What's Right?

AuthorHouse

Contents

INTRODUCTION.................................................................1ETHICS AND MORALITY..........................................................2OUGHT, UT, OR GUT?...........................................................6OTHER COMMON FRAMEWORKS......................................................10"ETHICAL EGOISM".............................................................13RELATIVISM...................................................................22ENLIGHTENED SELF INTEREST: GOOD WORKS WITHOUT "ETHICS"?......................31INTRODUCTION.................................................................37PROBLEMS WITH RULE ETHICS....................................................39MUST RULE ETHICS BE ALL OR NOTHING?..........................................44CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE.......................................................50FINAL QUOTE..................................................................52A DIALECTIC?.................................................................53CONSEQUENTIALISM.............................................................54CLASSIC "ACT" UTILITARIANISM - BENTHAM.......................................55RULE UTILITARIANISM..........................................................58ECONOMIC UTILITY.............................................................62SUMMARY......................................................................70PRIORITY: A HIERARCHY OF RULES...............................................75WHEN IN DOUBT: PROBABILISM...................................................79INTENT: DOUBLE EFFECT........................................................82NET BENEFIT: PROPORTIONALITY.................................................85LESSER EVIL..................................................................88THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS..................................................89UTOPIAN REALISM..............................................................92ARE GRAY AREA ETHICS ETHICAL?................................................95ANOTHER DIALECTIC............................................................97ANTINOMIANISM................................................................98INWARD GUIDANCE..............................................................102LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO 'ROUND...............................................106CONTEXTUALISM: SITUATION ETHICS..............................................113NATURAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS.................................................118NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RIGHTS.................................................122OPPORTUNITY RIGHTS...........................................................129AN EXPANDABLE FRAMEWORK......................................................134WHAT IS JUSTICE..............................................................138JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS..........................................................138JUSTICE AS EQUALITY..........................................................140JUSTICE AS EQUITY............................................................142PROCEDURAL JUSTICE...........................................................147LEGAL JUSTICE................................................................147LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN........................................................151VIRTUE AS AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK...............................................153CLASSICAL VIRTUES............................................................156SEVEN VIRTUES................................................................160AN AMERICAN LIST OF VIRTUES; GETTING DOWN TO BRASS TACKS.....................164OBSERVATIONS.................................................................165A JUST WAR OR JUST A WAR?....................................................167AN OXYMORON?.................................................................167THE EVOLUTION OF JUST WAR....................................................168JUST WAR THEORY: JUS AD BELLUM...............................................174JUS IN BELLO.................................................................179JUS POST BELLUM..............................................................183PREEMPTIVE JUST WAR?.........................................................184IS HOLY WAR A JUST WAR?......................................................187"REALISM"....................................................................188CHRISTIAN PACIFISM...........................................................196HUMANIST PACIFISM............................................................198AN ATHEIST PACIFIST MAKES HIS CASE...........................................198CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION......................................................202PRACTICAL PACIFISM...........................................................204HUMANITARIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION...........................................206IS PACIFISM ESSENTIAL?.......................................................211ARGUMENTS FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.............................................215ARGUMENTS AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.........................................222CONCLUSION...................................................................239WHAT EUTHANASIA IS...........................................................241WHAT EUTHANASIA IS NOT.......................................................243THESIS: GOOD DEATH...........................................................245ANTITHESIS : EUTHANASIA IS WRONG.............................................250PASSIVE EUTHANASIA: A HALFWAY COVENANT?......................................254ACTIVE EUTHANASIA............................................................257A SLIPPERY SLOPE?............................................................261PALLIATIVE CARE: CONSENSUS?..................................................263A SYNTHESIS?.................................................................265IS ECONOMICS ETHICALLY NEUTRAL?..............................................270ETHICS BELONG IN ECONOMICS...................................................274FOCUSED AREAS................................................................278BUSINESS ETHICS: SHAREHOLDERS AND STAKEHOLDERS...............................284ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE..........................................................289THE COMMON GOOD..............................................................291LIBERATION THEOLOGY..........................................................299PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR: A MIDDLE GROUND?...........................305THE BOTTOM LINE?.............................................................307A SUPER ETHIC?...............................................................311

Chapter One

Ethics ... a science which, though, like [literary] criticism, it does not admit the most accurate precision, is, however, but highly useful and agreeable.... It is of all others the most susceptible of embellishments of eloquence. (Adam Smith, Moral Sentiment VII.iv.6)

There is a Moral Sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it. (Mark Twain, 1897, Ch 16)

INTRODUCTION

On the final day of the Constitutional Convention, 1787, Ben Franklin observed, "An Anglican divine once told the Pope that the only difference between their churches was that the 'Church of Rome is infallible, and the Church of England is never wrong." He also told of "a certain French lady, who in a dispute with her sister said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.'"

