ZOMBIE FORUMS

I was watching the news the other day, and they did a story the upcoming avian flu that has the world's alarmists quite happy. They mentioned at the end of the story that we (americans) only have about 2 million vials of the vaccine ready, and if the flu mutated into a human strain and we saw a repeat of the influenza outbreak at the start of the 20th century, those who had the vials would turn to ethicists to help them decide who should get the vaccine.

Who is an ethicist? Can I claim to the world that I have spent a long time thinking through my ethical system, and that makes me a sound source of advice on moral matters? Or is there actually an acedemic system, where an ethicist can say that he is such an expert with the same kind of certainty as a physicist, or a neurologist, or a psychholgist.

Philosophy is just as "subjective", so I'd think there could be a system for being a formal ethics major as well.

Or am I missing something here?

On TV? There's your problem.

Considering they missed the fact that there currently IS NO vaccine for the relevant strain, I'd say just ignore the whole segment as another example of the dumbing-down of TV news.

*Insert Heinlein reference here*

Odd coincidence. Was just reading about Heinlein.

There are two answers to this question. Firstly, the obvious one -- an ethicist is a philosopher who studies questions like "what does it mean to do right?" or "can I say that state of affairs A is inherently better than state of affairs B, for any A and B?"

Yes, you can claim you are such a person. Any claim, especially in the realm of philosophy, must be substantiated; so, then, what articles have you published? What post-doctoral fellowships can you boast? Do people even listen to you on the radio? If your name is Jerry Falwell or Laura Schlesinger or Jesse Jackson, you are an ethicist. Both Michael Moore and Ann Coulter are ethicists, too. These people have credentials -- and, as with all credentials, it is up to you to give them more or less strength in convincing you. Credentials are a way of saying, "this other important person thinks I have something important to say, so you should also."

The second answer is, "we are all ethicists". It is inherently human to ask the question, "is A better than B?" We can't escape it. As we reflect upon it, we may or may not find the act of making such distinctions valuable; but even to say, "asking ethical questions is not valuable" is to make an ethical judgement.

What the people with the vaccine are saying is, "we want to trust people with impressive credentials to tell us what to do in this possible emergency." I suggest to you: get a Ph.D in philosophy, or a D.D., stat -- and get a job with a radio station.

Tamayo the cynic

Ethicsist? Moralist? Money gouging profiteer?

I may be misinterpreting the definitions but...

It looks to me like you guys are describing a moralist, which would be one who determines right and wrong. An ethicsist would simple determine whether or not an action is socially acceptable. A society typically sets what it's ethical rules will be while morals are an internal, personal rules set.

The ethicsist will probably tell the person controlling the supply that while it is ok to sell the vaccine, they shouldn't hold on to it until the damand is huge. For example sitting on the stocks until the virus becomes an epidemic. They would recommend against this because society at large would not accept such an action, even if the person had no moral objections against it.

So I'd say the ethicist would recommend the usual course of action wth the vaccines:

First they get sold to health care providers, because they have an increased likely hood of exposure.

Then those with weakened immune systems, the elderly, the transplant receipients, and such.

Then the left overs get sold to the healthy and least likely to die from the illness and free market reigns on the pricing.

And even then the ethicsist will probably recommend putting a cap on the maximum that the vaccine price is allowed to reach to prevent backlash.

Here's a un little thing to find out if you're ethical or meerly moral
http://www.randomhouse.com/quizzes/index.cgi?ethicist
Yes, the link is safe for work, and kiddie safe.

You've got it mixed up. Morals, from the Latin mores ("customs") are social taboos, etc. Ethics, from the Greek ethos ("character"), would be principles an individual uses to determine what course of action to take in a given situation.

Actually, there is some disagreement, from a certain point of view. (Italics mine)



( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics )

Either way, "ethics" never refers to social customs, and "morality" never refers to objective rightness/wrongness, making ex_machina's previous statements inaccurate. At any rate, I prefer to stick with an understanding of the terminology that reflects the etymology.