one of the ways in which Beatty has moral tunnel vision
Shannon Hollender
Joseph Beatty
Moral Philos. Essay
Due 4/21/06
And then there were none…
Point: If everyone were eliminated from this world for anything anyone ever saw them do wrong, there would be no one left because Saints don’t breed. So may the punishment fit the crime:
When Joseph Beatty speaks, all those who are smart – listen; even a few of the dumb ones, like myself, are able to extract from his wise teachings something of intrinsic value and worth. I do not know this man well, but I do know a by what he has written that his is a reasonable and rational mind. He is logical in his formulations and when he speaks (or as is in this case writes) he imparts truth. In his article: For Honor’s Sake Dr. Joseph Beatty approached the concept of students cheating. His article, however had more of an issue with the informer rule than it did with students cheating. “So what’s the big deal?” you ask… The big deal is that while so many find it reprehensible to be put in moral conflict such that Beatty examines in his article; the action taken by the campus of revoking the informer rule effectively/inadvertently condones cheating by all but stating that it is not wrong for one student who is sole witness to another’s dishonesty to not report this reprehensible act. Saying that it is ok to let your friends cheat I think is not really what the campus wanted to do. Why, since the big argument was with the overly severe punishment, would the college not instead reduce the severity of the sanctions for such an act? Beatty has all that brain power, all that logical manageability and flexibility and instead of addressing the root of the problem, why did he spend all that wit, time, effort and energy on trying to figure out why people should not have to tell rather than addressing the real issue: why people don’t tell.
I by no means think Beatty did not address this issue, quite the contrary: if it were not for Beatty addressing it, I would not have known about it. My mind cannot grasp nearly as much as his and without his guidance I would not have understood this problem as much as I do. But still my complaint stands: Why not address the root of the problem? Why did Beatty and the school both address the informer rule rather than the severe penalty as the problem in this scenario.
My strategy for this paper is the same as my strategy for the last paper I wrote for Beatty; it is to follow the directions that were given me through the assignment and those given me by Beatty as a good of this assignment as laid out before me and come out of this paper having made myself and my argument even remotely clear. This in mind I move on to the relevance and the plan. But to attack the thorough logic of such a wise man and to hope to derail him in one argument is sheer madness, yet this is the requirement of the assignment. My first step was to analyze so that I and my reader thoroughly understand the question and confines of what I intend to answer. After all one must know the claim, who cares, the argument and the factors effecting or restricting the argument. And so I have (or will have) provided them (see the next paragraph for the argument). From here my strategy will be to pace like an idiot until I come up with some knowledge or inspiration that may either find me some loop-hole in Beatty’s logic or that I will get a good grade based on my adherence to the requirements/guidelines of this paper. Any success I will blame on sheer coincidence because when it comes to Philosophy I am a rather dim sort. Whatever happens there; floundering or lucky inspiration, I plan on then attacking my own argument with something Beatty himself would likely state. I plan to appreciate it – as the man is superior to me and far more intelligent than I am, then I plan to reply to this attack as if it really weren’t all that relevant, then in summing up my arguments I will attempt to state why even Beatty himself should find my arguments sufficient and why this my (as the paper’s requirements put it) “adversary” should be satisfied with my argument, then to go against the very requirements of the paper as set out in the question I shall offer (by virtue of the rest of the requirements) any number of “further strong objections” made apparent by the paper that “others would make.” Summing up the argument is then the next step in the strategy as provided by our gracious professor, and I plan on here pointing to or underlining the strongest points in my argument – limited as it may be. From there I can do no more than to point out where I am flawed in my own feeble attempts and to acknowledge what is so unsatisfactory in my attempts at an argument against such a far more experienced and superior mind. My final worries, fears, intuitions and regrets will be stated then. Overall I hope my arguments and postulations are satisfactory enough, such that I will not fail this paper. I also hope that my handling this paper in this manner: a manner outlined by Beatty as a good strategy will logically lead me to pass this course.
