Albaugh, Jacob

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ESSAIVolume 7 Article 74-1-2010Ethical Living in an Unethical EmpireJacob AlbaughCollege of DuPageFollow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/essaiThis Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@C.O.D.. It has been accepted for inclusion inESSAI by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@C.O.D.. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.Recommended CitationAlbaugh, Jacob (2009) "Ethical Living in an Unethical Empire," ESSAI: Vol. 7, Article 7.Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/71Ethical Living in an Unethical Empireby Jacob Albaugh(Philosophy 1110)ABSTRACTorality. Ethics. We are categorized by ideas. Whether our lives are lived in ignorance ofthese concepts, in denial of these concepts or in constant pursuit of them, we arecategorized by these ideas. It has become more apparent as I have taken my Ethics coursethis summer that I want to live in a way that allows me to live a good life. This specific Ethics coursehas made me think, and most importantly, it has made me think about my thinking. I chose the topic,“Ethical Living in an Unethical Empire” because it is something I have currently been wrestling withduring my personal time, often spent alone with my brain in my bed, or with select friends on aporch, with a beer and with a (un-ethically) smoldering cigarette.Three questions have emerged from my thought patterns of late:How am I supposed to live ethically in society if it is an unethical beast?Am I required to be the fuel of an unethical engine?Can fuel be ethical while stimulating an unethical machine?We are categorized by these ideas: Ethical, Unethical, Moral, and Immoral. I have someopinions about being categorized, but that is for another essay to describe. In this essay, I willestablish the importance of realization in regards to the ethical state of one’s habitat. I will thenclarify the unethical state the United States of America reside in using various moral theories. I willfinally, in hope of optimism, establish a general method by which one can attempt ethical livingwithin an “Unethical Empire”.IMPORTANCEMost importantly, we must first decipher the importance of understanding our environmentbefore we can live ethically. I am not referring to the Al Gore environment, rather the ethical state ofthe machine we fuel. For example, the animal kingdom. A wild bear, being forced into an unfamiliarenvironment, would go through several thought processes. The first (aside from, “Where is the jerkthat shot me with the sedative?”) would most likely be, “Where am I?”, followed by, “Where iswater, food and shelter?”. This questioning, would most likely be followed by an exploration, agetting to know you of sorts with the new world it exists within. There would be no thinking of,“How should I feel about being placed here?”; that is until, for example, the bear discovers there isno water, or if the bear discovers that it has been placed in a supermarket meat section. At that point,it’s thinking would be, “How do I operate in this scenario?” The bear goes in search for water in theformer. The bear eats himself sick in the latter.We are “bears”, in an ethically unfamiliar environment. How we live ethically is affected byour environment. Until we examine our surroundings, and decipher the ethical state we inhabit, wecannot bring ourselves to live completely ethically. This is the most appropriate response forsomeone wishing to live ethically in a society.In this paper I will discuss the unethical state of our country, not because I feel a hatred for it,M1Albaugh: Ethical Living in an Unethical EmpireProduced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 20092but the things we are doing correctly I find relatively obvious, and, they are not the things that needto change. I find that pointing out the unethical state is a task more patriotic for it encourages growth.It is easy to become stagnant when you focus on what you do correctly. Our responsibility as citizensof a country is to better it, to fight for it, not to remain quiet. This is a paper written out of love. Nowthat we know the importance of realizing the ethics of our social habitat, let us get to know the ethicsbehind the society we fuel.TORTURE“Washington, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about tiesbetween Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody,who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and formergovernment officials. The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specificand elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed overto Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.” (Jehl 2005)According to Newsweek, “Al-Libi recanted these claims in January 2004 after U.S. interrogatorspresented to him ‘new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims’.” Aside frombeing an example of torture failing as an interrogation method, it is a relatively recent exampleestablishing torture’s presence in the way our country operates.Torture is often argued for using an utilitarian principle, “Always act in such away that youbring about the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people.” However, the act oftorture is an inhumane task in and of itself. No one would argue that a country that can torture a manwould be a country representing Kant’s, Good Will, with Good Will meaning, “The unique humanability to act in accordance with moral rules, laws, or principles regardless of interests orconsequences.” (Thiroux 1998)It is not a matter of whether or not the act is justified within a certain situation. It is a matterof the ethical value of the act itself. I would argue for instances like these, involving human sacrifice,that