Write a Backgrounder Paper for a case (provided in the attached file) relating to issues in Social Ethics. What is a backgrounder paper? A good group case study is supported by appropriate evidence,

A good group case study is supported by appropriate evidence, based upon research into the

context of the ethical problem that is presented. While everyone in the group will be

responsible for researching some aspect of the case and/or its resolution, the backgrounder

papers for the case study provide a more in -depth look at some of the background information

the group needs to reach (and support) its conclusions. This does NOT mean trying to solve

the case, or prejudicing the group toward one outcome or an other, but instead giving everyone

access to some necessary and common background information, properly cited.

The backgrounder paper is supposed to provide your group with some solid, well -researched

(and annotated!) sources as a foundation for your discussion about the case. It is NOT

supposed to offer opinions, direction, or otherwise attempt to sway the group in a particular

direction.

The better the backgrounder, the less extra research the rest of the group may need to do to

support your case study conclusions.

Further, this is supposed to be a paper — so not just a collection of facts and annotations - but

it is supposed to drill down on some specific aspect of the case and provide solid academic

research (not Google scans!) that supports the data. It is NOT supposed to survey the

landscape of the whole case — too wid e, too shallow, and risks trying to resolve the case!

Module 3: Issues in Social Ethics

Ask one of those 80 -year -olds what is different about society today from when they were

young, and they would probably talk about the amazing new technologies, many of which they don’t use or understand, but they would also likely talk about the gadgets that have

contributed to the loss of community life. They might talk about how difficult it was to find

the money to go to university, or how they were the first person in their whole extended

family who went. They might describe what it was like growing up in a large family, with

many siblings, or how they spent most of their days, summer, and winter, amusing themselves

outside by playing with whatever sticks or balls they coul d scrounge. Food was home -cooked

(how could it be anything else?), and much of it was home -grown.

Doctors were a luxury, hospitals were places where old people went to die, medical

procedures (whether removing tonsils or having babies) were done on the kitchen table,

electricity was linked to a few lights, the heat was provided by coal (shovel led) or wood

(split), toilets were often outside all year round, and running water meant racing your brother

to the well to pump your bucket first. For most people, there was inequality of wealth –

though many were poor; but also, for most people, there was an equa lity of opportunity, too.

If you were willing to work hard, you could make a decent living for yourself and your

family.

Of course, it was also a society rife with the cruel realities of racial, gender, and religious

discrimination, where there (literally) could be a different kind of justice depending on which

side of the tracks you lived on.

As we enter the third decade of the 21 st century, however, the world has turned over, again.

We now need to consider the global implications of the choices we make – not that choices

before did not have such global implications, but they were not recognized as they should

have been. Largely perhaps because of consequentialist logic, we are seeing what happens when we make

decisions that do not consider consequences for others, especially for future generations.

Doing nothing will continue the trajectory of social, cultural, ecological, and economic

problems whose roots are firmly established in how the world has managed its affairs since

1945. But what to do, and for what good reasons, to provide a future in which justice and

dignity for all are embedded?

In this module, we will look a t two aspects of the social and cultural problems we need to

address, in a rapidly changing world. You may consider both of these cases to depict an

extreme situation -- but that is what we are facing, perhaps sooner than we reali ze.

(If you wonder how anything so drastic could work, check out Seth Klein’s book A Good

War: Mobilising Canada for the Climate Emergency (2020). Klein parallels what needs to be

done, to what Canada did during the Second World War.)

What should we do, and together, is not some academic question -- the longer we wait, the

more dire the situation will become.

Case Study #4

The year is 2024. In the aftermath of the COVID -19 pandemic, which caused at least as much

damage to the global economy as it did to the population, a coalition national government was

formed to take Canada through the difficult times that lay ahead. It wa s faced with a “wicked”

problem: rising youth unemployment was matched by an increased lack of access to the post -

secondary education that 21 st-century Canadian society needed its young people to have. Whether it was because of where they lived, the under -funding of post -secondary education, or

the inability of those institutions to change with the times to provide the education and training

that led to useful employment, even if students could afford th eir first degree or diploma, the

personal cost for many translated into a crippling, life -long student debt. At the same time, there

was increasing disengagement in the political process by the young people, who felt they were

outnumbered by their elders a nd lived in a society geared to the older generation, rather than to

the next.

With an aging population, and a massive infrastructure deficit, with much work needing to be

done both to clean up the country and also to shift to a carbon -negative culture, Canada was

slipping in its commitments at home to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The coalition national government has proposed a way of dealing with this “wicked” problem:

At age 18, whether students ha ve officially completed their high school education or not, every

person (without exception or exemption) is required to enroll in National Service Canada (NSC)

for two years. Their training and work for these two years of national service would be

determine d by the government; they would be given room and board, a clothing allowance, and a

small amount of money for personal use. Some co uld opt for service in the Canadian Armed

Forces if they chose. All students would be deployed to regions other than the one that was their

registered home address.

At the end of th ese two years , they would be given two further years of free post -secondary

education (university or college), in an area dependent upon the national and regional needs

identified in the Canadian Employment Index, according to their aptitude. Room, board, tuition,

book s, and a small allowance for personal use would be provided. They would be required to take a job in their sector, for which they would be paid a wage at the industry scale, for a further

two years, to complete their National Service Canada requirements.

This would mean that every young person would have a better appreciation of the value of

Canadian citizenship, a knowledge of a different part of the country, have spent two years

working for the benefit of their society, received an education that was useful for employment,

and basic work experience – without incurring a dime of student debt – all by the age of 24.

It would guarantee universal access to post -secondary education for all Canadians, regardless of

their socio -economic standing. It would mobili ze young Canadians to make necessary

contributions to education and work which was in the national interest when the world is sliding

further into the effects of the growing climate crisis.

Anyone who avoided this service by leaving the country would automatically forfeit their

Canadian citizenship and on return, would face a minimum six -year prison sentence, to be spent

doing community service, at the end of which they would be allowed to be a permanent resident,

but never a citizen.

Your task (as an objective ethics advisory panel) is to provide a balanced ethical assessment of

this proposed program, and then to recommend whether or not it should be implemented, giving

good reasons for your conclusions that also take into consideratio n the “wicked problem” it is

intended to address.

(Feel free to consider the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as the UN

Declaration on Human Rights, if that helps!)