So back to the paper topic so generously provided to me by Beatty himself. The Issue I have with Beatty and his article For Honor’s Sake is that while the article is very well established and very thorough, I have no earthly idea why Beatty didn’t put his energies into proving the punishments too stern. Why did he – a man I think capable – shoot for the easier target. He so artfully and skillfully showed why it is wrong for the school to require students to inform – which is a principle I personally find flawed – why did he not turn this artful and skilled eye onto the real issue of punishment or better yet onto solving the problem of cheating. No one, I presume is good enough to answer those uninsurable questions, questions like: which came first: the chicken or the egg, how do turtles know exactly where they were born, and why do humans find it necessary to cheat. But even questions about why the sky is blue and the grass is green have answers – surely someone as smart as Beatty can figure out how to prevent cheating or at least how to rework the punishment system to be more conducive to the cause it attempts to support. I argue this: Informers should be given rewards, while cheaters should be given a first-time warning sanction including either a minor fine or community service. Is it so hard to justify why this would help alleviate the problem? If the informer rule was so bad because it required students to tell on their friends against other moral principles, and if the students did not tell on their friends or develop morally because this conflict put them at odds with other values; why then did someone not do as I am proposing happen now and eliminate the punishment which makes the informer rule one of conflict. Instead make it into a reward based system. Make a system which will encourage (via internal and external motivation) people to put an end to (or at least to inform of) cheating. I for one could use a few extra tuition dollars, a few extra points on a test or a few less papers to write; even free food is good by me.
The reader should think this a good idea, I know I do. And I suspect even Beatty wouldn’t think it so bad to reward students for monitoring one another in this area of college life where there is seldom anything to prevent and moderate this shameful act of cheating. But on a whole the reader should agree with me when I say that the real root of the problem was ignored when Beatty attacked the informer rule rather than the cheating and the punishment. Does it not stand in court today in this country that according to law the punishment should fit the crime? It does! Does it not stand a generally held notion that one should report illegal or otherwise wrongful acts if they are witness to it – at least on a moral level? Was this rule not put into effect in order to encourage moral growth of the student population? It is agreed in all cases at hand – this is the goal. So why not keep the rule, moreover why not fix the real culprit here, and why not attack the true problem? I am by no means saying that I am offering the absolute solution to the issue. Instead I have suggested that Beatty wasted his energy in arguing what he did and that the real problem which still needs to be addressed, at least by someone more qualified than I, is the problem dealing with the punishment and the problem dealing with the students being less than willing to inform. The reader will recognize, after having read what I’ve had to say, that these are reasonable postulates and that I have at the very least a point valid.
Beatty however might not think this argument a thorough or valid enough argument, even if he does I suspect he would shoot holes in it, bleed it out even with that razor-sharp wit of his. At the very least I can only assume he’d be less than pleased with me calling him and his years of advanced knowledge and philosophical experience and wit buffoonery. Beatty is after all a smart man and I suppose he’d point to any number of the following reasons why the reader should discard me off-hand: I have not the experience of speaking with these students, therefore I am assuming (all-be-it off of what I gathered from Beatty’s argument) they did not agree with the punishment severity, I even said myself that Beatty in fact had addressed the issue of students being less than willing to inform, or most powerfully I suspect Beatty would object with the notion that despite all my ass-kissing and sideways slandering, I still don’t grasp what good it was Beatty meant by addressing the issue in the way that he did. After reading and re-reading his article I get that Beatty believed his solution to be the best for the situation at hand, but I must admit that he would be right to assume that I just don’t get what he meant because I just don’t get where his logic proves his solution as the best response and I offer this paper as proof of this.
Beatty would have strength in his arguments, especially his last one. No I did not understand his arguments entirely and there may be some good reason why it logically made sense to address the issue by removing the informer rule. This logic is something that I did not grasp or understand and it is something which very well nullify not just my argument but my entire perspective and sub-sequent paper.
But I am writing. I read, and I re-read that article and I have posed the loop-hole which I have seen. Even though Dr. Beatty did in fact address the problem dealing with the punishment – his version of addressing it amounted to (in summation) saying that in fact this was stated by the students to be one of the causes. He did not, as far as I saw, truly address this issue as being a solvable problem. While he also addressed the problem of students being less than willing to inform, he addressed it as far as I saw by ultimately making excuses for them and why they shouldn’t have to rather than dealing with and solving the problem exemplifying why they don’t inform. Both of these I deal with her by doing what I have stated my intention was: by addressing the root of the problem rather than the symptoms.