He continued, "When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?"

In this "convention" of ethics are assembled a number of ethics perspectives as presented by - and criticized by - many persons and institutions. This gives us the advantage of their joint wisdom, which is every bit as free of prejudice, passion, error, and interest as Franklin's fellow convention delegates.

Paul said, "we have this treasure in a clay pot." My intent is to present a number of widely accepted ethics treasures from a variety of clay pots and to identify their commonalities and differences - as clearly and fairly as this clay pot is able to. I aspire neither to hid my personal opinions nor to sell any particular ethical "truth" at the expense of other vantage points. There is merit in all of the frameworks which are genuinely "ethics," but no one of them is necessarily the last word nor automatically the best application for every complex and ambiguous real life situation.

You will find that some ethics frameworks and applications are better than others, though don't expect everyone else to agree with you. Whether we like to or not, we have no choice but to bring a soupon of modest skepticism to each ethical framework and to its applications in real-life situations, and to acknowledge the dilemmas we face when different positive ethical standards seem to conflict. At times some kind of blending of several frameworks and guidelines may be helpful at times. Don't expect everyone else to agree with you. Keep a semi-open mind. When others differ from you, give their ideas as much serious consideration as they deserve.

The conceptual level of determining true, right, or best ethics is not your final stop. In our lives as we actually live them, might it be better to have a positive, albeit less than ideal, ethical/moral framework that we can and do practice nearly all the time than an abstractly perfect construct which we can't - or won't - live up to? This book does not answer that question definitively. Perhaps you can.

ETHICS AND MORALITY

Ethics

All ethics rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. (Roderick Nash, 1988, p55).

Ethics comes from the Greek ethikos, custom. According to the dictionary, "ethics" is both "the study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy" and "a set of rules, standards, or principles of right conduct" presumably derived from such study." "Ethical" means "being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong." [unless otherwise stated, all definitions in this book are from the dictionaries to be found at www.dictionary.com]

A particular set of principles or theory or system of moral values may be called an "ethic," as in "the Puritan ethic."

Ethics is approached on more than one level. On an abstract level there is meta-ethics, "the study of the meaning and nature of ethical terms, judgments, and arguments."

On an operating level, universal ethics relates to every purpose broader than our own special interests, including non-human species and the environment. One focus is macro, relating to broad systems. This includes, but is not be limited to economics, justice, human rights, social structures, politics, public policies, and to "private" sector policies affecting people in general as business, financial, and corporate and corporate ethics. Another focuses is micro, individual, personal behavior (see "morality" below). Some extend it further to acts which don't affect anyone but yourself and to internal thoughts as distinct from external actions and behaviors.

Morality

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist)

Although "ethics" and "morals" are often used more or less interchangeably, "ethics" applies primarily to frameworks and standards, while "moral" refers to personal behavior. The Latin root is moralis, "proper behavior of a person in society." Cicero coined the word, deriving it from mores, "customs, manners." The American Heritage Dictionary makes this distinction: "Moral applies to personal character and behavior; Ethical stresses idealistic standards of right and wrong."

Daniel Breslauer in his book on Jewish ethics offers an integrated two-level approach to ethics and morality.

"Ethics refers to systems of priorities, a set of criteria by which decisions are to be made.... Moral norms are specific decisions, legislated commands and prohibitions. An ethical system provides a framework by which a person can make moral choices ... Moral commands are the data and ethical series are the model that explains and tests the data ... The ethics of Judaism, in this account, lie beneath the surface of the moral details spelled out in Jewish law. The principles by which morality is determined can be deduced by looking at specific moral choices." (1985, p6)

In looking at morality, it may be useful to clarify what is moral or not moral. It particularly refers to behavior.

