Ethics is a broken subject...

[Demon]

It is time to elect the world leader, and your vote counts.

Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A - Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B - He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C - He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?



















































A was Franklin D. Roosevelt

B was Winston Churchill

C was Adolph Hitler








(p.s., it was a question I was seeing around the internet. http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/psychology/ethical-questions.html)



So my arguable point from this is that the human moral compass is inexact.

 

[Tmoo]

the question is meant to fool the reader. it provides only enough information to get an idea of the candidates' lifestyles, and does not give away their motives or any such values that would cast a different light upon them. of course choice C makes the most sense going by the information given at the top. But add the names to each choice and that changes.

 

[Demon]

the question is meant to fool the reader. it provides only enough information to get an idea of the candidates' lifestyles, and does not give away their motives or any such values that would cast a different light upon them. of course choice C makes the most sense going by the information given at the top. But add the names to each choice and that changes.

Regardless of how it would really play out, isn't the lack of information kind of a point in itself? I mean, how much information do we generally know on a person? Pretty much what they tell us.

 

[Harlequin]

That's a very loose way of electing a leader. Hitler may have seemed the model patriot, but he made his disdain for Jews and Gypsies very clear, his proposed foreign policy was blatantly aggressive and he had an history of criminality including numerous counts of inciting civil unrest.

Electing a leader solely on his living habits is akin to hiring an athlete on his ability to do long division.

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

Lifestyles don't mean anything as long as they do the job they're paid for, and do it well. You'll find that the majority of "big" named people probably have a past they don't want to be brought up, and no one ever gives a shit... until the media starts stirring it.

As long as they do their job well, who gives a shit what they're like. :dave:

 

[Davey Gaga]

Terrible thread. Not enough information is given in the introductory statements to be able to make a decent decision. It's a leading question.

 

[Rydrum2112]

I stated early that I would prefer to vote for Stephen Colbert. Apparently that statement on its own didn't make the point of my response clear enough.

I agree with FinalC- a lot of our best leaders are fallible. In fact being fallible is part of being human and that minor flaws are probably forgivable unless they get in the way of running the country or doing their job.

Bringing a modern view to the question- given above A, B, or C who would you vote for? I would choose D. I would rather write a vote in for a comedian than the people who are my options now. Everything in the USA is so bipartisan that unless you agree with exactly one side or the other, your views are never really represented. I know thats a bit off topic but I think it is one of the things that can be debated.

 

[blakstang98]

Nice, I fell for it and voted for C.

As others have already stated, we all have skeletons in our closet. If a dude is cheating on his wife, why would that make him a bad President/leader? Bill Clinton, case in point, though he wasn't a good President.

Looking at our last 3 Presidents, the aforementioned Clinton, Bush and Obama. Clinton got a significant amount of female votes for his looks and had the charm to "sell" himself into the seat for 8 years, but at the cost of a crooked deal when he was Governor and the infamous "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" deal. Bush was the Republican answer and son of a former President, but was supposedly a party animal in college and a C student. Now Obama as the Democrat counterpart who had severe media bias in his favor and a lot of unreal votes (Chicago having a higher vote count than population), for a guy that realistically wasn't born here (yes, I'm aware that he has a birth certificate from Hawaii, but lets hold that as an end all arguement), was supposedly a drug dealer at some point in his life, had a severely low amount of political experience and was heavily funded by other countries to bring ours down (yes, I really and fully believe this).

History shows that we really know how to pick the winners. But realistically, all politicians are corrupt. It's just a matter of picking the lesser of the 2 evils.

 

[Martel]

I honestly don't think ethics should be relevant in business or politics. It is through ethics and the concept of morality that we find loopholes in the laws and rules we have built for ourselves, and they overly complicate matters because these things aren't absolute, they're just opinions. You can twist anything to be ethical and moral and nobody can tell you you are wrong, because its just an opinion.

I don't see why a politician's personal life should matter - what matters is how well he or she does his job. A world leader could try to summon demons from Hell every night for all I care, just so long as they did their job properly and maintained world order. That is what they're there for, not to be criticized over the way they eat their dinner, or what time they go to bed, or whether they accidently forget to tie their shoelaces before they leave the house. Who really gives a damn?

 

[Ohri-Jin]

Uhuh I fell for it as well, it shocked me tbh xD

Indeed you never know someone even if its your best friend, people have always a darker side to them,. thats human..

I would like to say that their pasts dont matter etc, but to be honest they do have a rep to protect and they have to be a rolemodel..

So yeah , only mormones can be SINCERE politicians, the rest are all inlfuenced by demons and some are even whispered in their ears by the devil himself/itself/herself

True story


Dan you paranoid btw

 

[Rasputin]

Rather than reemphasize how self defeating the original argument is, let's try another experiment. Which of these three environments would you rather live in:

A. A private yet spacious rocky landscape with a pristine view, no smog, and exclusive access to notable historical landmarks

B. A cozy patch of real estate located in one of America's national parks, complete with free access to heated water and steam baths

C. A cesspool of crime, pollution, and overpriced housing






















































A is the Moon, B is the inside of Old Faithful and C is downtown New York.