I suppose Beatty would not be so satisfied with this sharp blow to the face of experience and wit especially from someone who does not understand him. He by no means need be obliged to understand me. But I think, being the rational man he is, he would at least concede to my hypothesis that it is better to deal with a problem by getting to the bottom of it rather than by pruning its branches. We cannot make up for Catherine “Kitty” Genovese’s murder but maybe one of those 38 witnesses would have reported the crime if there had been some sort of incentive spurring them onward and tempting them to fight their urge to leave the moral obligation to someone else. It is a principle that needs not be understood, morality is something which needs in any stage of a person’s life to be nurtured. And so by offering incentive the college would be saying: it is your choice to turn in a cheater or not, but you need not be afraid of being loyal to your friends. I think Beatty would or at least should be satisfied with that.
Still an objection to this might be that while it is nice to offer rewards for morally praiseworthy actions, does it not follow that some might come to expect these rewards? I Succumb to this but respond with “not if the reward is small enough.” If one has the choice between not turning in a friend effectively revoking loyalty and turning them in for a free pizza, my guess is they will forgo the free pizza. But given the choice between not getting the same free pizza and not removing a cheater from his ways it is my supposition that one will do the morally better by turning in the cheater and they will enjoy that pizza all the better. Something so small as a pizza is not enough to create a dependence upon reward for good behaviour. In training dogs it is seen that by using the reward system one does not foster a dependence upon treats but a propensity towards good behaviour and a desire to act in accordance with what is deemed the right thing to do.
On a whole, however, I’d like to revisit my arguments. I argue that while revoking the informer rule seemed to Beatty to be the better option; it actually wasn’t. True that having such unmovable moral conflicts was not the proper way to go about encouraging moral health, but the better solution could be found by addressing the deeper problems. And this was the point of my paper: to show that while the informer rule was bad as a rule it is good as an encouraged action, a role which it does not fill currently.
I have addressed why the root of the problem is a better place to look to address issues and I have ranted on why it is good to encourage moral rightness – not force it, and I have even touched on why Beatty should not fail me for my interpretations (or misinterpretations) of his writings. But overall I wish I could delve into the moral and social rightness of informing and of making the punishment fit the crime. I am however not as skilled as Beatty. Who wasted his time not addressing these (hopefully now proven to be) more central issues and concerns.
~Here’s hoping you don’t hate me, and that you put up with my misguided ramblings;
Shannon
Joseph Beatty
Moral Philos. Essay
Due 4/21/06
And then there were none…
Point: If everyone were eliminated from this world for anything anyone ever saw them do wrong, there would be no one left because Saints don’t breed. So may the punishment fit the crime:
When Joseph Beatty speaks, all those who are smart – listen; even a few of the dumb ones, like myself, are able to extract from his wise teachings something of intrinsic value and worth. I do not know this man well, but I do know a by what he has written that his is a reasonable and rational mind. He is logical in his formulations and when he speaks (or as is in this case writes) he imparts truth. In his article: For Honor’s Sake Dr. Joseph Beatty approached the concept of students cheating. His article, however had more of an issue with the informer rule than it did with students cheating. “So what’s the big deal?” you ask… The big deal is that while so many find it reprehensible to be put in moral conflict such that Beatty examines in his article; the action taken by the campus of revoking the informer rule effectively/inadvertently condones cheating by all but stating that it is not wrong for one student who is sole witness to another’s dishonesty to not report this reprehensible act. Saying that it is ok to let your friends cheat I think is not really what the campus wanted to do. Why, since the big argument was with the overly severe punishment, would the college not instead reduce the severity of the sanctions for such an act? Beatty has all that brain power, all that logical manageability and flexibility and instead of addressing the root of the problem, why did he spend all that wit, time, effort and energy on trying to figure out why people should not have to tell rather than addressing the real issue: why people don’t tell.
I by no means think Beatty did not address this issue, quite the contrary: if it were not for Beatty addressing it, I would not have known about it. My mind cannot grasp nearly as much as his and without his guidance I would not have understood this problem as much as I do. But still my complaint stands: Why not address the root of the problem? Why did Beatty and the school both address the informer rule rather than the severe penalty as the problem in this scenario.
