Caltech's Honor Code is simply:
"No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community."
Reasonable Person Principle
21–30 of 72 posts
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I question the need for CoCs. It seemed they simply started appearing everywhere one day as if following some sort of trend. People organize together everyday in numerous different professional, community and private settings…with no need for a special set of governing rules for behavior.
As is the case of most abrupt social changes with no seeming environmental impetus - someone aggressive and powerful found a means of exerting their influence to push their desired social change. And so they did with CoCs.
It may be that someone aggressive who wanted to be powerful found a means of gaining influence through latching onto and pushing a pointless but sellable social change. It's a kind of slow-moving elite on elite violence.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#23This is from a time before CoCs. The part about resolving conflicts with as few resources as possible, as close to the source as possible, seems to be a truism about well functioning (social) systems; really: systems in general. While we're talking about governance problems. This stuck out to me as evidence of a misunderstanding. > It holds that reasonable people strike a suitable balance between their own immediate…
This is akin to subsidiarity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
I like how they've written down key tenets of their "unwritten culture", including a quote from someone who refers to it as such.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t think people ever do the right thing just because it’s the right thing?
> ever That bar is way too low.
I agree with you, the earlier post says people only do things out of self-interest, and I was surprised that nobody else had disagreed or mentioned it’s an unfortunate way to see the world.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#25Caltech's Honor Code is simply: "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." - https://deans.caltech.edu/HonorCode
> "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community."
That's great, but I wonder why not just:
> "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other person."
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#26This is from a time before CoCs. The part about resolving conflicts with as few resources as possible, as close to the source as possible, seems to be a truism about well functioning (social) systems; really: systems in general. While we're talking about governance problems. This stuck out to me as evidence of a misunderstanding. > It holds that reasonable people strike a suitable balance between their own immediate…
The RPP isn’t a governance structure. It’s a statement that the vast majority of activities and interactions shouldn’t require escalating to a governance structure, because people should first be reasonable.
CMU of course has a governance structure (advisors, department heads, honor committees, I don’t even know what all, probably ten times more nowadays than when I was there in the 80s). But the idea is not to need it.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#27Caltech's Honor Code is simply: "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." - https://deans.caltech.edu/HonorCode
> "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." That's great, but I wonder why not just: > "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other person."
If you insist on following an honor code while competing against people who are ready to take an unfair advantage of you, you lose.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#28This is from a time before CoCs. The part about resolving conflicts with as few resources as possible, as close to the source as possible, seems to be a truism about well functioning (social) systems; really: systems in general. While we're talking about governance problems. This stuck out to me as evidence of a misunderstanding. > It holds that reasonable people strike a suitable balance between their own immediate…
Personally, I question the need for CoCs. It seemed they simply started appearing everywhere one day as if following some sort of trend. People organize together everyday in numerous different professional, community and private settings…with no need for a special set of governing rules for behavior.
CoCs arose because of endemic abuses that were not organically curbed, sadly.
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#29[flagged]
Re: Reasonable Person Principle
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
No no, we must make endless lists of specific behaviors we want and don't want.
immibis explains why that is better in one of the comment threads above: > The main purpose of a CoC is to point to it when you want to ban someone. It's an accountability sink - instead of saying you want to ban someone, you say you have to ban them because they violated the written rules.
That reminds me of some parenting advice I saw once: Sometimes we do children a disservice when we pretend that some Mysterious Universal Force demands a certain outcome, as if we (the parent) had no agency in setting things up that way or acting as an enforcement-arm.
While refusing to own "because I don't want you do" saves argument in the short term, it may burden them with certain habits of thought that aren't so useful in adulthood.