"It was said, there were three most famous horses in history," said Wulandari when her face like a rounding clock; shone on the garden wall, on streets, fields, harbour quays, and trees, afer saying Basmalah and Salaam. "The first,' she went on, "Bucephalus, belonging to Alexander the Great. A thirteen-year-old Alexander tamed the horse when no one else could by turning the animal away from its shadow. Alexander supposedly claimed that the horse was immortal. Some legends claim that the horse was born at the same time as the king, and others that they died simultaneously. Bucephalus, is almost as legendary as the king himself and he named an ancient city, Bucephala, in his honor.
The second, Clever Hans, a clever horse taught to solve math problems, tell time and dates, understand music theory, and speak German by Wilhelm Von Osten, a math teacher and mystic. The horse would watch the person asking the questions—the people who already knew the answers—and read their body language. When their body language changed when the horse arrived at the correct answer, Clever Hans would stop. Since then, similar behavior in humans has been known as the Clever Hans Effect.
The third, Incitatus, Caligula’s horse. The Roman emperor Caligula is best known today for his decadent lifestyle, brutal—and hence, inappropriate. Caligula believed he was a god and was assassinated for it. He was murdered at the Palatine Games by Cassius Chaerea.
Caligula’s horse, Incitatus had a stable made of marble and a stall made of ivory. He wore only purple blankets, the color of royalty, and had jewels hanging from around his neck. The horse had its own servants and its oats were mixed with gold flakes–he even had his own house!
Rumor has it that the emperor planned on making the horse an official member of the Roman government. The emperor lavished his attention on the horse to draw attention to how easy it was to work in government and entertain dignitaries, even a horse could do it.
So, probably, inspired by this incident, the wise Aesop tells us a satire about Caligula and his horse. He express it like this, 'A story goes that Caligula, Emperor of Rome, being one day on the back of a favourite Horse, with his whole court about him, these obsequious Gentlemen perceiving how awkwardly he managed the reins, took occasion from thence to flatter him upon being a most excellent Horseman; when the Horse immediately threw him—in the emperor's mind, he believed that in his court, the Horse was the only one of his court that had any truth in him, took a resolution to raise him to those high honours to which he afterwards arrived.'
Flatterers should be told, that he who flatters without without prior examination, is a fool, James Northcote comments on this fable. A man of integrity, says he, provided his capacities are not weak, always carries the preference in our esteem before any other, whatever situation in life he may happen to occupy.
Every fable in Aesop’s Fable always contain moral values that implies care of soul, kindhearted, respect, tolerance, justness, fairness, responsibility, and belief. All of these represent part of ethics.
Why do we need ethics? Aren’t laws sufficient to protect people’s rights? Vincent Ryan Ruggiero tells us that Ethics is the study of the choices people make regarding right and wrong. Each of us makes dozens of moral choices daily. Will we go to work or call in sick? Follow the research protocol or violate it? Answer a colleague’s question truthfully or lie? Obey the speed laws or drive as fast as our vehicles will go? Pay our bills or spend our money on entertainment? Keep our marriage vows or break them? Meet our children’s emotional needs or ignore them? Pet the cat or kick it?
Many people reason, says Ruggiero, that we don’t need ethics because our system of laws, when consistently enforced, provides sufficient protection of our rights. In order to assess this idea we must understand who makes laws and how they make them. Who makes them is easy to answer: local, state, and national legislators. How they are made is somewhat more difficult. We know that legislators must get together to talk about a particular behavior and then vote on whether they want to criminalize it. But what do they say to one another? On what basis do they conclude that one act deserves to be classified criminal and another one doesn’t? What kinds of reasons do they offer to support their views? How can they be sure those reasons are good ones?
