All Discussions Tagged 'Eric-Schwitzgebel' - Animal Rights Zone2024-03-28T20:18:02Zhttp://arzone.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=Eric-Schwitzgebel&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThe Ethical Behavior of Those Who Should Know Bettertag:arzone.ning.com,2013-09-29:4715978:Topic:1398792013-09-29T11:53:13.301ZTim Gierhttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/TimGier
<p>Eric Schwitzgebel is <span>Professor of Philosophy at the University of California. He's studied the relationship between one's stated moral beliefs and one's behavior, as shown by the responses to numerous surveys he and colleagues have conducted. Eric is particularly interested to discover whether, on average, those philosophy professors who teach Ethics are any more likely to behave ethically than are other college professors. His work thus far shows that the answer is: No. Ethicists are…</span></p>
<p>Eric Schwitzgebel is <span>Professor of Philosophy at the University of California. He's studied the relationship between one's stated moral beliefs and one's behavior, as shown by the responses to numerous surveys he and colleagues have conducted. Eric is particularly interested to discover whether, on average, those philosophy professors who teach Ethics are any more likely to behave ethically than are other college professors. His work thus far shows that the answer is: No. Ethicists are no more likely to behave ethically than are non-ethicists.</span></p>
<p>You may hear Prof. Schwitzgebel discuss his findings and what he thinks those findings mean in this newly published "Philosophy Bites" podcast episode: <a href="http://philosophybites.com/2013/09/eric-schwitzgebel-on-the-ethical-behaviour-of-ethics-professors.html">http://philosophybites.com/2013/09/eric-schwitzgebel-on-the-ethical-behaviour-of-ethics-professors.html</a> Please give it a listen, it's only 16 minutes long.</p>
<p>What I think is important about Schwitzgebel's work is that it does not only study whether people behave according to what is generally thought to be ethically correct, it also studies whether people behave according to what they themselves accept as ethically correct. Since his research seems to indicate that having a clear understanding of what is ethical doesn't correlate positively with behaving more ethically, it makes me wonder how effective it can be to try to convince the general public that some behavior is ethically bad. After all, if knowing, according to one's own standards, that some behavior is ethically bad makes one no more likely to refrain from such behavior, then attempts to increases such knowledge may be a poor use of time and resources. The goal can't be simply to change how people think about the ethics of using other animals - what a person thinks about such ethics doesn't necessarily translate into any meaningful difference in how a person acts towards other animals.</p>
<p>The goal of advocacy, it seems to me, ought to be to change how people behave towards other animals. <br/> <br/> If the goal of advocacy for other animals is to change the behavior of humans towards other animals, then perhaps such advocacy ought not to include so much talk about ethics and morality. Apparently (according to Schwitzgebel) lots of people who eat and use other animals already accept that doing so isn't ethically good - they still do it anyway. Remember, these are not uniformed, bad people - they're professors of Ethics!! What good would additional "moral arguments" be for them? Very little good at all. <br/> <br/> <span style="font-size: 13px;">Perhaps advocacy would be more effective were it to focus on making it easier and more convenient for most people,</span> <span style="font-size: 13px;">regardless of what they say believe about ethics,</span><span style="font-size: 13px;"> to live wit</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">hout using other animals.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
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