Greetings and bienvenue fellow Escapists.

Just moments ago I was informed that I needed to write a paper on Ethics. Or more accurately a paper on an ethical problem. Now this presents a conundrum as I find that I have no ethics. Or at least none that I can recognize as such.

So I come here, tell me O' Escapists. What ethical question should I write my paper on?

(Note: We have already been informed that Abortion, and Gay Marrige are not topics we can use.)

How about the ethics of the death penalty? What about the ethics of a socialist state?

Yeah death penalty sounds like a good topic.

"How a number of ethical systems may have stopped the second world war if Hitler had listened to them"

Quite like crimsonh5pheonix's (you spelt Phoenix wrong) idea for the Death penalty.

Write about the ethics of altruism. Whether there can ever be any real altruism as long as we draw satisfaction from it, expect a tiny improvement on your reputation or have been promised salvation after death.

Alternatively write about Euthanasia.

Huh. Well, that's a tall order. I guess I'll have to start at the beginning.

Ethics comes from a system of personal values. You will discover your own ethical alignment by carefully considering what you value in relative order.

Now then. For topics, I guess I can suggest a few. First of course is Censorship, an ever-present annoyance in the 'states, which is thankfully usually limited by region. If you think it isn't present, just think what content you can't see on network television and also look at how many books are banned.

let's see... United States foreign policy is always an option, if you feel like taking leave of your sanity whilst researching

More in our area of specialty, does violence and sex depicted in video games corrupt our children? or some variant of that issue.

Combined with the above topic, are video games any worse than other media, such as television, books, movies, and comics, with regards to corrupting children?

and that's all I got for now...

Amnestic:
"How a number of ethical systems may have stopped the second world war if Hitler had listened to them"

Quite like crimsonh5pheonix's (you spelt Phoenix wrong) idea for the Death penalty.

yeah I know, it's spelled wrong on purpose because when I signed up of XBL, crimson5phoenix was taken.

How about assisted suicide for the elderly or terminal?

Suicide for the terminal is allowed to an extent, essentially the point where if they would die without medical aid, they can refuse medical aid (or end it) and thus die. I only know because a cousin of mine did this about a year ago. Still, a good topic for ethical debate, you could also extend it to "should the medical community have to supply aid to terminal patients that can't afford it?" (my opinion is no, but we're not here to talk about me, are we?)

kittenofdeath:
Why are you not allowed to write about abortion or gay marriage? Sounds like they are scared of people offending religious fundies.

Well, that, and that the two have been beaten like a zombie horse over the last decade or so.

You want to impress/frighten your teacher, do it on something they never thought a student would pick...

Couple good options:

-Piracy vs Consumer Rights, at what point does the battle against product theft infringe on the consumer's freedom to use their purchase as they see fit.

-Government Control and the Media, is it ethical for news corporations to have political, financial, or regulatory ties to the ruling party or its opponents?

-Sex and Schooling, if a teacher has a sexual relationship with an adult student, is it a conflict of interests or is the teacher's personal life not the school's business?

-Unwilling Test Subjects, the ethics behind using life-sentence prisoners for medical experimentation.

Just a couple for ya...

keep it simple. Kill the doctor to save the village?

jim_doki:
keep it simple. Kill the doctor to save the village?

Bingo. Putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few - along the lines of the "Kill x to save large integer of y."

kittenofdeath:
Why are you not allowed to write about abortion or gay marriage? Sounds like they are scared of people offending religious fundies.

overdone and easy topics. By easy I mean there's lots of material to write about. In some places, euthanasia is banned as a topic as well.

I actually talked with a few professors on why they prohibit the subjects and they said that besides the topics being overdone, they were so tired of reading about it they were afraid they might not grade fairly.

-Sex and Schooling, if a teacher has a sexual relationship with an adult student, is it a conflict of interests or is the teacher's personal life not the school's business?

Clarify for me: Student in the teacher's class or just student at the same institution?

Ethics in Video Game Journalism.

Someone posted a blog about it a while back.

Khell_Sennet:
-Unwilling Test Subjects, the ethics behind using life-sentence prisoners for medical experimentation.