What, for example, did legislators say before they decided that sexual harassment is illegal? Certainly something more than 'I wouldn’t commit such an act.' The fact that two or ten or five hundred legislators expressed that personal view would not be suffi cient reason to conclude that a law should be passed preventing other people from committing the act. According to relativism, no one has any business criticizing other people’s moral decisions. If that principle is valid, then the sexual harasser should be free to follow his or her preference. The only rational basis for a law against sexual harassment is that the act is wrong, not just for those who think so but for everyone. The proper focus for lawmakers is not on their subjective preferences but on the nature of the actions in question.
Why do we need ethics if we have laws? Because law is not possible without ethics, says Ruggiero. The only way for a law to be enacted or repealed is for one or more people to make a decision about right and wrong. That has always been true, whether the lawmaker was the chieftain of a nomadic band or tribe, a king or queen, or a group of elected officials. If human beings were wise enough to create one set of laws that would last for all time, we might say that ethical judgment was once important but no longer is. Alas, humans are not that wise. New circumstances arise and laws must be revised to fi t them. In addition, new insights sometimes reveal that a law punishes behavior that does not deserve punishment or makes unreasonable demands on people.
Ruggiero further revealed that the focus of ethics is moral situations—that is, those situations in which there is a choice of behavior involving human values—those qualities that are regarded as good and desirable. Thus, whether we watch TV at a friend’s house or at our own is not a moral issue. But whether we watch TV at a friend’s house without his or her knowledge and approval is a moral issue. Similarly, filling out an application for a job is a morally neutral act. But deciding whether to tell the truth on the application is a moral issue. Consider also something many people spend a great deal of time doing these days—texting. In many cases, this way of communicating with friends and family is not a moral issue. But when it is done while driving a car, it could endanger other people and therefore is a moral issue. The same is true when an employee texts at work and thus takes time away from the job she is paid to do.
An ethicist observes the choices people make in various moral situations and draws conclusions about those choices. An ethical system is a set of coherent ideas that result from those conclusions and form an overall moral perspective.
Ethicists are not lawmakers. They are neither elected nor appointed. Their only authority is the force of reasonableness in their judgments. Their words, unlike those of lawmakers, do not prescribe what must or must not be done. They merely suggest what ought to be done. If people violate their own or their society’s moral code, no ethics enforcement officer will try to apprehend them—though if their action also violates a law, a law enforcement agency may do so.
The idea of varying degrees of responsibility for one’s actions is applied in ethics, too. Although there are no courts of ethics as there are courts of law, and no formal pronouncements of guilt or innocence in moral matters, the ethicist nevertheless is interested in the question 'Under what circumstances is a person to be considered culpable?' The conclusions ethicists reach in these matters provide guidance to lawmakers and law enforcers.
One of the most dramatic ethical issues of the millennium exploded during the final decade of the twentieth century. That issue is, for example, the creation of human embryos for research. Controversial issues like this one often generate considerable intellectual tension. People form strong convictions on one side of the issue or the other and attempt to persuade others of the rightness of their viewpoint.
The principle of right desire, in bridging the gap between is and ought, provides a foundation for judgment. The principle of contradiction gives assurance that critical thinking is relevant to ethical controversies, that when two ethical judgments are diametrically opposed, one must be mistaken. Thus these two principles offer us confidence and encouragement in ethical analysis and judgment, no small contributions.
Critical thinking is the means by which we objectively analyze the pros and cons of a situation in order to make informed decisions. It is a fundamental skill that is of such importance which we'll discussing on the next session, bi 'idhnillah."
Critical thinking is the means by which we objectively analyze the pros and cons of a situation in order to make informed decisions. 'What if' questions force an analysis and evaluation from a completely different point of view. This question actually create a framework through which we will begin to think critically. The different perspective is the catalyst for critical thinking. It is a fundamental skill that is of such importance which we'll discussing on the next session, bi 'idhnillah."
And before moving over to the next session, Wulandari intoned,
Hidupku tanpa cintamu
[My life without your love]
Bagai malam tanpa bintang
[Like a night without stars]
Cintaku tanpa sambutmu
[My love without your acceptance]
Bagai panas tanpa hujan *)
[Like the heat without the rain]
