions (below).

4. Kant, E. 1964. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Harper Collins (Used)

Sep 28. Modern Absolutism (of a sort): Utilitarianism and Positivism.

While Mill is sometimes identified with modern liberalism, in fact he is much closer to modern
libertarians. He is not arguing for a situational ethic. It is, rather, a new although very odd
version of the absolutist approach. The widely cited essay “Utilitarianism ” makes this clear.
Can you see it? (Is the key question what is right, or is it who decides what is right?)

5. Mill: Utilitarianism . (There are also several places where this is on the web.)
Oct 5. Pragmatism.

In the early part of the 19th century there were enormous advances in what was becoming
the social and behavioral sciences and law, stimulated mainly by Kant and Adam Smith. By the
middle of the century, however, especially after the often abortive liberal revolutions of 1848,
there was an anti-democratic and anti-scientific reaction, revolving mainly around the
alternatives presented by Marxism and positivism. The positivist side the leaders were Auguste
Comte (who invented the term), Mill, and Herbert Spencer. In its European version (starting
with Comte), positivism was openly authoritarian and anti-democratic. In its British version, it
was quieter about its anti-democratic aspects and focused on being pro-capitalist or pro-
powerful. Either way, it was the opposite of what Kant and the Skeptics had argued for and for
while succeeded in obscuring their views. A major reaction to positivism in turn was American
pragmatism, begun initially by O W Holmes, William James, C. S. Peirce, and others at
Cambridge. Later, John Dewey and George Herbert Mead became major spokesmen. You
should be able to see Dewey and Mead reject Mill (and Aquinas, of course) and return to Kant.

6. The Moral Writings of John Dewey (Great Books in Philosophy) by John Dewey, James Gouinlock
(Editor) ISBN: 0879758821 13.68 @ Amazon. Read the following selections:
Instrumentalism, Intelligence and Morals, the Nature of Principles, The Irreducible
Plurality of Moral Criteria, Morality is Social, and The Method of Social Intelligence.

7. Also recommended: George Herbert Mead. "Social Consciousness and the

Consciousness of Meaning", Psychological Bulletin 7 (1910): 397-405.

8. Also recommended: Dostoyevsky The Grand Inquisitor Paperback

$4.95@Amazon
This may seem an odd reading. The purpose is to let you see how many different
and seemingly unpredictable ways the same basic positions can be presented.
Dostoyevsky is arguing against the “West” and for what he regards as a truly
“Russian” ethical perspective, in which he identifies being Russian with being an
Orthodox Christian. But as you read it, look at the specific positions he identifies as
Western and Christian and ask who they remind you of. Who, in the story, reminds
you of Mill and who of Kant? The most interesting material is the introduction by
Guignon. The excerpts from Dostoyevsky himself are much less clear.

Midterm take-home on work up to here. (Click here.)

Oct 12. Begin Law and Ethics

This section introduces the last component of the course: the relationship between ethics and
law. For modern administrators, especially in the West, most of the important and difficult
ethical issues you face will be closely involved with questions of law: when to comply, whether
to comply and how to comply. We do more and more with law, and law is moving into newer
and newer areas. Because of this administrators are almost always faced with having to
adjust to, apply new legal requirements that involve the threat of facing legal action. When
their efforts are not readily accepted they commonly lead to lawsuits or even criminal charges,
that in turn reflect back upon the law itself. If you want to handle this situation constructively,
or perhaps even to survive it, you had better understand how it works from a legal
perspective. The modern position begins with Holmes. Pound continues the same
development. As you should be able to see, they speak for the Skeptical, not the absolutist,
perspective.

9. Law—Holmes, O W. 1887. The Path of the Law. 10 Harvard Law Review 457.

10. Roscoe Pound. A Survey of Social Interests.

Oct 19. The New Deal and labor law, changing views of right to contract and to
organize.

