Ethicist gives students his take on campus dilemmas

Is it ethical for a student to use paper provided in University computer clusters in his or her personal printer?

"No," Randy Cohen said last night in a question-and-answer session held in Rockefeller College as part of the Office of Religious Life's "Do The Right Thing" series.

"Similarly, you can't steal light bulbs from around the campus even if you'll only use the light to read assigned coursework," Cohen said. "[The University] may have other reasons for wanting to encourage use of the communal printers . . . and I think they have every right to dispose of the paper as they see fit."

As the writer of the weekly New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist," making these kinds of judgments is his occupation. And while Cohen admits he has no formal training in ethics, in his opening remarks to the audience last night he reminded his skeptics that "Cat Fancy magazine isn't written by a cat."

Students had the opportunity to ask Cohen for his opinion on various ethical dilemmas.

One student asked whether it was unethical for people under age 21 to drink alcohol.

"We at least nominally live in democracy, and these laws were not just imposed by us. They were in some sense made by us or at least by our representatives," Cohen said. "But most of us voted against George Bush and somehow, inexplicably, he's the president. So it's illegal to drink while you're under 21, but in my view it is not immoral or unethical."

Another student questioned the ethics of the obligation of University students to turn in students they know to have violated the Honor Code.

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Cohen disputed the benefit of the University Honor Code.

"I believe you can hold people accountable for their own actions, but I'm not persuaded you have an ethical duty to report someone else's bad behavior," he said.

Cohen also discussed basic ethical principles. He differentiated between religion and ethics. He said that in religion, one can have sinful thoughts, but to be unethical, there must be action.

"If you want to sin, all you have to do is . . . covet your neighbor's ox, but you can do that loafing around your apartment," he said. "To be unethical, you actually have to get up and get dressed."

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Cohen also emphasized that his current approach treats ethics as the practice of civic virtue, rather than individual rectitude.

"It seems more and more that the way in which people's values are shaped is a function of the communities they live in," he said. "The only chance you have of living a more honorable life is to live in a more honorable neighborhood."

Cohen was the first speaker in the "Do The Right Thing" series. The next one will occur in Wilson College and feature professor of bioethics Peter Singer, said Paul Raushenbush, associate dean of religious life.