UOT Principles of Ethics Questions

2. Based on the results from the above table and your own assessment, please consider whether any or all of the conclusions that Freeman comes to are supported by his evidence. Why or why not?

3. How do you feel about the study? If you were asked these questions in the same context or manner how would you feel? If a friend were asked these questions how do you think they would feel? Would this motivate you to want to participate in a study like this? This is both an individual statement and a group dialogue so ask questions of each other. Please use courtesy when engaging in debate, opinions are good engaging in mean-spirited actions is not.

4. Come to a decision as to these answers. I would like a concluding statement – if you are working in pairs you don’t have to agree on a single outcome but you should come to some sense of resolution about how we should apply the principles of ethics.

SOClOLOGY
Kinetics of nonhomogeneous processes in human society:
Unethical behaviour and societal chaos
GORDON
R. FREEMAN
Cherrlis~ryDepartment, Universiry of Alber~a,Edmonton, Alto., Crtr~adaT6G 2G2
Can. J. Phys. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by University of Ottawa on 01/10/20
For personal use only.
Received October 7 , 1989
Human society is a structured system and processes that occur within it are nonhomogeneous. The methods of studying
the kinetics of nonhomogeneous processes assist the definition and analysis of societal problems and the determination of
ways to decrease them. The concepts of stochastics and deterministic chaos apply. The greatly increased incidence of cheating
on university exams during the last two decades is a symptom of the widespread increase of ethics problems throughout
North American society. While causes of the problem are many and complex, the largest single cause appears to be the
decay of traditional (stable) families as the basic unit of society. Families in which both parents have jobs outside the home
have relatively low stability, and they do not provide adequate nurture for the children. Inadequately nurtured children have
a high probability of developing into unethical or unmotivated adults. Inadequately nurtured children also have a relatively
high tendency to use drugs and to be sexually irresponsible. Policies are suggested that would reduce societal problems and
have large economic benefits.
La sociCtC humaine est un systkme structuri, et les processus qui s’y dkroulent sont non homogknes. Les mCthodes d’Ctude
des processus non homogknes aident h dCfinir et h analyser les problkmes de sociCtC. Les concepts de stochastique et de chaos
dkterministe s’appliquent. La frCquence grandement accrue, au cours des deux demikres dicennies, de la tricherie dans les
examens universitaires est un symptBme de l’augmentation gCnCrale des problkmes d’Cthique dans la sociCtC nord-amkricaine.
Bien que les causes du problkme soient nombreuses et complexes, il semble que la cause la plus importante soit de dCclin
des familles traditionnelles (stables) comme unit& de base de la sociCtC. Les familles ob les deux parents ont des emplois
h I’extCrieur de la maison ont relativement peu de stabilitC et ne foumissent pas aux enfants une education adCquate. I1 y a
une grande probabiliti que des enfants inadiquatement CduquCs deviennent des adultes sans Cthique et sans motivation. Ces
enfants ont aussi une tendance relativement forte h utiliser des drogues et h se niontrer irresponsables sur le plan sexuel. On
suggkre des politiques susceptibles de rCduire les problkmes de sociCtC et d’apporter des bCnCfices Cconomiques considCrables.
[Traduit par la revue]
Can. J . Phys. 68. 794 (1990)
Introduction
What is a society? One dictionary has defined it as “the
system of community life in which individuals form a continuous and regulatory association for their mutual benefit and
protection” (1). However, such a definition is too imprecise
for a focussed study of processes within a society. A more adequate definition is Society: a cooperating group of animals
that has a pattern of relationships between its metnbers and
which endures for many generations; it requires (i) communication, (ii) governance, (iii) economic organization, and (iv)
reproduction. These four basic requirements produce, over a
period of several generations, other attributes of a society such
as tradition, culture, philosophy, and religion.
A society is a structured system; processes that occur within
it are nonhomogeneous (2). The analysis and correlations
of human behaviour require stochastic models; predictions
of long-term responses to long-term actions are probabilistic
rather than precise. Furthermore, the concept of deterministic
chaos applies to societal systems; certain activities produce a
high probability of later chaotic behaviour.
