Playing God?

A familiar kind of moral objection to euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, cloning, stem cell research, and the like, is that they involve "playing God." What exactly does it mean to play God? Why is it playing God when we help someone die by giving them a lethal injection but not when we help someone live by giving them radiation or chemotherapy--or even an organ transplant? Is playing God always wrong, or only sometimes wrong? And why do we think playing God is wrong? After all, in many contexts, we think of it as a good thing to be like God--for we are made in the image of God.

Reluctant Rulers

In the Republic, Plato's Socrates famously says that no one should be willing to be a ruler of a city. In fact, he suggests there's something wrong with people who really want to be rulers, because it suggests they care about the wrong things or have an improper view of what ruling is all about. After all, real ruling is hard work, undertaken for the sake of the people of the city. So, the proper motive for ruling, according to Socrates, is to rule because one is compelled to rule, because it's necessary. And in large part, what compels someone to rule is that if she doesn't do it, someone worse than her will end up the ruler.

Does this sound right to you? Should we expect our leaders--politicians, administrators, pastors, etc.--to be servants who are unwilling in Socrates' sense? Is a positive desire to be a leader grounds for moral suspicion?

Puzzles About Life, Death, and the Afterlife

Evangelical Christians tend to believe that we go to heaven when we die and that life in heaven is far better than life on earth. When someone dies, this line of thought is often expressed by statements such as "She's in a better place" or "She's happier than she ever was" or some such thing.

If it's true that Christians go to a better place when they die, does it follow that all Christians are better off dead? (Are we all candidates for euthanasia?) And does that mean that when a Christian dies, we shouldn't mourn for her loss of her life--that we cannot mourn on her behalf, although of course we can mourn because we'll miss her?

Furthermore, a common explanation of the wrongness of an action is that it harms someone. So punching you in the nose is wrong because it hurts you. And killing is wrong because it does someone one of the most signficant harms there is: as Clint says in Unforgiven, more or less, it takes away everything a man has, everything he's gonna be. Can a Christian think about the wrongness of killing in this way? For it may seem that killing a Christian doesn't harm her. It certainly doesn't permanently end her existence. In fact, it may seem that she's better off for being killed. Given what we tend to think about life and death as Christians, why is killing wrong? And why such a serious wrong?

Take an Ethics Quiz

Actually, we won't have any quizzes or exams in our ethics classes this semester. But below you'll find a few links to online ethical quizzes you might find interesting. Each might tell you something about yourself and the way you think, ethically speaking. Of course, it's also possible to critique the quizzes themselves. What do you think?

Taboo

Morality Play

Philosphical Health Check

Fair warning: the first of these quizzes (Taboo) includes the following disclaimer: "This activity contains descriptions of a mildly adult nature. If that bothers you, then don't click on the link below." What this means is that you will be asked your moral opinion of some sexual behaviors that some folks will find disturbing.

Another blog!?

I've created this blog primarily as a way of communicating with the students in my ethics classes at Northwestern College in Iowa. But anyone else is free to hang around here, too, of course. Think of this blog as a kind of virtual space for office hours, where you can ask a question or lodge a complaint or whatever. And you can talk to the other folks in the office as well.

For those in my classes, let me point out here that there are two places for online discussion: this blog and the Synapse (our Course Management System) Forum. Is this overkill? Maybe. But my idea is that the Synapse Forum is meant to be a "safe" place where ONLY students in the class can talk. I won't participate there (although I'll browse occasionally) and other folks can't get to it. Also, the Synapse Forum is a temporary home for discussion, while this site will be an ongoing one. But on this blog, obviously, I'll be part of the conversation. And should you wish to, you can visit here even long after the class is over!

Nuts and bolts: I'll post various things, some generated by our class discussions and others just out of my own head. You'll respond. While you can't post, mainly for logistical reasons, you are encouraged to e-mail me anything you'd like to see addressed in a post. Or ask me to discuss something that's going on in the Synapse Forum, if you'd like.

Let me know if there's some way to make this work better.