That dentures story is amazing, I'll have to remember it, it's definitely a good story that I think could provide a student with new perspectives. My teacher used to say I wish I could place a needle right above your shoulder!

I know what you mean by parents pushing kids to practice, they are paying for the child to have lessons so they would want to see their child benefit, but at the same time the child's interest may differ. I was lucky in that I chose to play violin and my parents let me try it out. My parents would push me a bit to practice, but no matter what music was always a part of my life, even without their encouragement. I realized 3rd year into college that I surround my life in music, and it would be impossible for me to live without it at this point. We can continue our public school discussion in message if you'd like, I realized the subject would just be too long and lengthy here.

 For teachers I believe as long as a teacher is flexible and understanding they will always be able to teach any student. If the teacher understands how the students mind works, than the teacher is able to manipulate and show the student information slowly and deliberately to make sure the student stays on the right path.

@r505Matt: I would put it this way: You can find more efficient ways for losing weigh.
Wii Fit on daily basis is more efficient than taking a zumba or aerobics class one or two times a week, while jogging every day burns more calories.

@bdbdbd I don't want to go too far into it, because it's extremely off topic, but just take a simple thing like sexual behaviour (where evolutionary psychology seems to be at its most plausible). Even if you can come out and say that evolution has worked so that those who spread their seed most or find the strongest partner tend to pass their genes onto the next generation - how can that logically lead to the conclusion that an individual "should" do that - or anything else for that matter? Most people understand ethics as a matter of what's "right" and "wrong", not what accords with some theory of human psychological development.

I have to agree with Ebert, the games themselves are not an art. I won't repeat what he said about games and winning and stuff.

However, games can have elements of art inside of them. Great visuals, a story worthy of its own novel, stuff like that. But as for the gameplay, the most important part of any video game, I can't really say it is art.

@JUG: First we need to look at the context. Usually when people talk about universal ethics, they take the modern western standards and ask if everyone shares them (in classic humanistic arts you're supposed to find an explanation to yes).

Instead of looking at the "high end", what should be looked at is the "low end" and find the lowest common denominator. This is where evolution comes into picture.

For humanists, the concept of universal ethics seems to be easy to grasp, but what they don't seem to be accept is, that their own ethics in reality are something you'd imagine a baboon having. Everything else is "flexible".

If we look at ethics as simply something "voluntary" that doesn't help you in evolution, then there's no universal ethics.

@tehkyle: Mario Bros. had classical music and you could put a pic of Mona Lisa to any game. Makes sense.

Well frequency is important, but that's not really the point. That can be twisted in any way, and you could say "Well Wii Fit everyday is better than a 3 mile jog once a month". I think of it in terms of time-investment. 3 hours a week of an aerobics class will be better than 3 hours a week of Wii Fit. You need to have a common denominator to compare, otherwise you have varying variables (I just wanted to say/type that =P).

To the ethics thing, what has been done, or what can be done, or what might be done: none of these are the same as what should be done. Ethics are about what should be done, but there is no real way to determine the validity of ethics, as of yet at least. If you relate evolutionary psychology to ethics, then you are more talking about why someone does something, not why someone should do something.

One of the examples I remember from one of my classes is when, in a small space with say 5 soldiers, one of them jumps on a grenade so the others die. You can come up with all sorts of explanations, it's better than only 1 die, and not all 5, or that the 1 is religious and just wants to help people, or there's an evolutionary mechanism for us to try and save each other, and that 1 just reacted first/fastest. But is it something he/she should have done? How does that relate to an idea of a universal set of ethics and morals. Was it right or wrong?

There's no right answer, and you can debate as much as you want, but the point of this kind of philosophical debate is the journey itself, not reaching your destination. There are/have been cultures with different sets of morals and values. A couple of examples, murder, incest, and cannibalism. Most western culture finds those things to be wrong, but in terms of incest, just take a look at the English royal line. Murder? Or cannibalism? Is it so hard to imagine a society that has beliefs that are the opposite of, or at least different than, our own? So which is right or wrong? There's no way to determine it, and what people have done does not really relate properly to what people should do/should have done.

@tehkyle

Well, movies themselves are not an art, but some movies break beyond the "normal" movie to become a work of art. Is it so hard to imagine that possibility for games? It may not have happened yet (or it may have and some can't see it since it doesn't apply to them), but to say "games will never be art" is shortsighted at the very least. The future is so uncertain; he's a critic, not a fortune teller.