if it is an act that is obviously unethical when it involves completely innocent people, and isdone with no ulterior motive, it is always unethical. For example, if someone was to take a randomaudience member from a baseball game, and torture them to determine which bar they went to theprevious evening, and the person gave in telling them they were at a local bar down the street, wewould not deem that as an ethical way of acquiring information. If we save innocent people bytorturing a bad man, we can rest assured we chose the lesser evil to prevent a greater evil. However,that is not the basis for determining whether or not an action is ethical. It most certainly is not. If wechoose to torture, we act un-ethically regardless of motive. It is the nature of operation in this globalsociety as well. We live corruptly to prevent corruption.This brings us to an example of corruption that does not bring about nearly any good.CORPORATE GREED: ADVERTISINGCorporations are our representatives world wide. Most opinions of our Nation are determinedfrom our corporate influence and agenda. International business is more present now, due to the ageof technology, than ever before. We are all consumers, and we are all affected by business. Thedefining feature of a corporation is the legal independence of the corporation from the founders ofthe corporation. This is important, because we must look at the moral implications of a corporation’sactions as indicative of the corporation’s ethical values, not of the persons within it. This is importantbecause if we can establish the ethical priority of a corporation as being unethical, we can thenobserve how the people operate within it, for it is an example of the topic of this text, fueling anunethical machine, on a smaller scale. I am not saying the United States of America are a2ESSAI, Vol. 7 [2009], Art. 7http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/73corporation, but the parallels of how people act within a corporation are an insight into how citizensact within the United States.According to the book, Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising, by Michael J. Phillips, thereare three types of subliminal advertising. The first is brief visual messages, the second is acceleratedspeech, and the last is the embedding of images or words in pictorial material. They are subtle pleasto the subconscious. I would argue that any advertising that panders to the unconscious human in anyexample is maltreatment and a disrespect to the mass audience. If I were to subtly convince a man Iencountered on the street, to give me his wallet and keys, using the power of suggestion, most wouldargue that action to be stealing. I ask, “How is a plea to a subconscious any different?”The fact is that subliminal advertising encrusts our streets, homes and workplaces.Everything from the colors green and yellow (environmental colors) at a gas station, to thesuggestive billboard along the highway, is screaming at us. And they scream at us louder and moreinfluentially than if they simply spelled out, “We are environmental” or, “Our beer is sexy”.Association is destructive, and the most useful method of advertising.This goes completely against a Utilitarian perspective. It is more of an ethical egoism. Wesee it frequently. The standing upon good principles, for example, advertising how environmentalyour establishment is, in order to appeal to a certain audience. Now, your establishment may verywell be more, environmental, and you may even suffer repercussions from deciding to be more,environmental. For example, you may spend more money on attaining recycled material. However, ifyou advertise yourself as being environmental, you are not doing anything different than, forexample, a grocery chain that advertises, “We aren’t natural, just cheaper than everyone else” toappeal to a specific audience. This alludes to a sense of polarity and identity that our culturecultivates.POLARIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDENTITYDue to the advertising to certain demographics, and the depiction of specific types of people(attractive people drink our products, all real business men use our paper products, etc.) we, as aculture have established a necessity to determine what kind of human we are and what groups we fitinto. From there, we determine what people look like in this specific group, who this group votes for,the products this group buys and what this group values. We fabricate icons for ourselves, who wewant to be, and then foster a necessity within ourselves. It all perpetuates this cycle as we buy into it.Red States. Blue States. Mac. PC. Coffee. Tea. Myspace. Facebook. Everything from churches toyacht clubs, from businesses to gymnasiums, we find our identity in the people we surroundourselves with.This implies that most citizens that participate in this form of identity searching would fit inLawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development as a Stage Three individual. Out of six stages,Stage Three, according to Ethics: Theory and Practice, is the stage in which the individual behavesas a people pleaser. They are concerned with conformity and living up to the expectations of othersand are attempting to fit in with a group.We find identity in identity. We act to belong. We seek to be classified.Political parties utilize this as well. Knowing full well the tendencies of the masses, they backspecific ways of thought. Just think about what most republicans stand for, and think of what mostdemocrats stand for on certain moral issues, and you will come to know the reality. This iscompletely un-American. In a country that proclaims freedom and democracy, there is no realdemocracy. Democracy is defined by