Chickens Vs. Cecil the Lion

I read an interesting article recently that makes a pretty strong moral argument, "Eating chicken is morally worse than killing Cecil the Lion" (http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9074547/cecil-lion-chicken-meat). 


We've all heard about the killing of Cecil the Lion, but this author tries to put the whole situation into perspective and calls attention to the conditions that chickens are raised in for our consumption.  I won't go much into the Cecil issue, as that has been widely discussed everywhere.  However, chickens raised specifically for food are kept in terrible living conditions and fed constantly to increase their size.  This has some clear moral issues, as outlined in the article, because the maltreatment of animals, regardless of their "purpose," is certainly morally deplorable.  The article doesn't really go much further than that though, pointing out how many billions of chickens are killed each year for food.  But it doesn't really look at what would happen if that much food is removed from our food supply.  It would be severely detrimental for sure.  I'm not trying to argue for the continued maltreatment of those animals, as we should definitely be making serious efforts to improve the conditions the chickens are raised in, and improvements have been made.  Not all farms are as terrible as the ones shown in the article, and we need to try to support the better ones to set a better precedent. 

Civil Asset Forfeiture

Something that's been in the news a lot lately, that even the Supreme Court has made comments on, is the practice of Civil Asset Forfeiture.  Recent revelations about government employees abusing the dubious practice in Oklahoma, where I live, have thrown the ethical issue back into the spotlight.  Law enforcement and government officials were investigated when it was found that assets seized by civil forfeiture had gone missing.  The assets were found to have been used inappropriately by certain individuals to do such unethical things like paying off their own student loans or even using the assets to pay their rent.

Civil asset forfeiture, as summarized in the attached article, is the practice of the government (usually local or state governments) seizing money or other assets believed to have been used in the drug trade or other crimes.  This is all well and good, but it starts to get into unethical territory when you consider that the government is allowed to keep the assets seized regardless of whether the person they were seized from was convicted, or even charged (!) for a crime.

An older story that I remember reading told of a young man who was traveling home from Kentucky and was stopped at an airport and had over $10,000 seized from him because his baggage smelled like marijuana, even though he didn't have any on his person or in his luggage.  The officer who took it rationalized that because he was on a one way ticket and had so much cash on him, he must be a drug dealer and thus his money was seized.  In reality, he's just a college student and the money was saved up by him so he would be able to afford to rent an apartment while he's at college.

This is just one example showing how unfair and unethical this practice is.  Not only does it unfairly rob people of their money for no real reason, even if it is being done correctly (it's always legal, as of right now), the funds may be inappropriately used by individuals in the government that does the seizing.  Everyone knows it's generally unethical to steal, and that's true even when it's "legal."  To make things worse, have something seized by law enforcement? You're in for a long, expensive legal battle to get it back, probably negating the possible gain from getting your own property back.  Some states are making it illegal to do this if the person isn't convicted of a crime, but that needs to be a nationwide law to make this practice more ethical.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/oklahoma-watch-law-enforcement-seizures-misspent-missing/article_a1620c4e-55d1-586d-88d4-1b6ea74232c0.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/30/drug-cops-took-a-college-kids-life-savings-and-now-13-police-departments-want-a-cut/

Doctors Receiving Money from Drug and Tech Companies

This week I read an article on Bloomberg that stated a startling statistic: doctors received over $6.5 billion from drug and medical-device manufacturers in 2014 alone.  This raises a number of ethical questions regarding the situation.  For instance, do the doctors who receive more money from certain pharmaceutical companies tend to prescribe their medications more often, even if they're not necessarily needed? Do the doctors then favor one type of medication over another, potentially safer one because they get paid to prescribe it?  We have to really consider if this is a practice that we would want to continue so that we get the best service/healthcare and not have it be at the whim of the pharmaceutical companies and their large "wallets?"  This is one reason why something like the Affordable Care Act is so important, ensuring the money in our healthcare system goes to the right place, especially the doctors who feel forced to rely on the extra income from the companies that produce the medical equipment/medicines. Then it may not be an issue.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/doctors-got-6-5-billion-in-14-from-drug-device-makers-in-u-s-

Religion and Climate Change

I recently read through an article (unfortunately now behind a paywall on the Wall Street Journal), that discussed the recent actions by Pope Francis in calling widespread attention to the issue of climate change.  Pope Francis recently released an encyclical, or basically an announcement of Catholic doctrine, that addressed the issue of climate change.  Pope Francis, who was a scientist in his earlier days, addressed the matter directly and forcefully, basically stating that climate change is a serious issue that affects everyone on earth and that people who deny it (often religious conservatives) need to start taking action to change it. 


There are clear moral implications in all facets of this announcement and the issues being referenced here.  One could consider protecting the environment and reducing humanity's effect on climate change to be a moral duty of everyone, as we need to ensure the survivability of earth for future generations.  It could be considered unethical to contribute massive amounts of pollution that leads to climate change, while simultaneously harming the environment for future generations and lining one's own pockets or just making their own lives easier.


The Pope took a step in a positive direction by calling attention to this exact moral dilemma and also making it the responsibility of people of all religions to consider the effects we are having on the environment as a whole.  Science and religion rarely coincide or interrelate, but there is a clear effort being made here, by one of the most powerful religious leaders on the planet, to ensure that the large populations of religious individuals aren't disregarding the issue and ignoring the threat to our future on this planet.  It should provide a needed push to ensure that everyone is making positive contributions to this serious and rapidly approaching issue.


Source:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/scientists-back-pope-francis-on-global-warming-1434648362 

Should Autonomous Cars Save You Instead of Other People?

I came across an interesting article today that explores an intriguing ethical dilemma, one related to a subject I'm very big on: cars.  There is a thought experiment, that is quickly needing to be answered, that basically asks: if you (the sole occupant) are riding in an autonomous car, and suddenly you are in a situation where you are about to hit a group of people, should the car's programming be set to save just yourself by hitting the group of people, or should it take action to avoid them that would cause catastrophic damage to your car and kill you in the process?

With the expanding capabilities and usage of autonomous cars, this is a serious question that needs to be considered by automakers and the people who use self-driving cars.  There are two ways to look at the dilemma: the logical solution would be to let your car kill you in order to save the greater number of people, but the emotional solution would be to save yourself at the expense of the others.  It is not often that people need to make this sort of decision, and many people do end up self sacrificing.  But what if your car needs to make the decision for you?  Is it more ethical for the automakers to take the logical action, or is it more ethical for them to protect their customer (you) at the expense of others in the wrong place at the wrong time?  

This would be an interesting topic for discussion for sure.  The link to the article is here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150615124719.htm