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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Paulus, DeFazio best choices for Oregon ■ OUR OPINION: Both are pro-education, pro-environment and pro-choice Willi ballots for the Sen ate primary arriving in mail boxes this week. University students will have to decide whom they want to compete in the rat« for Hob Par k wood’s vm ated seat Oregon’s next II.S. senator will be voluntarily thrown into the fray of bipartisan bickering that has come to define legislative politic s Sweeping Republican reforms threaten ociut at ion funding, our environment, abortion a< cess, care for the elderly and the nation's poor. As such, our next elec ted official will not only need to come down on the right side on these issues but be able to resist pressure from lob byists and other spec ial interests In short. Oregon needs a senator secure in bis or her convictions who will not only vote against damag ing legislation but can con vince other senators to follow his or her lead. Republican Norma Paulus and Democrat Peter DeFazio should l>e given a shot at representing the state and its students Paulus is now serving her second term as Oregon's superintendent of public instruction and was a mem ber of the state legislature for five terms She lias been a consistent supporter of higher education and does not favor excessive cuts in student loans and other Financing that would inhibit students' access to higher education. She does, however, sup port the balanced budget amendment, and it is not dear whether she would resist the proposed cuts in education or the end of the direct student loan program bill to sea it passed Paulus is the only Repub lican candidate who sup ports abortion rights without restrictions, and she says she will fight any bill that seeks to limit abortion access. In addition, she sup ports term limits for ele< led officials and has promised to resign after nine years Of ail the candidates. Peter DeFaxlo has been the strongest defender of educa tion access and affordabili t\ 1 le has said his first priority would be to fight cuts in higher education. Sim e he was elected to the House of Representatives five years ago. DeFazio has tunneled his pay increases into eight scholarships for college bound Oregon stu dents. DoFazio supports a bal anced budget but lias said the cuts should be made in defense spending, farm sub sidies and business tax breaks lie, like Paulus. has pledged to serve only nine years in the Senate and sup ports term limits for elected officials. He has been a strong sup porter of abortion rights and opposes any government interference with women's right to choose Both DoFazio and Paulus have also been strong supporters of civil rights protection for gay men and lesbians DoFazio and Paulus repro sent the best within their parties. 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If you do, you’ve probably taken a course in ethics If you haven't taken an ethics course. I'd like to recoin OPINION mend that you do. In fail, the University ought to require stu dents to take an ethics class to graduate I know; 1 know That's all you need, isn't it ? One more requirement and you'll pop. But requirements are supposed to be things you need to know in life A certain amount of writing ability, for example, is necessary if you are going to get your ideas across to other*, so the University requires two writing courses Maybe these won't be enough, but at least the University tries to teach you a skill you will need in the real world Ethics are nothing less than a question of how we ought to live. I can think of no more impor tant matter We must know how to decide what is right or wrong — a skill that far too many people lack 1 don't have to tell you (unless you've bean living under a rock) that a lot of people are hol lering about the lack of morality in our country. Even if I disagree with many of them about what morality is, 1 agree that morels themselves have become loss important to our culture. 1 think we've gotten confused about morality We got the idea somewhere along the line that morality was dependent on religion. Many peo ple. at least many of those bemoaning the lack of morals in our country, (relieve this To make matters worse, religions other than Christianity are generally considered suspect in our culture To too many minds, non-Christians are immoral What this country needs, they say, is a rebirth of “good Christian values." No What this country needs is people who can think for themselves and make their own moral decisions outside of religious rules l‘m not saying we don't need religion, i think reli gion ean offer a great deal of personal satisfac tion. But morals stand apart from religion. Socrates asked: "Is conduct right because the gods command it. or do the gods command it because it is right?" Some jteople say conduct is right because God commands it But if this is true, then any behavior could be right, as long as God orders us to do it. The biblical commandment, “thou shall not lie." could just as easily be. “thou shall lie.” This doesn't make any sense, though. fifi This country needs people w ho can think for themselves and make moral decisions outside of religious rules. -99 If C»od commands conduct because it is right, then it is right before Cod commands it. If this is true, then morality stands apart from religion. Wo have forgotten this, so we have forgotten how to think about morality. Some people with out strong religious beliefs think morality isn't important. Some people with religious beliefs think they tan take the easy way out and just refer to the rule book. In both cases, we've neglected the art of ethics. Forgetting about ethics doesn't mean that we don't have to make decisions about morality, though. Should we ever lie? Kill? Is it right to provide welfare checks for people who can’t work? Is it morally acceptable to allow' people to live on the streets? Is it all right to have a baby — or sex, for that matter — if you're not mar ried? Should gay marriage be legal? Is it okay to kill and eat animals? What about abortion? Those aren't easy questions. All right. 1 think some of them should be easy Hut wo fight about questions such as these every day in this coun try, and thu fighting threatens to tear us apart at the seams. We fight with ourselves as well We've all had personal dilemmas in which we had a difficult time deciding what the right thing to do was. We may have difficult choices to make, but they are made even more difficult by not know ing how to think about the problem. What are the probable consequences7 Who will our deci sion affect? What's fair? 1 he study of ethics doesn't offer easy answers to the ethical problems we have to solve daily. But it teaches how to think about the problems, so we can figure out answers. Wc* come to the University to learn, but what do we need to learn? We take our requirements: writing, foreign language or math, a sampling of arts and letters, sc ience, and social science. We choose our majors and learn what we need to get the job we hope for. There must be more than this, though One of the most vital skills we will need throughout our lives, us we make decisions about jobs, marriages, children and politics, will lie the ability to carefully consider what deci sions will t>e right We are here to learn what we need to know Perhaps there is nothing we need to know as much as how to decide how to live. /eon M Hand, a /unior majoring in journalism, is a columnist for the Emerald.
