Study Journal 1

9/8/2015

*I’m reminded of a talk Elder Oaks gave in the october conference of 2000 about the process of being converted. He emphasize the importance of learning to do, and doing to become. Relating this to Aristotle’s ideas on (practical) ethics, it’s amazing to see how interrelated the two thoughts are.

*The note about the distinction between ethics and morality strikes me. It seems that today’s culture is even further gone, as we have delved into the realm of relative morality. I see a general trend to disestablish the validity of morality, so as to even further invalidate the hold of ethical standards on society.

*I feel like there’s another way you can distinguish between ethics and morality than those discussed in class. Ethics is something that can be taught or instructed in a very straightforward manner. Morality, however, is more usually rooted in someone’s core self perception, and not something that can be taught directly. The way to teach morality is to instruct by principle and guide the student to ponder on application. Which, I guess, takes us back to Aristotle and application.
*Conceptually, the implementation of Situational Ethics is not dissimilar to the way a faithful Latter Day Saint may live their day. The difference is that the LDSaint has a standard of principle that his actions are decided upon, consistent from one situation to the next. The Situational Ethicist’s standard is variable. Though the process of deciding to act goes through the same hoops, it is the standard that process is based on that makes the difference. Over the course of 500 situations, we will see consistent behavior from the LD Saint, but varying behavior from the Situational Ethicist.

9/10/2015

*Given that there is a “great difference between ethics and religion,” how much does it matter that there is lots of gray area? Obviously, we as latter day saints believe in consistent behavior no matter the situation. But can we really fault someone without that knowledge who believes it is okay to behave a certain way in one situation, and a different way in another situation?

*Ethics (at least insofar as Traditional Ethics and Situational Ethics) has an implied component which is that there is always a 3rd party to judge the actions and determine them right or wrong (“an action someone makes should be judged”). That’s what gets me about all these man-made ethical systems, is that they are subconsciously approaching a gospel standard but being man-made they never quite get there. But we can see those elements of truth there.

9/15/2015

*In reading about the observation of the fish, I’m reminded of times when I’ve kind of slowed down and really just looked at something. Because of the level of abstraction going on in our brains, I don’t often stop to really observe something for its unique qualities. But because of the times I have done this, I can appreciate the great amount of insight able to be gleaned from such a process.

*I’m very intrigued by Armour’s description of people’s processes, with their manuals and their complex methodologies. I’ve seen examples of these, but it never occurred to me that there was a classification that could encompass all those strategies. This Orders of Ignorance really calls to me; I like the areas of classification that it allows for, in software development as well as in other areas.

*I also really like Armour’s perspective of software development being a container of knowledge, and the idea of cleaning up code as an extension of that final goal. I’m definitely going to try and apply that perspective into my own coding forays.

9/17/2015

*As someone who has made a clear decision to never dramatically exceed the speed limit (I am always less than 5 mph over the posted limit), I find it very interesting that so many members of the class have immediate rebuttals to the idea that their going over the speed limit is unethical. It astounds me that people who claim to follow the 12th article of faith are so comfortable breaking these (perceived as ‘lesser’) laws, such as breaking the speed limit. I also see a lot of illegal downloading and contributing to pirating. The ethical system is in place, but even within our own (LDS) society, there are many who operate after their own set of morals.

*(This is something of a continuation of my previous thought) Given that the modern philosophical definition of morality is “religious and immutable,” I find it interesting that people within our class seem to have derived their own moral standards, somewhat departing from what is taught within our religious society. I also see this same ‘personal morality’ present in my peers from high school, which makes me think that the ‘modern philosophy’ definition of morality, as being something immutable, is somewhat out of date.

*Even though there are many relative moralistic ideals, there are still some things that people generally recognize as being moral, and respect such people who observe those standards. One such example is this idea of not allowing ourselves to be offended. Generally, people who are able to brush off offense are respected amongst their peers. This was especially shown in the story Prof. Dougal shared.