My strategy for this paper is the same as my strategy for the last paper I wrote for Beatty; it is to follow the directions that were given me through the assignment and those given me by Beatty as a good of this assignment as laid out before me and come out of this paper having made myself and my argument even remotely clear. This in mind I move on to the relevance and the plan. But to attack the thorough logic of such a wise man and to hope to derail him in one argument is sheer madness, yet this is the requirement of the assignment. My first step was to analyze so that I and my reader thoroughly understand the question and confines of what I intend to answer. After all one must know the claim, who cares, the argument and the factors effecting or restricting the argument. And so I have (or will have) provided them (see the next paragraph for the argument). From here my strategy will be to pace like an idiot until I come up with some knowledge or inspiration that may either find me some loop-hole in Beatty’s logic or that I will get a good grade based on my adherence to the requirements/guidelines of this paper. Any success I will blame on sheer coincidence because when it comes to Philosophy I am a rather dim sort. Whatever happens there; floundering or lucky inspiration, I plan on then attacking my own argument with something Beatty himself would likely state. I plan to appreciate it – as the man is superior to me and far more intelligent than I am, then I plan to reply to this attack as if it really weren’t all that relevant, then in summing up my arguments I will attempt to state why even Beatty himself should find my arguments sufficient and why this my (as the paper’s requirements put it) “adversary” should be satisfied with my argument, then to go against the very requirements of the paper as set out in the question I shall offer (by virtue of the rest of the requirements) any number of “further strong objections” made apparent by the paper that “others would make.” Summing up the argument is then the next step in the strategy as provided by our gracious professor, and I plan on here pointing to or underlining the strongest points in my argument – limited as it may be. From there I can do no more than to point out where I am flawed in my own feeble attempts and to acknowledge what is so unsatisfactory in my attempts at an argument against such a far more experienced and superior mind. My final worries, fears, intuitions and regrets will be stated then. Overall I hope my arguments and postulations are satisfactory enough, such that I will not fail this paper. I also hope that my handling this paper in this manner: a manner outlined by Beatty as a good strategy will logically lead me to pass this course.
So back to the paper topic so generously provided to me by Beatty himself. The Issue I have with Beatty and his article For Honor’s Sake is that while the article is very well established and very thorough, I have no earthly idea why Beatty didn’t put his energies into proving the punishments too stern. Why did he – a man I think capable – shoot for the easier target. He so artfully and skillfully showed why it is wrong for the school to require students to inform – which is a principle I personally find flawed – why did he not turn this artful and skilled eye onto the real issue of punishment or better yet onto solving the problem of cheating. No one, I presume is good enough to answer those uninsurable questions, questions like: which came first: the chicken or the egg, how do turtles know exactly where they were born, and why do humans find it necessary to cheat. But even questions about why the sky is blue and the grass is green have answers – surely someone as smart as Beatty can figure out how to prevent cheating or at least how to rework the punishment system to be more conducive to the cause it attempts to support. I argue this: Informers should be given rewards, while cheaters should be given a first-time warning sanction including either a minor fine or community service. Is it so hard to justify why this would help alleviate the problem? If the informer rule was so bad because it required students to tell on their friends against other moral principles, and if the students did not tell on their friends or develop morally because this conflict put them at odds with other values; why then did someone not do as I am proposing happen now and eliminate the punishment which makes the informer rule one of conflict. Instead make it into a reward based system. Make a system which will encourage (via internal and external motivation) people to put an end to (or at least to inform of) cheating. I for one could use a few extra tuition dollars, a few extra points on a test or a few less papers to write; even free food is good by me.
The reader should think this a good idea, I know I do. And I suspect even Beatty wouldn’t think it so bad to reward students for monitoring one another in this area of college life where there is seldom anything to prevent and moderate this shameful act of cheating. But on a whole the reader should agree with me when I say that the real root of the problem was ignored when Beatty attacked the informer rule rather than the cheating and the punishment. Does it not stand in court today in this country that according to law the punishment should fit the crime? It does! Does it not stand a generally held notion that one should report illegal or otherwise wrongful acts if they are witness to it – at least on a moral level? Was this rule not put into effect in order to encourage moral growth of the student population? It is agreed in all cases at hand – this is the goal. So why not keep the rule, moreover why not fix the real culprit here, and why not attack the true problem? I am by no means saying that I am offering the absolute solution to the issue. Instead I have suggested that Beatty wasted his energy in arguing what he did and that the real problem which still needs to be addressed, at least by someone more qualified than I, is the problem dealing with the punishment and the problem dealing with the students being less than willing to inform. The reader will recognize, after having read what I’ve had to say, that these are reasonable postulates and that I have at the very least a point valid.
