I haven't posted anything on here in quite some time. The honest reason is because I haven't had much to write about. I've read a lot of blog-building websites that have said to give your blog a purpose/vision and I've struggled to find that. However, I have good news! I have decided to turn this into a personal memoir of my law school journey. I plan to post several times a week about my experiences in law school and the law field in general. Once I get started, I will post much more frequently than I have lately. Stay in touch... there is much more to come!
Take care,
--Nan
Friday, July 29, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Ethicists galore
It disturbs me when individuals who are not qualified to write of moral topics do so in a public forum. This is especially troublesome to me when, say, an individual with excellent press credentials - but no background in ethics - writes an article about morality. People will listen to this individual simply because of his or her credentials. Ethics is an extremely complicated field. Ethicists spend years upon years studying the plethora of theories propounded by philosophers across time and space. It is to these individuals that we ought to turn when questions of morality arise - not individuals with simply great press credentials.
The reason I say this is because I recently read this article in which a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist wrote a column about the morality of the use of drones in war. This is a question of just war, of ethics. I looked at this author's biography on the Washington Post website and Googled him, but found no credentials in ethics specifically. This author undoubtedly has had an impressive 25-year career at the Washington Post, but does that make him a qualified ethicist? I think not.
In fact, I found the article to have a very weak argument and even found an informal logical fallacy in it (see if you can find it, too). And let's be honest, if this fallacy were pointed out to him without explanation, would this columnist even know what it meant? I venture to say that an ethicist certainly would, but I'm not so sure that this author would. And that troubles me.
Hopefully I'm incorrect. Hopefully this author has studied philosophy for years and earned a doctorate with a concentration in ethics. That would be great. If that is the case, then I stand corrected. I just can't find that information on him and it troubles me that an individual writes of morality without any real knowledge of ethics. In fact, it seems to me that writing about ethics while standing upon press credentials unrelated to ethics is a morally blameworthy act itself. Any thoughts?
Take care,
--Nan
The reason I say this is because I recently read this article in which a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist wrote a column about the morality of the use of drones in war. This is a question of just war, of ethics. I looked at this author's biography on the Washington Post website and Googled him, but found no credentials in ethics specifically. This author undoubtedly has had an impressive 25-year career at the Washington Post, but does that make him a qualified ethicist? I think not.
In fact, I found the article to have a very weak argument and even found an informal logical fallacy in it (see if you can find it, too). And let's be honest, if this fallacy were pointed out to him without explanation, would this columnist even know what it meant? I venture to say that an ethicist certainly would, but I'm not so sure that this author would. And that troubles me.
Hopefully I'm incorrect. Hopefully this author has studied philosophy for years and earned a doctorate with a concentration in ethics. That would be great. If that is the case, then I stand corrected. I just can't find that information on him and it troubles me that an individual writes of morality without any real knowledge of ethics. In fact, it seems to me that writing about ethics while standing upon press credentials unrelated to ethics is a morally blameworthy act itself. Any thoughts?
Take care,
--Nan
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