| On Ethics and Volunteering |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|01:03 am] |
I've decided to post my journal that is supposed to be handed in for evaluation by my philosophy professor for my Ethics class onto my blog. Two reasons:
1. They were genuine thoughts that I feel are precious enough to me to make sure I make a copy of it onto my private blog so that I can re-read it someday.
2. To bore you. So that if you want to, you can read them when having a cup of hot coffee in hand with totally nothing better to do.
First day of volunteer work.
It reminds me of how I used to do volunteer work back in Singapore when I was volunteering for SINDA, having a reading session about fairy tales with under-priveledge children. Are we really ethically bound to help others who are more in need of our time? I have no real answer to this question. Peter Singer’s argument appears to be a little exaggerated if I were to put it into daily practice. I doubt I will ever be selfless enough to actually give up excessive physical goods, luxury items, my car, living in an upscale two bedroom condominium even though I am alone etc. I guess the best way to reconcile what I am putting into action right now is to follow the Utilitarian principle, re-interpreted my way: if my time and money can be utilized to bring more pleasure or good when I am doing volunteer work than say lying around in bed for an additional 5 hours, playing golf, indulging in unnecessary thoughts, then, I should actually engage in the former. However, it seems that there is still something contradictory here. I’ve always thought that committing oneself to volunteer work should be selfless and without motives. Yet, if I am doing so only because I do derive some form of personal satisfaction from it, is it considered unethical? To bring the thought one step further: is it even ethical for professors to require students to fufil volunteer hours as part of a course requirement; if they are not willing to volunteer in the first place and are only doing so “un-volunteeringly”?
Second day of volunteer work.
Everyone at the American Diabetes Association seems to be over-stressed over a coming event: Step Out, a charity fundraising walk. My office space was opposite of this director’s assistant who was busy attempting to call up the mayor’s office and big name institutions to get them to be involved in the event. Which brings up what I thought about yesterday in a different sense. When someone approaches you for help, how are you going to decide whether to help or not to help? Seeing that most people who were approached were brushing her off in the kindest and most polite way, are they being ethical? Personally, I have always believed in helping when asked. My friends have always criticized me that my actions are highly inappropriate and immoral when I give to beggars, without differentiating, since those that are able bodied and should actually attempt to find work instead of begging would be only encouraged to continue in their latter actions. However, I have always found that I could not reconcile their view with mine. I personally think that if someone is in such distress that he or she would beg you for a few dollars, and if it doesn’t mean much to you, that you should gladly give them to help them along. After all, who would want to resort to begging for money, if he or she does not have to, right?
Second week.
The event was a huge success and everyone is jovial and happy in office. I was going through the organization website when I realized that it was ranked one of the top charity organizations in America with regards to how much money that is being collected is actually being diverted back to charitable causes instead of being spent on administrative costs and others. This reminded me of a recent saga back in my home country, when the largest charity organization, National Kidney Foundation, which provides highly subsidized kidney dialysis to the poor and needy, was involved in a case of fraudulent practice by many in high management, especially their CEO. To put things into perspective, the CEO installed gold plated bathroom accessories, even the toilet bowl; flew first class; drew a salary that was equivalent to that of a for profit organization - 1.3 million per annum; amongst other despicable actions. Recalling this saga, it sheds light on the study of ethics. Everyone, I assume, regardless of their ethical position, will definitely agree that what this person did is highly unethical. At the same time that the organization is pulling in tens of millions in donations that are supposed to be used to provide for subsidized treatment for poor and needy kidney patients, who are on the verge of death if not for such a service; how is it possible that such a major oversight could happen that for every extra dollar that the CEO is being paid would likely result in less patients that the organization will be able to rescue, appears to be blatantly dumb to me. I would think that maybe then, most ethical theories are chasing after the wrong if not elusive ghost of ranking any thought or action or virtue as the most important as a futile exercise at most. Since instead of ranking them and coming out with a theory that acts as a commandment, ethics should maybe take a step back and attempt to provide a general guideline on how people should act in certain circumstances and seek to aid people in making moral decisions instead of inhibiting them by saying that it is a law that should be perfectly consistent and irrevocable. Well, at least in my opinion that should be the case.
Second week, second day.