Beatty however might not think this argument a thorough or valid enough argument, even if he does I suspect he would shoot holes in it, bleed it out even with that razor-sharp wit of his. At the very least I can only assume he’d be less than pleased with me calling him and his years of advanced knowledge and philosophical experience and wit buffoonery. Beatty is after all a smart man and I suppose he’d point to any number of the following reasons why the reader should discard me off-hand: I have not the experience of speaking with these students, therefore I am assuming (all-be-it off of what I gathered from Beatty’s argument) they did not agree with the punishment severity, I even said myself that Beatty in fact had addressed the issue of students being less than willing to inform, or most powerfully I suspect Beatty would object with the notion that despite all my ass-kissing and sideways slandering, I still don’t grasp what good it was Beatty meant by addressing the issue in the way that he did. After reading and re-reading his article I get that Beatty believed his solution to be the best for the situation at hand, but I must admit that he would be right to assume that I just don’t get what he meant because I just don’t get where his logic proves his solution as the best response and I offer this paper as proof of this.
Beatty would have strength in his arguments, especially his last one. No I did not understand his arguments entirely and there may be some good reason why it logically made sense to address the issue by removing the informer rule. This logic is something that I did not grasp or understand and it is something which very well nullify not just my argument but my entire perspective and sub-sequent paper.
But I am writing. I read, and I re-read that article and I have posed the loop-hole which I have seen. Even though Dr. Beatty did in fact address the problem dealing with the punishment – his version of addressing it amounted to (in summation) saying that in fact this was stated by the students to be one of the causes. He did not, as far as I saw, truly address this issue as being a solvable problem. While he also addressed the problem of students being less than willing to inform, he addressed it as far as I saw by ultimately making excuses for them and why they shouldn’t have to rather than dealing with and solving the problem exemplifying why they don’t inform. Both of these I deal with her by doing what I have stated my intention was: by addressing the root of the problem rather than the symptoms.
I suppose Beatty would not be so satisfied with this sharp blow to the face of experience and wit especially from someone who does not understand him. He by no means need be obliged to understand me. But I think, being the rational man he is, he would at least concede to my hypothesis that it is better to deal with a problem by getting to the bottom of it rather than by pruning its branches. We cannot make up for Catherine “Kitty” Genovese’s murder but maybe one of those 38 witnesses would have reported the crime if there had been some sort of incentive spurring them onward and tempting them to fight their urge to leave the moral obligation to someone else. It is a principle that needs not be understood, morality is something which needs in any stage of a person’s life to be nurtured. And so by offering incentive the college would be saying: it is your choice to turn in a cheater or not, but you need not be afraid of being loyal to your friends. I think Beatty would or at least should be satisfied with that.
Still an objection to this might be that while it is nice to offer rewards for morally praiseworthy actions, does it not follow that some might come to expect these rewards? I Succumb to this but respond with “not if the reward is small enough.” If one has the choice between not turning in a friend effectively revoking loyalty and turning them in for a free pizza, my guess is they will forgo the free pizza. But given the choice between not getting the same free pizza and not removing a cheater from his ways it is my supposition that one will do the morally better by turning in the cheater and they will enjoy that pizza all the better. Something so small as a pizza is not enough to create a dependence upon reward for good behaviour. In training dogs it is seen that by using the reward system one does not foster a dependence upon treats but a propensity towards good behaviour and a desire to act in accordance with what is deemed the right thing to do.
On a whole, however, I’d like to revisit my arguments. I argue that while revoking the informer rule seemed to Beatty to be the better option; it actually wasn’t. True that having such unmovable moral conflicts was not the proper way to go about encouraging moral health, but the better solution could be found by addressing the deeper problems. And this was the point of my paper: to show that while the informer rule was bad as a rule it is good as an encouraged action, a role which it does not fill currently.
I have addressed why the root of the problem is a better place to look to address issues and I have ranted on why it is good to encourage moral rightness – not force it, and I have even touched on why Beatty should not fail me for my interpretations (or misinterpretations) of his writings. But overall I wish I could delve into the moral and social rightness of informing and of making the punishment fit the crime. I am however not as skilled as Beatty. Who wasted his time not addressing these (hopefully now proven to be) more central issues and concerns.
~Here’s hoping you don’t hate me, and that you put up with my misguided ramblings;
Shannon
posted by Shannon Hollender @ 4:00 PM
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