Since everyone likely voted A or B, this is clearly evidence that reasonable judgement is a broken subject, right? That people can't be trusted to decide to live in good health? Or could it possibly show that these types of tests are irrelevant because nobody in their right mind would depend on such limited information in the first place?

The answer is pretty obvious here.

As for this post:

Now Obama as the Democrat counterpart who had severe media bias in his favor and a lot of unreal votes (Chicago having a higher vote count than population), for a guy that realistically wasn't born here (yes, I'm aware that he has a birth certificate from Hawaii, but lets hold that as an end all arguement), was supposedly a drug dealer at some point in his life, had a severely low amount of political experience and was heavily funded by other countries to bring ours down (yes, I really and fully believe this).

The conspiracy theories are hardly needed in a serious debate. He beat McCain and all the other crappy alternatives because he was a better candidate, not because he's some sort of evil alien overlord using mind control waves to influence voters.

 

[Demon]

Rather than reemphasize how self defeating the original argument is, let's try another experiment. Which of these three environments would you rather live in:

A. A private yet spacious rocky landscape with a pristine view, no smog, and exclusive access to notable historical landmarks

B. A cozy patch of real estate located in one of America's national parks, complete with free access to heated water and steam baths

C. A cesspool of crime, pollution, and overpriced housing






















































A is the Moon, B is the inside of Old Faithful and C is downtown New York.

Since everyone likely voted A or B, this is clearly evidence that reasonable judgement is a broken subject, right? That people can't be trusted to decide to live in good health? Or could it possibly show that these types of tests are irrelevant because nobody in their right mind would depend on such limited information in the first place?

The answer is pretty obvious here.

You seem to be commiting a small number of fallacies in your argument, most recognizably the Special Pleading fallacy. You bash my argument, yet use the same to try to disprove it. ie If your argument is that my method was invalid, then to use the same method to disprove it is invalid.

 

[Gaige]

I'm going to to refer to Hitler and Churchill to make my point here.

Their lifestyles weren't the only things that made the public love them. Hitler came to power just after the Wall Street Crash. Germany was running low on money, supplies, and unemployment was at an all time high. People were desperate.

Then Hitler offered a way out. He gave people jobs, money, food. Inspiring speeches such as the Nuremburg Rallies. He made people love him because he dragged them out of an extremely bad situation. They weren't to know he'd be a ruthless dictator. Hitler, despite his cruel methods, saved Germany from collapse for a long time.

Churchill was very much a wartime leader. He too, gave inspiring speeches, which his predecessor, Chamberlain, could not. He inspired people to keep fighting, and he lost power soon after the war ended.

What I'm saying is, we can't judge people by their personalities. The two lines you've given aren't anything to do with ethics. They're factors in someone's rise to pwoer, yes. But they're certainly not ethics.

 

[Demon]

What I'm saying is, we can't judge people by their personalities. The two lines you've given aren't anything to do with ethics. They're factors in someone's rise to pwoer, yes. But they're certainly not ethics.

Applied ethics attempts to apply ethic theory to actual practical problems. If I asked something like "Is abortion morally immoral?", the question would not instantly become invalid over the lack of assonant detail.

 

[Gaige]

With that question you're asking for a direct answer to a question. You're delivering it to us in plain, simple terms, without any attempt at deluding us.

Yet the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian and a war hero has anything to do with the fact that he massacred millions of people and sparked the second world war?

 

[Demon]

With that question you're asking for a direct answer to a question. You're delivering it to us in plain, simple terms, without any attempt at deluding us.

Yet the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian and a war hero has anything to do with the fact that he massacred millions of people and sparked the second world war?

I was hoping to make an allusion of how the questions and amount of information can be applied today. If you instead look at the questions from past to present, it does leave some confusion, as there is some "time travel" involved which generally isn't there when making today's choices.

 

[Gaige]

Yet we're partially responsible for the establishment of the leaders you've made these allusions to. Hitler didn't come to power on his own. Neither did Roosevelt or Churchill. Applied ethics or ethics, it's just morality to me, and you're making assumptions. I immediately thought that you aren't giving us enough detail.

Maybe it's because I have a decent amount of knowledge in history, but you're just making assumptions, giving limited detail, and saying ethics is broken. Yet we can't expect politics and leaders to inform us. We have to inform ourselves. We aren't stupid.

 

[Harlequin]

This isn't an issue on ethics its an issue on withholding information. Almost anything has an upside, the questions just give us an unbalanced view on the subject.

Like I said earlier in the thread, damning information on Hitler was readily avaliable to the public before he was elected into power, the country was just desperate to improve their faltering economy.

 

[Demon]

Since my personal stance is that the information presented is like an allusion to the present, then the lack of information would help my point.

I'm just saying how I see it, since we're debating my statement that "the original post is valid = ethics is broken".

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

Who even wrote the question to begin with? It comes across as something written by a 5th Grader. As Dave said, it's a leading question. You're deliberately shown information that will almost force you to pick "C", if you picked "A" or "B" then the whole question goes to pot straight away.