While each of us is a unique being, our minds have many
things in common. Experiences of human behaviour over many
generations have produced empirical correlations between human action and subsequent results. These correlations permit
probabilistic predictions of future consequences of present actions. Knowledge of this body of empirical correlations, and
the ability to use it, is called wisdom. Wisdom: the ability to
discern probable long-term effects of present human actions,
based on knowledge accumulated over many generations.
There is now great concern about the increase of unethical behaviour in North American society. Most of the recent
discussions of unethical behaviour have involved short-term
views of events such as drug abuse by teenagers, or “insider
trading” on the stock market. The discussions usually conclude
that the behaviour is not understandable, or it is simplistically
attributed to greed. However, methods of studying the kinetics
of nonhomogeneous processes (KNP) require views that are
long-term compared with the time scale of the specific events
under discussion. Events become understandable in terms of
the earlier conditions that led to them.
To make progress toward understanding behaviour in any
complex system, the more important factors must be identified and less important factors must be temporarily neglected.
When an effect has been identified, data are gathered to seek
conditions and other behaviour that correlate with them. For a
chemical or physical system, after an empirical correlation between causes and effect has been established, a detailed mechanism for the process is formulated and a prediction of a previously unobserved effect is made. Experiments are then done
to check the prediction. The proposed mechanism might then
be rejected or modified, and the study proceeds. For studies of
human society one is limited to discovering empirical correlations between different behaviours then trying to discern the
causes of the behaviours. The correlations are interpreted in
terms of general mechanisms that are then checked and modified by further observations. Observations need to be made
over several generations because there are important mental
feedback effects, such as the transformation of the emotion of
loyalty into the emotion of betrayal, which is followed by a
long-term change of behaviour that can pass a disturbance to
the next generation. There is no detailed understanding of the
mechanisms that connect cause and effect in human society.
However, important adjustments to current societal policies
can be made on the basis of empirical correlations. The con-
Can. J. Phys. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by University of Ottawa on 01/10/20
For personal use only.
FREEIMAN
cept of wisdom is therefore of more immediate importance in
social science than in the physical and biological sciences.
This paper about unethical behaviour illustrates a study of
KNP in human society. The material is the condensed result of
about 1000 h of study during a 7 year period. The ethics problem initially appeared to me in 1983 as an enormous increase
in the tendency of first and second year general chemistry students to cheat on examinations, compared with when I had last
taught the course in 1975. During the period 1975-1983 professors had also devised more elaborate ways to make cheating
more difficult, but none had tried to determine reasons for the
increase of cheating (some thought cheating was normal). My
long-term investigation of the cheating problem evolved into
a study of analogous events in society at large.
In this paper the broad picture is presented. It has enormous
economic and societal im~lications.At the end of the article
policies are suggested that could reduce the societal problems.
Ethics
One must distinguish between “personal ethics” and “societal ethics”. At first thought personal ethics might seem to be
the more important. However, ethics is a practical concept that
has evolved over many thousands of years and the most basic
rules are the same in societies of all races and major religions.
Thus the unadorned word ethics implies societal ethics. Many
difficulties in society are related to differences between personal codes and the code used by the society in which the
persons live. In this paper I refer to North American society.
The concept of ethics is subtle in spite of its great importance. Ethics is the civil equivalent of morality. The concept of
ethics is crucial for democratic societies that have separated
religious considerations from state affairs (separated Church
and State).
Ethics is based in practicality and has to do with the longterm survival of a society. A society must propagate or it will
die. A society has needs in addition to those of the individuals
in it. Ethics is a code of behaviour that tends to maximize the
atnoutzt of cotztentment in the society as a whole. Ethical behaviour tends to minimize conflict in a society. The foundation
of ethics is the Golden Rule: do not do to others what you do
not want done to yourself.
How has it come to be that nearly half of the students in
elementary chemistry courses have a strong tendency to cheat?
How has it happened that a hard-edged assistant professor can
tell graduate students that people do not get far if they are too
honest?
The problem that triggered the study
Within two or three years of coming to the University of Alberta in 1958 I had established a relationship of trust and mutual respect with undergraduate and graduate students. In particular, I conducted examinations with a minimum of surveillance, even when there were 200 students packed shoulder to
shoulder in the lecture room. I used the honor system1 and the
students honored it with few exceptions.
