My new hero is Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. Chase got a toy plane for Hannukah and I told him the pilot was a Sully Sullenberger action figure.
Sully called the Fresno State University Library (a place Melvin Ely never visited) to ask for a waiver on overdue charges for a book he borrowed.
Turns out the book is still in the cargo hold of the plane Sullenberger landed on the Hudson River.
The library told him not to worry about it, it will replace the book in his honor.
Oh, and the book is about ethics. Why did this guy need to read about ethics?
Thursday, February 05, 2009
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3 comments:
Landing a plane on the hudson and saving everyone's life in the process is honorable, heroic, miraculous but ethical would be misdecriptive. Actually the fact that he was reading about ethics suggests he is ethical because an unethical person would pay no pause to the subject. People who strive to be truly ethical will be faced with more gray areas that require insight than others. Perhaps you should create a write in forum for those to pose such questions-Sully's Dilemna Is Poop
Excellent points as always, Conch. The fact that he was worried about his overdue library book speaks more about his ethics than his landing the plane.
Though his composure under trying circumstances speaks to his character.
And I agree, ethical people are way more likely to read a book on ethics than unethical people. Because unethical people don't care about ethics, certainly not enough to read a book on the subject.
Though I once borrowed a book from the library about ventriloquism. If I had lost that book in a plane crash people might have thought I was already a practiced ventriloquist looking to hone my skills.
Maybe Sully was a liar and a thief looking to reform himself and for guidance sought out a book from his local library.
Your ventriloquism analogy is flawed because inherent in being a practiced ethicist is the continued study of ethics whereas ventriloquism does not carry an inherent requirement to its continue study, but rather continued practice. The book on ethics is to an ethicist is more analogous to a dummy for ventriloquism. Thus, if you lost a dummy in the plane crash I think people would think you were a practiced ventriloquist.
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