on morality and ethics

These days, we are learning business ethics. Under this subject we are coming across various theories about morality and ethics like utilitarian and Kant's etc. what intrigued me is an assumption which is accepted by almost all. ( or let's say by our teacher for that matter) the assumption is that anything you do, which does not have implication on others is considered amoral.

Now for novice readers, amoral is something that need not be considered by morality perspective. It is neither moral not immoral, it is just out of scope of morality. The assumption sounds good, and it holds practically in all situations where morality issue is present. But is it really correct to assume that morality is only a matter of consequence?

For example, stealing a car and killing people by reckless driving is immoral. but what about playing a game which involves same act? If we accept the assumption, playing such a game is amoral.

However, in categorizing the game as amoral, we are ignoring the mentality. The game may not have any consequence on others, but the person who loves to play such games takes pleasure in immoral acts like stealing and killing, isn't it? Thus we are judging the act by its consequences alone. It is practical in most cases, and yet by ignoring the intention we are making a fundamental mistake in deciding upon the morality of an act.

What is your take? Should we judge morality by consequence? Or should we judge it by intention?

Behind the sun

Today, we saw a Brazilian movie "behind the sun", as a part of our curriculum. After a long while I've seen a good movie. The story was intact - not a strong one - but it was the presentation which took it to an altogether different level of experience. The imagery used by the director is simply marvellous.

The story is narrated by a boy, who doesn’t even have a name! His family has a small sugarcane field, and they produce raw sugar out of it. The whole routine is so monotonous, that there is not much difference left between the oxen and them. The movie starts with the boy walking in the woods at the dawn, where he narrates the whole story in flashback. He has a family of four, Pa, ma, him and his elder brother Tonio.

Basically it’s a story of two families fighting for land. A story of never ending vengeance, where one family kills one member of the other family, and the other family takes it revenge by killing the killer. The cycle goes on and on for generations. There’s an excellent dialogue by the boy; he describes the whole affair as "An eye for an eye, until all are blind".

The elder brother of Tonio was killed by the other family. Tonio kills the killer, and then asks for a truce to the eldest of the other family. Nobody in the family is willing for a truce, so when the eldest comes out and tells Tonio that truce is granted, for a moment, we expect that finally he has recognized the futility of the whole bloodshed. But the next sentence sounds even harsher on this background. He actually says “we grant you truce.... truce until the next full moon” the whole scene is very good piece of script writing. The life of Tonio, as the eldest points out is now “split into two halves”- the twenty years he lived before and the fifteen days left with him. On the background a clock is ticking. Referring to that the old man says “... it say one more, one more, one more.... for you it says, one less, one less, one less.....”.

The whole movie is loaded with such powerful dialogues and imagery. E.g. there is a scene in which the boy is discussing about going to circus with his elder brother. The elder brother, Tonio, warns him the father won't like it. The boy remarks that they are like oxen. On the next day, the oxen are shown to go around the mill by their own. In just one scene, the director underlines the obligation that everybody in the family should follow the same path without thinking...

Indeed, the movie is more about presentation than it is about the story. So my “review” may not convey the whole beauty of it. But all I can say is that it’s a must watch movie, for all those who look at cinema as a serious art.

google sketch 3d: new business model?

Recently, i came across Google sketch 3d. it's a tool in which you can create a model of any building and put it on Google map. thus Google is providing a product which in turn will enhance the quality of their own service.this is very different kind of business model. usually there is a bifurcation between provider and consumer. but in this particular business model, there is very thin or no line drawn between the two parties. it can be argued that the customers give their money to provider on which the whole business runs. but that does not affect the quality of the service or goods provide by the provider so directly as in this case. It is really interesting to see the developement of such a business model.
this kind of business model is not a new one. companies like Unilever have tapped into the public talent pool before at nominal cost. but in that case there was no disguise. I mean, they were asking ideas from people and good ideas were given credit. however in case of Google, the beauty lies in this disguise. they are getting resources in the disguise of user. can this model be implemented everywhere?
in case of non-IT industries, this model seems very much unpractical perhaps due to the fact that it has never been explored before. the essence is to provide such a service to customers which will increase quality of your own services. in case of IT industries, or particularly web-sites, this is easier as the concept of people generated content is not so novel. however, in case of other industries, the concept of people generated content is not explored enough. perhaps the co-operative sector might come up with something like this.