During the period September 1975-April 1983 I taught only
advanced chemistry courses to small classes. Then my turn
‘Honor system: students are told before an examination that looking at someone else’s paper, showing their paper to someone else, or
using other unauthorized sources of information is not allowed, and
that they are on their honor not to do these things. It soon evolved
that students were only told this before the first examination in a
course, and they responded well.
795
came around again to teach general chemistry to large classes
of 200 or more students. The marks of the first large examination in October 1983 were unusually high. I then learned that
my colleagues had in recent years been setting two exams for
the same session, and distributing the exams to alternate rows
of students to make cheating more difficult. Graduate students
were used to patrol the class room during examinations. I was
offended by the implied innate dishonesty of the undergraduate
students.
The examinations for large courses in December and April
are conducted in the gymnasium and arena of our sports complex, with students of several courses mixed together. Students
of a given course are separated into alternate rows, and the
professors are assisted by graduate students to answer queries
from undergraduates in different parts of the large space. The
overseers also watch for inappropriate behaviour in the usual
ten percent or so who have a tendency to cheat. The marks on
my examination in December 1983 were normal.
During the next examination in the classroom, in February
1984, I pretended to work as usual on a manuscript at the
front of the room, paying little attention to the students unless
someone held up a hand to ask a question. However, I actually watched their behaviour. As time passed the number of
collaborative interactions increased and became less cautious.
At the end of the 50 min period, as the 250 students milled
toward the bench at the front of the room to hand in their papers, some of the students exchanged information and changed
their answers on the way to the front.
The average mark on the examination was similar to that
in October, abnormally high. (I discounted the marks by 50%
and shifted the extra weight to the December and April exams.)
When I gave the marked examinations back to the students in
the next period I said “Last day we disappointed each other.
You couldn’t understand how a prof. could be so stupid as to
not notice what you were doing, and I couldn’t understand why
so many of you think so little of yourselves that you would
cheat. I have held back two dozen papers so that at least 10%
of you will come to my office to talk about this. Some of
the two dozen cheated, and some did not as far as I know.
I want to hear all sides of the story. I also encourage any or
all of you who want to talk about these things to come to my
office, alone or in groups, to help me to understand what is
happening.”
Thus began a study that still continues. It has involved about
1300 students so far, roughly equal numbers of males and females, with a wide range of racial, societal and family backgrounds.
Methods of obtaining meaningful data
The mind is like a quantum system, in that probing it alters
it. Wisdom is not greatly needed for success in the physical
and biological sciences. In social science wisdom is necessary
in the gathering and interpretation of pertinent data. We seek
information about attitudes of minds in their relaxed state. If
a question or an artificial situation excites a mind into another
state, the answer obtained will reflect the excited state rather
than the habitual one we wish to know about. As a Blackfoot
man told me in a completely different context, “Anthropologists went onto reserves with tape recorders. They paid Indians
for stories. They got stories.”
Information for the present study was obtained as unobtrusively as possible. I have listened nonjudgementally to hundreds of students for hundreds of hours. I rarely make notes
Can. J. Phys. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by University of Ottawa on 01/10/20
For personal use only.
796
CAN. J . PHYS. VOL. 68. 1990
until after the student has left. If asked for advice I try to give
it in a way that the student has to think for himself or herself.
I encourage students to start discussions with other students,
independently of whether I privately agree with the particular
point of view. I try to get representatives of the full range of
opinions to come to talk. Some of the most aggressive people,
male and female, seem not to have had anyone listen to them
before.
During the first year of the inquiry when I had no idea about
the causes of the massive cheating, the 250 students as a group
were interested by the novelty of the inquiry. They openly
gave me information about their attitudes, their perceptions of
the world, their family backgrounds, the general attitudes of
students in public and high schools, and the perceived attitudes
of their teachers and professors. Later, when a pattern began
to emerge in the data, general information obtained from the
full classes of over 200 students became repetitive and did not
add detail to the pattern. Useful information came mostly from
discussions with individuals and small groups of students who
came to my office. (They often came on the pretext of asking
about a laboratory report or a chemistry problem assignment,
and then branched into comments or questions about personal
situations or perceptions’of society.)