They can/do do that? Although I suppose you mean in America, (Im British)?

needausername:

Khell_Sennet:
-Unwilling Test Subjects, the ethics behind using life-sentence prisoners for medical experimentation.

They can/do do that? Although I suppose you mean in America, (Im British)?

No, no they cannot. Geez.

There is no situation in life that does not contain an ethical element. It shouldn't be that hard to find a topic.

JMeganSnow:

needausername:

Khell_Sennet:
-Unwilling Test Subjects, the ethics behind using life-sentence prisoners for medical experimentation.

They can/do do that? Although I suppose you mean in America, (Im British)?

No, no they cannot. Geez.

WOW sorry.

A good classical question is always the Euthyphro dilemma: Is something good in and of itself, or merely good because society says it is?

You get to invoke Plato and the ancient Greeks, and then just launch straight into a typical discussion of relativism versus absolutism (Or meta-ethics if you prefer.).

Anything as open as an 'ethics paper' is a veritable gift from God.

DRM, Copyright, Piracy, Evil Lawyers...

you could always make up an ethics issue and claim its from Mozambique or something, my teachers wouldn't look it up. but if you cant be pressed to make up an ethical issue, try super evolution(look it up, its a hilarious theory).

DRM and Consumer rights: You can find plenty of info/discussion on it right here on this site.

Khell_Sennet:
You want to impress/frighten your teacher, do it on something they never thought a student would pick...

-Sex and Schooling, if a teacher has a sexual relationship with an adult student, is it a conflict of interests or is the teacher's personal life not the school's business?

If you're an adult student and your teacher is attractive, I'd refrain from doing that one. Teacher may get the wrong idea...

My advice is to write about the new measures to stop piracy. There's sure to be a ton of material about the subject coming up this week.

Interesting story, though. One of my friends in high school had to write an ethics paper, and he chose to write about kicking cats. He wrote such a convincing paper condoning the mistreatment of cats (especially black ones), that the teacher gave him full points and even saved his paper as an example for future students.

Now that is talent.

You could go the liberal vs. conservative(not political, philosophical)ethics/nature of man surrounding said problem and choose one in the end.

Homes for the elderly: is it moral to sign your parents up to be looked after by strangers when you have the capability to look after them yourself?

Is it right to kill someone in self defense?

Is the only thing that makes an action moral the intentions behind that moral?

And so on and so on. There really are LOADS of things you could do for this.

Amnestic:

-Sex and Schooling, if a teacher has a sexual relationship with an adult student, is it a conflict of interests or is the teacher's personal life not the school's business?

Clarify for me: Student in the teacher's class or just student at the same institution?

Both work, totally different arguments needed for each though. I was thinking student in same school, not in the prof's class.

JMeganSnow:
There is no situation in life that does not contain an ethical element. It shouldn't be that hard to find a topic.

There are no ethics involved when I spank the monkey. Morals, maybe. Not ethics.

Khell_Sennet:

There are no ethics involved when I spank the monkey. Morals, maybe. Not ethics.

But then what's the difference between morals and ethics? The two are essentially the same thing. People would just rather prefer to be called unethical instead of immoral.

Myan:
How about assisted suicide for the elderly or terminal?

Did that a few months ago... Not sure if there is much else to add except for all the new people

Why would you need ethics? They cause problems, not help solve them.

Strafe Mcgee:

Khell_Sennet:

There are no ethics involved when I spank the monkey. Morals, maybe. Not ethics.

But then what's the difference between morals and ethics? The two are essentially the same thing. People would just rather prefer to be called unethical instead of immoral.

Actually, morals and ethics are quite different, at least as far as I've ever learned. Morals are personal beliefs on right and wrong, while ethics are the societal interpretation of right and wrong. They kinda blur these days because people take ethics as the personal end and morals as the societal end, but we also live in a world where people drive on parkways and park on driveways, so I long ago dismissed any notion that English made sense.

Just copy/paste the "is meat eating barbaric" thread and you should have a winner.

How about the ethics of "is government right/wrong to invest government funds in private businesses"? You could argue from either point (conflict of interest vs. need to ensure economic security), especially in light of recent economic crises.