@r505Matt: Actually i tried to provide a practical example. Zumba, aerobics or gym 1-2 times a week is what lots of people do when trying to keep in shape, while you easilly play Wii Fit 4-5 times a week, because you don't have to leave home.

In terms of time investment, with aerobics you'd need to factor in the time it takes to travel, change clothes back and forth. If you spend 20-30 minutes on top of each 45 minutes class, the efficiency per unit of time invested drops drastically.

In the real world there are variables.

Ethics isn't "what should be done", but "what is done". For example, you don't buy products made with child labour, except when Nike shoes are on sale.
Which one speaks more about your ethics, your words or your actions.

It's always easy to say "should", when the "should" have really nothing to do with you.
In a todays western society it's easy to have lots of "shoulds" when you don't have to fight for your survival. If a society with lots of "shoulds" comes crashing down and people face real problems, it's a moment where the ethics are really measured.

Or think about the burka bans we are likely to see in Belgium and France. The people who shout out loud for equivality, oppose the said bans for peoples right to wear them. When the question is the rights of these people to not to wear it "we want everyone to be equal - except...".

We're just talking about 2 different things. I was talking about how much time you actually spend exercising, and making the comparison based on that. Otherwise, comparisons get too complicated to make general statements. I put the single variable to time spent exercising to determine whether Wii Fit or some aerobics class would be more efficient. If you want to talk about other variables beyond that, that's cool, but you can't just ignore the simple fact that in terms of time spent exercising, Wii Fit may not be the best choice. 

Maybe the gym is 5 minutes up the road, and one can argue that you'll spend time changing anyways. Maybe there are other benefits such as friends, not to mention the studies showing that everyone exercises harder and get more out of said exercise when there are others going through the same thing as you. Maybe you go shopping after an aerobics class (not that I think that's the best idea) and it's right up the street. Maybe you stop at a gym on the way home from work, and do your class then, thus completely negating the negative effect of travel time. Maybe your work itself has some sort of aerobics class. 

The only way to feasibly compare things like this is to remove as many variables as possible. When you put in other variables, it becomes far more complex. Yes, real life situations don't work out that simply, which is why it's important to have some sort of baseline to go off of. This is the basis of scientific research. Remove as many variables as possible to test a hypothesis on a single variable. After that hypothesis becomes a scientific theory (this is often misunderstood, a scientific theory is a hypothesis that has been proven correct, or at least never proven wrong, many times, don't confuse this with the normal definition of a theory this is just a concept or an idea) then you can move on to another variable using that theory as a constant, or at least no longer as a variable. Granted, things are so complex that scientific theories are fairly rare (there are some like Einstein's Theory of Relativity), and most of the ones that have survived the test of time have turned into scientific laws (Newton's Laws, Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, etc.).

You have a very flawed idea of ethics. The school I went to (Rutgers) is regarded as having the 2nd best philosophy department in the world (source: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp) so I'm sorry if I'll trust my teachers over what you're saying here about ethics. 

And you're talking about the application of said ethics and the way it relates to actions people take, and their intentions, and whether or not those intentions matter. The rest of us are talking about the metaphysical nature of ethics.

Edit:@CGI-Quality,

Yeah, it's pretty much spot on, but it's fun to talk about =)

@r505Matt: Yes, i do know what theory is and how they are tested.

I'll put an analogy here. The theory is proven right, now we just have to see how it works in practise.
We know enough of the MET values, but without the real world examples they don't provide us enough information.

Every example you used is a likely real world example. My example was how i've noticed most people doing.

Sapere aude. I believe my take on ethics is more on the egoistic side, instead of metaphysical. Kant may have had a say on double standards that i'm suggesting.

And yes, i'm talking about the application of said standards because this is the only ethics people have.

Woah woah woah, in what part of the Royal line does incest occur? Unless we're counting cousin marriages as incest now... which I suppose some people do, but that's a little harsh.

Oh, and by the way, I hate to be pedantic here, but as an Oxford Grad I feel obliged to point out that your source actually states Oxford as having the second best philosophy department in the world, with Rutgers coming in a close third. You're right about Ethics though.