The J.J. Millican Ethics Symposium will put the embodiment of “Ethics” on trial as an accomplice in a homicide to open a discussion on different moral philosophies. Oklahoma Christian University students in the audience will act as the jury and vote at the end of the symposium to decide whether Ethics is guilty.
The symposium will take place in Judd Theater at 7 p.m. tonight and is free, open to everyone in the Oklahoma Christian community and Ethos-approved.
According to student announcements, Ethics is charged as an accomplice in a homicide after the death of little boy whose father chose to lower a draw bridge to save a train loaded with people from falling into a river.
Dean of the College of Business Administration Jeffery Simmons said they saw the program “Ethics on Trial” produced at a luncheon for the Oklahoma Ethics Consortium, a group of people who meet in the Oklahoma City area monthly during the school year. The program originated from the Business Ethics Alliance in Omaha, NE.
“You’ll see elements of moral philosophy that are discussed in this trial,” Simmons said. “We will show a clip of a movie wherein a drawbridge operator who brought his son to work that day sees a train is coming about an hour early. The son saw it before his dad, and the son goes to lower the drawbridge but falls into the gears, thus leaving the dad to decide, ‘Do I lower the drawbridge to let the train cross and save hundreds of people, or do I save my son and let the train go off?’ He decides to lower it, thus killing his son.”
Simmons said the program is not about whether Ethics is right or wrong, but rather it is a means by which they can address different concepts of moral philosophy. He said he wants those in attendance to recognize how worldviews they hold influence their actions.
“Someone might say it doesn’t matter who you are—the drawbridge operator or Ethics—they did the right thing because they saved a large number of people,” Simmons said. “That’s a utilitarian philosophy. But then you could say his duty as a drawbridge operator is to make sure the bridge functions as it should, so his duty would call him to lower the bridge regardless. That’s a very deontological kind of argument. Someone might say it would have been in his own best self-interest to not lower the drawbridge, then it’s an ethical egoist moral philosophy.”
Elaine Kelly, associate dean of the college of business administration, has been involved with the Ethics Symposium since it started in 2006. She said they have done a variety of things for the event, including bringing in whistle blowers, convicted felons and religious individuals, as well as shown a movie to talk about ethics. According to Kelly, they try to be as innovative as possible to engage the students.
“We made the decision about 12 years ago that we were going to highlight ethical behavior and put it at the forefront,” Kelly said. “We changed some of our courses, required a business ethics course of all of our students, have ethical dilemmas in our courses and brought on an ethics team that competes every year. We hope it will help our students understand how much importance we place on it.”
According to Kelly, they will try to make the symposium seem as much like a real courtroom as possible, including opening and closing statements and the audience rendering a verdict at the end as the jury. Kelly will play the role of Ethics, and Oklahoma Christian alumni Ray Vaughn, Randy Grau, Michael Clark and Wes McKinzie will serve as judge, prosecuting attorney, defense counsel and witness, respectively.
The Ethics Symposium takes what students hear in class to the next level, according to Kelly, because they must actually make a decision. She said she would not be surprised if Ethics is convicted.
“When you read the script, you are very torn,” Kelly said. “This is a cruel set of events and you have to choose. I’m not sure he could’ve saved his son if he tried based upon the situation. I think a lot of people will sympathize with the death of the young boy and convict Ethics.”
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