Today I was doing research online about Type I Diabetes and insulin products. Surprisingly, there is an online flaming war going on about how Big Pharma is unethically trying to sell inferior products even with the knowledge of better and maybe even cheaper alternatives. A little insight into this story, is the issue of insulin and C peptide. Both are hormones in the body that are capable of regulating blood sugar levels. However, the latter ability was only recently proven. Although the scientific consensus at large is that a slight decrease of insulin content and adding C peptide is the best treatment possible and can be done at a price equivalent or even lower than current market prices, Big Pharma have ignored this possibility due to two reasons. The first, which I find the most unethical, is that they have invested billions into producing a synthetic form of insulin, which in the first place is of much lesser quality than organic sources of insulin. Due to these economic reasons, investing into C peptide production and reducing the quantity of insulin produced would mean a double blow since they have to invest a large sum into the production of the former and would not be able to ‘re-coup’ or (more likely) continue to exploit the cheaper economics of producing insulin at diminishing marginal costs. The second, is that, Big Pharma understands that even though there might be a better alternative medicine available, they also know that demand for insulin is almost perfectly inelastic, which means that all diabetics regardless of cost, would be required to have a certain dosage of insulin. Hence, to produce a better medication in this sense, would mean loss of profit if the diabetics in return will require lesser medication. I think this is representative of a giant paradox involving private pharmaceutical companies: that their profit motive can only be met with more either the continuation of diseases or the proliferation and increase of diseases; when the products that they intend to sell are to eradicate the problem in the first place. I believe this paradox to be hugely economical and I think there are only two ways to resolve this dilemma which I think is a moral issue too at heart. The first way is to nationalize the pharmaceutical industry. Economics have always been a branch of moral philosophy until the 20s when Cambridge University started a separate department for its studies. With knowledge I believe, comes power. Apparently, this power has fell into the wrong hands and by understanding the economics of medicine, companies have long disregard the moral dimension of the problem and have blindly seeked only economic profit. A second way, is to regulate pricing of medications and not to award patent rights longer than maybe 1 year for any specific medication. This will ensure that these private companies will continue to provide the best in terms of quality medication and not resting on their laurels by exploiting the economic benefits of the protection of statutory patent rights. Is it no wonder that ethics, with its contemporary study limited to the boundaries of maybe only philosophy and jurisprudence, finding its way into the required syllabus of almost every recognized MBA program in the world. For the better of society and humankind, people have come to realize that business and ethics should and must come hand in hand. It has always been a scary thought, inculcated by the demon of Capitalism: the only ethical way to conduct business is to maximize profit at all costs. Luckily, we have come to recognize that this is very bad logic, at best, and we are starting to rectify it.
Unknown day of weeks in volunteer work.
Since I have been typing this more formal journal in its electronic form and knowing that I have almost reach the limit as required of five pages, I have not entered any more entries. However, I have some thoughts that I find compelling to write about. Revisiting this journal today, I was re-reading it and came to a few surprising conclusions. Firstly, that the study of ethics, like philosophy, really should be judged upon its merits by its ability to lead people to reflect and then apply the acquired knowledge into everyday life. Recently, doing research for my final paper and thus, exposed to Pragmatism and Deweyean ethics, I have finally found an ethical theory that appears to align most to my personal convictions. It really is a waste of time, especially seeing how that a large majority of brilliant human intellectual activity and brains reside in philosophers, to have to continue to place a huge emphasis on ethics as a study of ‘Why be moral?’ or to answer in generality, the problem of “What action should one take?”. Instead, I have found solace, by recognizing the problem as “What actions is appropriate for the addressing of this certain moral dilemma?” and then seek to “Integrate my decision and see how it can be developed and then applied to moral decision making” in my every day life. By taking this approach, for example, I have resolved the conflict of my first entry by seeing that my action to take up the volunteer job, for all its selfish or selfless reasons, is an appropriate moral decision; since I am contributing to the society by giving something back and also at the same time being able to derive personal satisfaction, without feeling guilty, from it. Hence, I should take note of this certain moral decision that I have made and use it as a guide for future moral decision making when I encounter a problem of whether to volunteer or not to volunteer. I believe, that this should be the way ethics should evolve from its current infatuation with rules and principles, into something that is more relevant and alive. Instead of criticizing, for example, Kantian ethics as being too rigid; Utilitarian principles as being overly obsessed with consequences; Virtue theories as failing in its incompleteness to provide a normative stance etc, we have blind sighted ourselves into these trivial controversies and lost sight of reality: most moral decisions that we do make actually is in agreement and sits well with all these theories. When special circumstances occur that some or all of the ethical theories or factions disagree, it is the pragmatism; the ability to reconcile a moral dilemma to the best of our ability, regardless of whatever camps our moral decision will fall into that matters, and not whether our decision would in turn conflict with some set-in-stone ethical theory. With this, I rest my case with only one last thing to say: I have really enjoyed this experience!
So there you go, if you survived my ramblings, congratulations, but no presents anyway. It seems funny how the Earth in all its wonder appears to feel a tinge of sadness together with me whenever my mum leaves LA to head back to Singapore. The last time, it shook with a force of 6.1 on the Richter Scale. Today, it actually rained at night here in LA!? Both times, I was caught in it. Is that the right way to describe it? Or would it be more appropriate to describe it as: being embraced together at the temporal loss of my wonderful mum? |
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lestercqx's journal