The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacyas, “A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly orthrough freely elected representatives”  Now; the heart of democracy is majority rule. Our majoritiesare predefined parties, most commonly Republican or Democrat, that offer just enough open3Albaugh: Ethical Living in an Unethical EmpireProduced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 20094mindedness to be able to say, “We represent the people”. The reality is, this way of governing orrepresenting does not truly allow for the expanding of ideas, because it is more based upon stancestowards specific issues. It is either black or white. Most often, in key trials regarding certain issues,gray areas are used to fight a certain view. They are debated, often for long periods of time, becauseof the fact that black and white stances do not work for these specific cases.Since the polarized masses are more consumed with a right or wrong stance, they miss theideals that can possibly govern gray ground. We argue sides, not morals. That is why we like Batmanmore than the police department. Real justice. It is a moral justice, not a lawful justice.HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?We must start with realization. Unless, just as illustrated earlier, we realize the ethical state ofthe habitat we are in, we cannot live completely ethically. Also, community cannot be stressedenough. Our natural inclination, as described earlier, is to become who we surround ourselves with.However, if the people we surround ourselves with encourage thinking for oneself, we can use thatnatural tendency for our benefit.It is also important to constantly be aware of how we take in information. Our minds areawfully capable of predisposing us to certain trains of thought. Until we truly begin to think forourselves, we cannot possibly begin the process of an ethically focused way of life. This brings us toself-purification. Like it or not, most of our views towards values are based upon predisposition.Whether it is religious, or whether it is a political issue, often times our opinions are decided by theway our parents raised us, the way our life-long friends feel, or the way our favorite teacher spokeabout an issue, our opinions are often determined by the way we feel about other people. We musttrain ourselves to think for ourselves, to reason for ourselves. Now, I am not saying that we shouldnot listen to our teachers’, parents’ or friends’ opinions, most times, they know more than we do andthey are useful influences. I am saying that rather than accepting at face value, we should lookinward, and really figure out what it is that we do believe in, why we really want to do certain things,why we really do not want to do certain things, and based off of that, determine individual ethicalguidelines for how we live our lives.In this essay, I established the importance of realization in regards to the ethical state of one’shabitat. I clarified the unethical state the United States of America reside in. I established a generalmethod by which one can attempt ethical living within an Unethical Empire. We looked at threedifferent unethical practices, Torture, Corporate Greed: Advertising and The Polarization of Ideasand Identity. Each of these issues reflect a different piece of the social pie. Torture is a characteristicof our government; the ethics mentioned within Advertising mainly focused on corporate andbusiness actions; The Polarization of Ideas and Identity mainly focused on the ethical state of themasses, while hinting at the political side as well.We are capable of influence. As stated above, and frankly, throughout this paper, humans areimpressionable. We should use that in a world of ignorance. We should influence the way others seeethical issues by presenting logical arguments, asking questions, growing in thought with others. Theday we stop questioning and contemplating the way we live our lives is the day we cease to live ourlives.4ESSAI, Vol. 7 [2009], Art. 7http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/75Works Citedhttp://Pcl.Stanford.Edu/Common/Docs/Research/Iyengar/2007/Ica-Redmedia-Bluemedia.PdfDemocracy. (N.D.). The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, ThirdEdition. Retrieved July 13, 2009, From Dictionary.Com Website:Http://Dictionary.Reference.Com/Browse/DemocracyIsikoff, M. (2004, July 5). IRAQ AND AL QAEDA FORGET THE ‘POISONS AND DEADLYGASES’. [Editorial]. Newsweek. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from the World Wide Web:http://www.newsweek.com/id/54310.Jehl, D. (2005, December 9). Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied To Coercion Claim. [Editorial].[Electronic Version]. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from the World WideWeb: http://Www.Leadingtowar.Com/Pdfsources_claims_trainIng/2005_12_09_nyt.PdfPhillips, M. J. (1997). Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment.[Electronic version]. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from the WorldWide Web:Http://Books.Google.Com/Books?Id=Mw1gywn4vngc&Pg=Pa112&Dq=Examples+Manipulation+In+Advertising&Ei=Eizzsuqzkopcmq7q0amhSubcommittee On International Organizations, Human Rights, And Oversight Of The HouseCommittee On Foreign Affairs. (2008). The Decline In America’s Reputation: Why? .[Electronic Version]. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved July 10, 2009from the World Wide Web: Http://Foreignaffairs.House.Gov/110/42566.PdfThiroux, J. P., & Krasemann, K. W. (2008). Ethics: Theory and Practice, 10th Edition. Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Prentice Hall.5Albaugh: Ethical Living in an Unethical EmpireProduced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2009

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