11. National Labor Relations Act and National Labor Relations Board (right to
organize and bargain collectively). This is an example of a single piece of national
legislation establishing a whole branch of law and an administrative apparatus to
implement it. The act can be read and downloaded from the National Labor
Relations Board site at http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/legal/manuals/rules/act.asp Read
carefully at least the Introduction and look over the rest, noting what the sections
pertain to. Then, to see how it is implemented, look at the front page of the same
NLRB US Govt. site: http://www.nlrb.gov/ Got to "Site Map" and look especially at
the "Structure" section. Click on the subsections for "Board" and "General Council."
Understand how it implements the Act. Also in the NLRB site, you can go to "Cases"
and look them over. For class we will discuss the K. O. Steele case, just because it is
in Texas http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/weekly/w2927.htm#Steel.

See also the NLRB page at lawmemo.com, an employment law firm, at:
http://www.lawmemo.com/emp/nlrb/default.htm
Labor magazine: http://sweatmag.org/ Look over the article topics to help yourself
imagine the conditions the NLRA was aimed at changing. Also, just for fun, read
the article titled The Fast Track to a Great Social Security System.

Oct 26. Midterm due. Also paper proposals. We will discuss the proposals together in
class Bring two copies.

12. Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 9.56 @ Amazon

From about 1880 to 1935, the ever-moving pendulum of public attention swung
back to the skeptical tradition, led by pragmatism in the United States and closely
allied traditions descending mainly from Wilhelm Wundt, Gestalt psychology, and
sociological jurisprudence in Europe. After then, however, and over the period of
World War II, positivism was again resurgent, mainly in the form of what was called
Logical Positivism and the German positivist sociology of Max Weber. In the 1950s,
Erving Goffman was one of the first to make a clear (but quiet) return to the
pragmatic tradition. The Presentation of Self is both a new form and a particularly
clear application of what the Mead and Dewey had described as symbolic
interactionism.

Nov 2. Civil and Human Rights.

13. Human Rights. Universal Declaration of Human Rights

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
The full interactive Helsinki Accords Final Act
 http://www.hri.org/docs/Helsinki75.html

14. Persecution and the right to escape it--Asylum and immigration.

The Matter of T. (Sri Lanka.) Click here.

15. Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission —law and
cases. http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/vii.html
Remember this is only one section of the Act. If you can, read the rest.

16. Discrimination attorney site: http://www.discriminationattorney.com/

Look over the topics and read the article on winning a 1.35 million dollar claim. See
it as an illustration of the way legislation has created incentives to use courts to
develop law.

Nov 9. Tentative Topic: We will discuss the Schiavo case from the point of view of
the differing perspectives on including that of those concerned with disabilities
rights. Richard Scotch will make a presentation and lead the discussion.

17. A very short notice that sets up the issues in plain language is:
http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/schiavostatement032005.html
Another statement representing the position of the same group, debating with the
attorney for Michael Shiavo, is: http://www.terrisfight.org/coleman.html
The Texas "Futile Care Law" :
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/HS/content/htm/hs.002.00.000166.00.htm
A little overview on About, with links:
http://civilliberty.about.com/cs/humaneuthinasia/a/bgTerry.htm

If you are interested in the education issues, the reading was the Introduction and
Chapter 4 of Jumping the Queu. Click here
I apologize for the roughness. I had to scan and edit it to put in a form that I could
post, and have not had enough time to make it neat. I have left in some page heads
from the original to refer to when we discuss it, but could not set up pages in a way
that will be uniform. Also I have doubtless not caught all the computer's mis-
identifications of letters.

Nov 16. Affirmative Action and Diversity. We will concentrate mainly on higher education
and on the Grutter opinion (the Michigan case--last item. From my perspective, this is a
perfect illustration of an area in which any general rule you try to write or apply will not work,
and there is no choice for an ethical administrator but to fall back on what will make the best
possible sense in the situation and hope that if your decision is challenged the courts will
eventually have to agree.

