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Thanks. There was a thread on HN yesterday about the benefits of a college education. There was a subthread arguing that without going to a formal college proce

Thanks. There was a thread on HN yesterday about the benefits of a college education. There was a subthread arguing that without going to a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy, a person could not hope to become a moral person, and therefore, the implication goes, college is not only necessary but fundamental to a moral society, and also obviously graduates are more moral and ethical than non-graduates. This argument that morality comes exposure to higher education and is thus an imperative for civilization can perhaps be considered a modernist successor to the argument that morality comes from exposure to one or another particular religion and is thus an imperative for civilization. Several people objected to these claims. This study you post is a very good formal rebuttal. In the best case scenario, where the person intentionally focuses on the study of ethics in college, it has no effect on personal moral/ethical advancement.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lawn 8y ago
I've heard similar arguments but from a religious angle. That without religion there's no morality.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy In the Soviet Union there was a mandatory college course in scientific communism. It was what it said on the box: studying of a scientific proof that communism is the next logical step of capitalism and the soon death of capitalism is inevitable. The amount of hypocrisy was unbelievable and many skeptics were made this way.
loco5niner 8y ago
In truth, the educated are more likely to be self-deceived (as well as being deceived by the system).
- apocalypstyx 8y ago
  When I was young, I heard this from Christian fundamentalists. As an adult, I hear it from atheists. (Along with the phrase 'keep your mind open, but not so open your brains fall out', which both groups really seem to like.)
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, both groups are on to something. (Neither Christian -- too provincial --, nor atheist -- too smug --).
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  That isn't that meaningful without the overall rate of deception for all parties. If nobody else can deceive you who is left to deceive you but yourself? It would be like dealing with people immune to all diseases and aging and noting that they tend to die more often from violence - of course they would it is the only thing left to kill them! It doesn't imply that they are more violent.
dpatrick86 8y ago
That's awfully late in life to be developing a foundation for morality. It seems far more likely to be extremely influenced by early upbringing. More controversially, there may even be a genetic component too. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225145632.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225145632.h... We are still so early in the understanding of ourselves and, by extension, society.
mcguire 8y ago
I disbelieve. I apparently missed the thread yesterday, but I doubt anyone seriously suggested that formal college classes were a requirement for moral behavior. If they did, they're fools. Higher education, philosophy, and ethics classes are beneficial because they put the student in an environment where they can be exposed to a variety of ideas, in an efficient manner. But, you cannot make a horse drink even if you lead them to the water, and they'll find something to drink some of the time even if you don't hold the harness.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Here is the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19324670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19324670
- malvosenior 8y ago
  "Higher education, philosophy, and ethics classes are beneficial because they put the student in an environment where they can be exposed to a variety of ideas, in an efficient manner." I think that the modern higher educational experience has done away with a "variety of ideas" in favor of "the single set of idea almost all academics politically align with".
grawprog 8y ago
The main lesson I learned in my mandatory ethics class was that formal ethics can be used to justify anything. I'm not sure if the teacher we had was just not very good or if ethics classes are just like this. But, we ended up arguing with her a lot, we were all in ecological restoration and a whole lot of the case study examples we were given were to show how various corporations were ethically correct in doing some pretty terrible things. As you can imagine, this is pretty much in direct opposition for everything we had been going to school for for the previous three years and we'd recently come back from a trip involving some wetlands, a copper mine and a golf course that had jaded us pretty heavily towards any kind of ethical reasoning to the actions of industry. There was one evening(we were forced to take this in the evening) she ended up screaming at us to shut the fuck up we just didn't understand and sat in her desk and didn't speak for the rest of the class. Ethics was by far my least favourite course in university.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  I think the reason you can end up justifying anything you want in ethics is because you're trying to explain something that's undecidable. You need to pit different interests of people against one another and then find out which one is more important. It's like comparing apples and oranges - you can do it, but the result is going to be colored by the biases you think are important to compare. It's not going to be a fully objective comparison. The real world is a highly complex system. So complex in fact that the basic principles get lost in the noise of everything going on in the world.
coldtea 8y ago
>There was a subthread arguing that without going to a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy, a person could not hope to become a moral person, and therefore, the implication goes, college is not only necessary but fundamental to a moral society, and also obviously graduates are more moral and ethical than non-graduates. Only someone born and raised quite removed from contact with most layers of humanity, and grown in some sterile environment (rich country clubs? flown from school to home and back? self-schooled? raised in some academic microcosm), would ever believe such BS.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
>This study you post is a very good formal rebuttal. In the best case scenario, where the person intentionally focuses on the study of ethics in college, it has no effect on personal moral/ethical advancement. The argument made seems to have been that college helped improve ethical behavior, not necessarily that specialization was necessary. As all participants in this study were academics, it is not disputing any part of the argument.
usrusr 8y ago
If college has an influence on being ethical, it won't be because of some formal ethics class. It will in first degree be because a degree and/or actual knowledge makes it easier to fulfil ambition in an ethical way (except when college overperforms at fostering ambition, well then it also has an influence on being ethical I guess) and in second degree because now people will be more likely to give a threshold level of default trust. Interestingly, being trusted makes both ethical and unethical behavior easier. It's certainly not fair at all.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lawn 8y ago