I have also gathered opinions of people outside the university, in North America and in Europe, males and females in
the age range from 18-70 years, spinsters and bachelors, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. The patterns in North
America and in Europe are the same as those detected within
the University of Alberta and its adjacent community.
Information gained by “surveys and experiments with controls” is likely to be distorted by the artificiality of the gathering situation, so I do not use that method. My controls are
my experiences with about 2500 students during the period
1958-1983.
Identified problems
The societal problems identified by this study form a network that permeates North American society. The mental state
that drives a semi-adult to cheat on university examinations is
similar to the mental state that drives an adult to embezzle
money or to be unfaithful to one’s spouse. The behaviour
pattern extends to corrupt business and political practices, to
abuse of drugs and sex by teenagers, and to the extreme of
the murder of fourteen female engineering students at L’Ecole
Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989, by a severely
psychologically damaged young man.
Some observations
The escalating problems of ethics in North America have
the same roots as the escalating problems of drug abuse and
single motherhood. President Bush’s war on drugs in Colombia and in the United States using police forces will fail because it is attacking the flame and not the source of the fire.
Throwing extinguishing material at the flame itself does not
put out a fire. The extinguishing material must be cast into
the base of the flame, to stop the combustion at the source.
Once burning gas has left the source it is impossible to control. The source of the drug problem in North America is not
in Colombia, it is in our society’s desire to use drugs. Although the drug problem is complex and has many roots, the
largest single root is the decay of stable families as the basic
unit of society. It is also the largest single root of the growing ethics problems in North America. The self-centeredness
that drives people to cheat their colleagues, their neighbors,
and their families also produces the confusion and loneliness
that seek relief in drugs. We have become a drug-oriented society to such an extent that science funding agencies provide
disproportionately large amounts of money for the synthesis
of new drugs. Drugs have for two decades been unhealthily
fashionable within universities and national science granting
agencies. These are symptoms of societal disease.
A strong tendency to cheat is a psychological problem that
stems from low self-esteem. It is a symptom of other personal
and societal problems as well. My study indicates that the
tendency to cheat correlates strongly with the absence of a
full time mother in the home when the child was growing up,
until the young adult left home. About 50% of students whose
mothers worked outside the home had a strong tendency to
cheat, which is roughly five times larger than for the general
student population before so many mothers had careers outside
the home. The tendency to cheat was approximately uniform
across the student mark distribution in my course. Students
who obtained 919 were as likely to cheat as those who obtained
619 or 319. There was no noticeable difference between the
tendencies of males and females.
Many of the future problems of professional and personal
ethics are being generated now in homes by the inadequate nurturing of children by their parents. About half of the children
of two-career families suffer serious psychological damage. It
accumulates during their first 14 years or so and causes antisocial behaviour during their puberty and later years. Much of
the psychological damage centers in low self-esteem.
An interpretation of the societal change
Twenty-five years ago, many energetic, idealistic young
women continued with their careers outside the home after
they had children. Child nurture became a secondary concern.
The young parents did not know that a child’s need for love
is nearly as basic as the need for food. They did not realize
that bad effects from inadequate nurturing could show up in
their children 15 years later. As the children were growing, six
year old Johnny seemed happy and was doing well in school.
Ten year old Mary was bright eyed and tests showed her to be
advanced for her age, or good in math. Yet many of them are
having problems now in young adulthood. Why?
While the parents were busy earning money for material
status the children got treated more as objects. From the viewpoint of children “quality time” is a useless concept. Time, and
lots of it, is needed. When parents make their children part of
an external program, the children do not acquire high value as
individuals. The much needed self-esteem does not grow. The
hurt and insecurity that they suffer through being put aside
gets stored away in their early years. It finally surfaces as an
attitude that material things are worth more than people.
One way to get more material things, which means to “get
ahead” or “succeed in life”, is to cheat other people. In the
words of some of my students, cheating is “creative acquisition” and “socially acceptable”. A few students believe that the
word cheat is old fashioned and not part of today’s vocabulary.
