Journal 4
In high school, I was on the honor council, a group of elected students and faculty whose job it was to sit as a jury on disciplinary hearings for cheating, stealing, lying, and plagiarism, and, on the side, to promote good honorable behavior in the classroom. As a member of the council for four years, I was privy to the knowledge of some pretty foolish and selfish actions that were carried out by my classmates. Due to our pledge of confidentiality, we were not allowed to make any of the verdicts or details of the cases public. Thinking about it now, as we have begun to discuss the general theories of ethics in class, I wish I had known some of the theories then in order to apply them to not only the cases but also to the sort of “burden” of carrying the stories around with me, as I sometimes felt that they were.
The social contract theory, the Hobbesian idea that the rules which govern us instill an intrinsic duty upon us to uphold them, was eluded to many times by one of the teachers who sat on the counsel. Dr. Kasten, who was the sort of model of honor and ethics had sat on the council for almost twenty years. Every time that someone new came before us, the rest of the members patiently waited for his spiel on honor and duty and upholding the rules. He explained in highly metaphorical jargon that we are just pieces in a puzzle, a puzzle whose form had been laid out by years and years of tweaking and refining, that we were privileged to be a part of this environment of trust, and that actions not only affect the individual but the whole community. These speeches were iconic and seemed to trash the notion that one would act on a theory such as subjective realism or ethical egoism. I remember seeing the faces of the culprits fall immediately as they began to feel the weight of Dr. Kasten’s words. Although not all fond memories, I find myself returning to the hearing room and Dr. Kasten’s words whenever a discussion about ethics arises.
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