I've heard similar arguments but from a religious angle. That without religion there's no morality.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy In the Soviet Union there was a mandatory college course in scientific communism. It was what it said on the box: studying of a scientific proof that communism is the next logical step of capitalism and the soon death of capitalism is inevitable. The amount of hypocrisy was unbelievable and many skeptics were made this way.

loco5niner 8y ago

In truth, the educated are more likely to be self-deceived (as well as being deceived by the system).

apocalypstyx 8y ago
When I was young, I heard this from Christian fundamentalists. As an adult, I hear it from atheists. (Along with the phrase 'keep your mind open, but not so open your brains fall out', which both groups really seem to like.)
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, both groups are on to something. (Neither Christian -- too provincial --, nor atheist -- too smug --).
Nasrudith 8y ago
That isn't that meaningful without the overall rate of deception for all parties. If nobody else can deceive you who is left to deceive you but yourself? It would be like dealing with people immune to all diseases and aging and noting that they tend to die more often from violence - of course they would it is the only thing left to kill them! It doesn't imply that they are more violent.

dpatrick86 8y ago

That's awfully late in life to be developing a foundation for morality. It seems far more likely to be extremely influenced by early upbringing. More controversially, there may even be a genetic component too. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225145632.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225145632.h... We are still so early in the understanding of ourselves and, by extension, society.

mcguire 8y ago

I disbelieve. I apparently missed the thread yesterday, but I doubt anyone seriously suggested that formal college classes were a requirement for moral behavior. If they did, they're fools. Higher education, philosophy, and ethics classes are beneficial because they put the student in an environment where they can be exposed to a variety of ideas, in an efficient manner. But, you cannot make a horse drink even if you lead them to the water, and they'll find something to drink some of the time even if you don't hold the harness.

darkpuma 8y ago
Here is the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19324670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19324670
malvosenior 8y ago
"Higher education, philosophy, and ethics classes are beneficial because they put the student in an environment where they can be exposed to a variety of ideas, in an efficient manner." I think that the modern higher educational experience has done away with a "variety of ideas" in favor of "the single set of idea almost all academics politically align with".

grawprog 8y ago

The main lesson I learned in my mandatory ethics class was that formal ethics can be used to justify anything. I'm not sure if the teacher we had was just not very good or if ethics classes are just like this. But, we ended up arguing with her a lot, we were all in ecological restoration and a whole lot of the case study examples we were given were to show how various corporations were ethically correct in doing some pretty terrible things. As you can imagine, this is pretty much in direct opposition for everything we had been going to school for for the previous three years and we'd recently come back from a trip involving some wetlands, a copper mine and a golf course that had jaded us pretty heavily towards any kind of ethical reasoning to the actions of industry. There was one evening(we were forced to take this in the evening) she ended up screaming at us to shut the fuck up we just didn't understand and sat in her desk and didn't speak for the rest of the class. Ethics was by far my least favourite course in university.

Mirioron 8y ago
I think the reason you can end up justifying anything you want in ethics is because you're trying to explain something that's undecidable. You need to pit different interests of people against one another and then find out which one is more important. It's like comparing apples and oranges - you can do it, but the result is going to be colored by the biases you think are important to compare. It's not going to be a fully objective comparison. The real world is a highly complex system. So complex in fact that the basic principles get lost in the noise of everything going on in the world.

coldtea 8y ago

>There was a subthread arguing that without going to a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy, a person could not hope to become a moral person, and therefore, the implication goes, college is not only necessary but fundamental to a moral society, and also obviously graduates are more moral and ethical than non-graduates. Only someone born and raised quite removed from contact with most layers of humanity, and grown in some sterile environment (rich country clubs? flown from school to home and back? self-schooled? raised in some academic microcosm), would ever believe such BS.

boomboomsubban 8y ago

>This study you post is a very good formal rebuttal. In the best case scenario, where the person intentionally focuses on the study of ethics in college, it has no effect on personal moral/ethical advancement. The argument made seems to have been that college helped improve ethical behavior, not necessarily that specialization was necessary. As all participants in this study were academics, it is not disputing any part of the argument.

usrusr 8y ago

If college has an influence on being ethical, it won't be because of some formal ethics class. It will in first degree be because a degree and/or actual knowledge makes it easier to fulfil ambition in an ethical way (except when college overperforms at fostering ambition, well then it also has an influence on being ethical I guess) and in second degree because now people will be more likely to give a threshold level of default trust. Interestingly, being trusted makes both ethical and unethical behavior easier. It's certainly not fair at all.