Two premedical students who have mothers with jobs outside
the home unhesitatingly said that it is right for physicians to
bill Medicare (public health insurance) for patients who do not
exist. When asked why false billing is right they replied that if
the doctors asked the government for an increase in rates and
the government refused, the doctors do what they have to do
to get the money.
Can. J. Phys. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by University of Ottawa on 01/10/20
For personal use only.
FREEMAN
Most of the students are from affluent homes. About 60% of
the 1300 have mothers who worked outside the home before
the children were 15 years old. One young woman came to
tell me that the age 15 is not old enough to leave kids at home
alone. She thought that as long as the child lives at home,
even if age 20, the influence of a full time mother is needed.
Children mature at different rates. I have come to agree that
18 is a more reasonable age.
We can now see evidence of psychological damage in about
one out of two children of working mothers: drug abuse, compulsive eating, cheating on exams, not telling the truth in
controversial situations, and other behaviour that society finds
destabilizing. Why does this happen? It seems to be related
to the decrease of loyalty of the mother to her child, to the
delegation of nurture to babysitters or day-care workers. For a
mother to have a career outside the home, someone must be
a substitute nurturer of her children. Children do not adapt to
repeated changing of their nurturers. The “make strange” reaction of babies seems to be part of our survival mechanism.
Inconstant day-care attendants are a psychological threat to
the child. The emotion of loyalty to parents, when damaged,
changes to the emotion of betrayal. Loyalty and betrayal are
emotions that have a great effect on our sense of security and
well-being, on our psychological state.
These factors are visible in many two-career families. Then
why do so many mothers now have jobs outside the home?
The most common cause offered is economic need: “It takes
two salaries to make ends meet”. My study does not support
that.
Many husbands now expect their wives to “provide her
share”, with little thought given to the effect on the children.
Each successive generation of people is impressed by its advanced technology in comparison with that wh~chhad been
available to its parents.’ However, the relcrtlve (logarithmic)
rate of change seems to be roughly constant over each generation. When a man bragged to me that his wife is financially
independent, I asked “How are your children?” His reaction
was one of embarrassment, and his answer indicated that they
lacked motivation.
There is a growing realization that, as one European mother
said, “The money that the mother earns is later given to doctors”. She referred to stress-related physical and mental problems in such families.
Humans have reached this high state of evolution through
specialization of labor. It seems that the majority of women
were equipped by nature to be nurturers, and most men were
not. A family functions as a single unit, and each member has
a different function. If either your heart or your brain were cut
out, your body would die.
Children and motherhood devalued
Two salaries per family used to be relatively uncommon.
They are now more common because children and motherhood
‘My parents in the 1930s had labor saving devices that their parents did not have in the early 1900s. such as an automobile, a clotheswashing machine, a vacuum cleaner, and a gas stove. In the 1960s
my wife and I had a television and affordable air travel that our parents had not had. Our children in the 1990s have disposable diapers,
a computer, and a garage door opener that we did not have. The
enormous amount of time and patience required to instill personal
responsibility in children and young adults has remained the same.
The concept of wisdom seems not have to changed during the past
several thousands of years.
797
have been severely devalued in recent decades. There are many
complex chains of causes of the devaluation, including the fear
of world over-population and the fear of nuclear holocaust. I
will focus on what seems to be the most important chain of
causes. The most basic element in it is the decrease of permanent commitment of individual men to individual women.
What caused that?
As use of birth control pills became commonplace in the
1960s and 1970s, women’s fear of pregnancy decreased and
they became more accessible to men on a casual basis. If
casual sex is available to a man, his permanent commitment to
one woman becomes less likely. The use of birth control pills
within the context of marriage can be beneficial. But in the era
before birth control pills, the usual responses of girls to ardent
boys before marriage seemed to be “I might get pregnant”, or
“You won’t respect me any more”. The persuasiveness seemed
to be in the first argument, but the deepest truth seems to lie
in the second.
The importance of the sex component in the permanent
bond between an average monogamous man and woman has
been temporarily forgotten. Nonmonogamous bonds are much
weaker. When husbands and wives treat each other as being replaceable, they treat each other as objects. The rest follows: decreased mutual respect, decreased self-respect, decreased ethical behaviour, and societal decline.