Timeline of affirmative action and UT Austin's enrollment history. Related URL's are:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/affirmativetimeline1.html
And
http://www.utexas.edu/academic/oir/statistical_handbook/02 -03/students/s04b/
 The College Board & Diversity: www.collegeboard.org/diversity/ ***

Another interesting source: http://www.diversityweb.org/

A site for research into issues of diversity and affirmative action in California,” the
Affirmative Action and Diversity Project: http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/

The U of Michigan Case in perspective--two papers about the Michigan case:

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ad/mich_white_paper.pdf

http://www.nixonpeabody.com/linked_media/publications/ELPA_06232003.pdf

Finally, the opinion of the Court, written by Justice O ’Conner, on the Grutter case.
This is the case concerning law school admissions, in which the court held that race
could be considered. Click here. You can also find it with Google, just enter grutter
v bollinger.

Nov 23. Review and Conclusions. This is the last day--not the 26th. Finals and
papers are due the 26th but we can talk a little about the Patriot Act. Here are some
links.

The Patriot Act. FBI access to web communications. Again

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
Look it over. You will see it is a long list of specific
changes to other acts. To get a sense of what they
mean look first read section 2 (Severability) then
at section 902. Then look at the act it amends,
particularly US Code 1802:Chapter 36:SC1:Section
1802.
look at the Patriot Act. This time read Title II down
to at least Section 502, but focus on 204. Then read
the Foreign Surveillance and Intelligence Act section
that 204 refers to: Section 402 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of
1978 (50 U.S.C. 1842 and 1843) . Also
look at the definition of foreign power in
1801. Note that terrorists are now equated
with foreign governments. It makes a kind
of sense, but what is the danger?

There is an overview of FISA at

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/

This includes a link to an ACLU press

release you should read, beginning "In a
first-ever ruling...' concerning a ruling of
the FISA court. The link is in the fifth bulle
at the beginning of discussion.

Nov 30. Final Examinations and Term Papers due in my office by 6 pm. GR 3.128. If
I am not there, slide them under the door.

This Was the Final Exam for Spring 2005. We will agree on a new one.

Part 1.
 Holmes argues that our laws embody our experience in making our moral or ethical values
subject to adjudication on the basis of evidence. Others, even in the absolutist tradition, say
much the same thing. Explain this.

Part 2.

Illustrate your answer to part 1 with a discussion of the relationship between legal and ethical
issues faced by a judge or administrator in any two of the areas of law we have discussed
since reading Holmes, namely:

Administrative Law (labor law, the NLRB case we discussed, EEOC under the Civil Rights Act,
Disabilities regulations under the 1997 amendments).

Human Rights and Human Rights law (UN Declaration on Human Rights, Helsinki Accords,
Matter of T ).

Civil Rights (Civil Rights Act of 1964, Matter of T).

The Shiavo case and the Texas Futile Care Law.

Affirmative Action (Bakke, Hopwood, Grutter vs. Bollinger, Brown vs Board of Education).

The questions for Spring 2005 will be related but not the same. We will work them
out in class. They will deal with the interrelationships between law and ethics.

BOOKS

Required (in order in which we will read them):

Protagoras by Plato , Stanley Lombardo, Karen Bell. Publisher: Hackett Pub Co; (March 1992)
ISBN: 0872200949

Grube, G. M. A. Trans., Plato Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo -- by
G.M.A. Grube (Translator); Hackett Paperback 6.95 @ Amazon. ISBN 0-915145-22-7 The
second edition (newly out) is also ok. ISBN: 0872206335

Kant, E. 1964. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Harper Collins (Used) ISBN :
0061311596 (Be sure to get the Paton translatio n.)

Mill: “Utilitarianism.” George Sher (Editor); Hardcover. Price at Amazon is $3.95 ISBN:
087220605X

The Moral Writings of John Dewey (Great Books in Philosophy) by John Dewey, James Gouinlock (Editor) ISBN:
0879758821

Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Book.ISBN 0-385-09402-7 9.56
@ Amazon

Recommended:
Dostoyevsky The Grand Inquisitor Paperback Hackett Publishing. $4.95@Amazon ISBN 0-
87220-228-3