Author: Kleiner

Associate Vice Provost and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. I teach across the curriculum, but am most interested in continental philosophy, ancient and medieval philosophy as well as Catholic thought, all of which might be summed up as an interest in the ressourcement tradition (returning in order to make progress). I also enjoy spending time thinking about liberal education and its ends.

Ethics of furloughs

You can read here about the new plan what will mandate a 1 week (5 working day) furlough for all USU employees in March.  Basically, every USU employee will be required to take 5 days off without pay in March.  Instead of taking 25% out of each March paycheck, they will take that amount out of paychecks over 5 months, which eases the blow.  

For those in PHIL 1120 Social Ethics, this raises some interesting social and economic justice questions.  Is this utilitarian or deontological reasoning?  Is it better to spread out the pain with a furlough if it means saving jobs?  What is the purpose of a business anyway (though in this case it is a public university)?  Is the protection and welfare of workers a primary end of business, or are workers merely instruments in profit maximization?  

For my part, I think the furlough is a good idea, it is expressive of a certain solidarity that shares the pain of these times without, one hopes, having that pain be felt in a truly crisis situation for any particular family.  Of course, I would like to know exactly how many jobs the USU plan will save – I can imagine someone who takes the furlough pay cut only to lose their job in July would be pretty unhappy.

More Social / Business Ethics – social and economic justice

I don’t think Huenemann’s Social Ethics is to the Social and Economic Justice chapter yet, and my Business Ethics class is not to the question of ‘price gouging’ yet, but my uncle emailed me this thought:

‘ Food giant McDonalds says its 2008 net profit soared 80 percent from last year.  It was lifted by growing demand from customers seeking low-cost meals in a deepening global recession.  I can’t wait for the  democrats’ outcry over these obscene profits.  Only a few months ago, Barack Obama called for an emergency economic plan that would relieve the burden on families struggling with high gasoline prices.  Obama and Hillary called for taxing ‘Big Oil’s’ windfall profits.  This was in reaction to a 3 percent rise in ‘Big Oil’ profits.  They certainly won’t ignore an 80 percent profit increase at McDonald’s.  Wasn’t it Obama, Hillary, Nancy, and Harry whom all asked ‘Big Oil’ to justify their profits?  They publicly spawned the national hate for ‘Big Oil’.  They used angry phrases like; ‘The Big Oil party is over!’ and ‘Big Oil is gouging Americans!’  So, is ‘Big Clown’ gonna get his?  I bet congress is ready to grab ‘Big Clown’ by his McNuggets and shake them until ‘Big Clown’ admits his wrongdoing.  Will we see a week long Senate hearing with Frank and Dodd berating Ronald, Mayor  McCheese, and the Grimace?  Will they have their day and finally sentence the Hamburgler for stealing money out of our nations poorest pockets in the name of Big Mac profits?  What about that sneaky Captain Crook, will he testify?  You wait and see, there won’t be a double standard anymore!  

Sincerely,

The Whopper’


Animal rights in the news

NBC decided not to air these PETA ads during the Super Bowl, considering them too racy.  While they are plenty of over-sexed ads shown during Super Bowls, I do think these go too far.  So we have questions of both censorship and animal rights.  Decide for yourself on the ads here.  

Of course the point of the ads (effective even if they are not aired) is to spark discussion about the morality of eating meat.  I think the ad listed on the page called ‘Chew on This‘ is much more effective.