With the ready availability of casual sex, men lose permanent commitment and women are put in an unacceptable
social and economic situation. This is the root of the present
wave of feminism. As a protection against possible abandonment, women enter the workforce to gain dignity and material
self-sufficiency. To assist women on the path of economic independence, baby sitters and day-care centers are used for the
nurturing of children. Children are thereby treated as objects by
parents and outside care givers, which produces psychological
damage and later problems of societal ethics.
The feminist movement has strong ties to socialism. Personal responsibilities are being transferred to the government.
The tragedy of the situation was made clear when a lady politician yelled into a microphone “My children have been abandoned! My children are neglected! The government owes my
children day care!” She preferred politics to her children.
When personal responsibilities are transferred to the government, what will follow in the next generation is regimented,
bureaucratic control of the personal lives of one’s children and
grandchildren.
An optimal society requires ethical behaviour, which requires that self-esteem be instilled into children. The human
mind is extremely complex and delicate. Unconstant nurturers produce insecurity and fail to produce the vital sense of
self-worth in children. They produce long-term bad effects in
many of their charges. I have been examining the results of it
these past seven years.
Conclusions
( i ) The escalation of ethics problems in North America is
associated with the decline of family stability and the resulting deficiency of self-esteem engendered in children by their
mothers.
(ii) The decline of family stability is associated with, among
other things, the excessive use of “good drugs”, which indirectly increases the use of “bad drugs”. On television many ads
push “good drugs” and many programs show police fighting
pushers of “bad drugs”.
Can. J. Phys. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by University of Ottawa on 01/10/20
For personal use only.
798
CAN. J . PHYS. VOL. 68. 1990
(iii) The spread of the feminist movement into the heterosexual majority of society was caused by the decrease of stability
of marriage, and the associated decline of the dignity and economic stability of women. Unethical behaviour against women
has produced unethical behaviour of women.
(iv) Centers of Ethics are a new cottage industry. Their directors seem more interested in getting grants of money to
study ethics than in seeking the roots of ethics problems. They
throw government funds into the flame, not fire extinguishing
material at the base of the flame.
(v) Children and motherhood have been gravely devalued by
society. Many day-care-nurtured children grow into unethical
adults.
(vi) Societal difficulties can be reduced by treating the ethics
problems at the source, within the family.
Societal policy proposals
The main focus should be to encourage factors that
strengthen permanent marriages. The human and economic effects will be to greatly decrease societal ethical and medical
problems.
(i) Give substantial tax credit to families in which one parent
is a full-time parent.
(ii) Reduce the tax credit for day-care expenses of twocareer families. Discourage the creation of on-site day-care
centers by businesses.
(iii) Elevate the social status of full-time mothers.
(iv) Restore the social value of male and female virginity
until marriage. (Change many TV ads.)
(v) Reduce the social acceptability of divorce. Make divorce
harder to obtain. Make divorce a handicap to obtain a public
office or a senior administrative position.
(vi) Strengthen the enforcement of alimony and child support payments by divorced income-earners.
(vii) Publicly portray the family as a single, complex, living
organism that is the basis of a stable society. Emphasize that
a family has needs beyond those of the individuals in it.
(viii) Reduce the social and financial status of drug research.
Point out that drug research feeds on the massive public consumption of drugs.
(ix) Treat the advertising of “good drugs” in the same manner as the advertising of alcohol and tobacco.
(x) Emphasize the psychosomatic nature of many diseases.
Foster acceptance of the long-known connection between a
healthy mind and a healthy body. The connection is true even
though not well understood.
Acknowledgements
Many discussions with sociologists and philosophers about
definitions of the terms ethics, family, society, sociology, and
wisdom are gratefully acknowledged. I especially thank Phyllis
Freeman and Norman Gee for helpful comments on several
earlier versions of this manuscript.
1. Funk & Wagnalls. Standard college dictionary. Canadian ed.
Longmans Green & Co., Toronto. 1963.
2. G. R. Freeman. 0 1 Kinetics of nonhomogeneous processes.
Edited by G. R. Freeman. Wiley-Interscience, New York. 1987.
Chap. 1.