To the extent that you have some genuine standard of right and wrong - ethics - and choose the right, you and behavior are moral. If you believe in, or profess to believe in, such a standard of right and wrong and knowingly violate it, your behavior is immoral, contrary to the standard you acknowledge.

A mentally healthy egoist, like an Ayn Rand hero, follows a frank philosophy dedicated to looking out for Number One. An irrational psychopath has no awareness of right and wrong. A rational sociopath falls somewhere in between. Although he does not have a moral standard, he may, by rational analysis, conform to conventional standards to the extent that it serves his interest to do so. All, in their different ways, are amoral, literally "without morality."

An historian illustrated the difference to me:

You could stress the difference between immoral and amoral with the historical examples of Richelieu and Hitler. Richelieu was a Catholic Priest and knew Christian ethics very well. Nonetheless he acted according to the precepts of political "realism" and thus was immoral. Hitler did not believe in any ethical system at all. He believed with Nietzsche that ethics was a means of the weak and treacherous to keep the strong bound up. Most famous was his reaction to the ethical principle of pacta sunt servanda. He deemed contracts to be mere paper. Hitler thus is a prime example of an amoral person. (Dieter Janssen, personal letter, 2004)

So too are those philosophers, economists, and political ideologists who argue that self-interested individualism is the core human value. They base their prescriptions and policies on a premise that people are motivated to work and produce only by narrow individual interest. Pure individualism as an honest belief is neither moral nor immoral. It is amoral because its only guideline for behavior is "what is best for me" - or "for me and mine." Egoism's sometime utilitarian justification that society as a whole is best off under such individualism might actually be the case in a particular time and place, but it would still qualify as an "amoral" position because such benefit would be a side effect unrelated to the person's own goals or motivation.

Nihilism, which truly believes there is no meaning in life, is a logically amoral world view - although I have known professed nihilists who adhered de facto to an implicit moral code.

As a social policy advocate, I have in fact often appealed to a benign kind of amorality, enlightened self-interest, whereby you benefit by contributing to someone else's well being. For instance, supporting a higher standard of living for ordinary working people (or for the people of third world countries) may contribute to social stability and greater security for the wealthy to enjoy their wealth - mores than a further increase in their wealth at the expense of others who might threaten them as revolutionaries or terrorists. For a corporation, better pay, working conditions, and personal treatment for employees may result in economic gains in production, loyalty, and other contributions to profitability. This has been called, "doing well by doing good."

In some contexts, intelligent, non-ethics enlightened self interest behavior may coincide to a considerable extent with moral behavior. This is the rational for the highly retarded Social Contract ideology. Hobbes based his monarchist ideal (the Leviathan) on the assumption that coercion and enforcement is the only way to achieve the long term best self interest of men who are too stupid or too venal to recognize it themselves. Locke and later Jefferson transformed this agreement of convenience and mutual self-interest into a universal ethic. John Rawls' justices ethics in his Theory of Justice (1971) was based on the concept of social contract as the most mutually desirable arrangement of society.

Law in the abstract is neither moral nor immoral. Many of our laws (and their subcategory, regulation) are moral in intent and substance, such as those which govern honesty in trade, safety and health protections for workers, and protection from theft and murder. Some, such as apartheid and "pork barrel" appropriations may be immoral. "Moral" laws exist, in large part, to control the behavior of individuals or corporations which are not moral. Being law-abiding in order to gain rewards and avoid punishment is in itself an amoral act. On the other hand, being law-abiding is a moral act when it is done because we think it is right, apart from the consequences of violation. (You may amorally obey tax laws from fear of sanction, and morally obey a law against stealing a neighbor's garden hose even when you know you could get away with it.)

OUGHT, UT, OR GUT?

"Ought" ethics frameworks spell out in advance what you "should oughta do." "Ut" ethics (from the Latin for "in order that"), first forecasts the likely results of each alternative act. Based upon the analysis, you choose which one to do. Ought ethics is guided by input before the fact, without regard to effects. Ut ethics is based on outcome, what is likely to result from an act.

Ought

The fancy philosophy term for ought ethics is deontological, from the Greek word for "obligation." It is the "ethical theory concerned with duties and rights" or "the science related to duty and moral obligation." It is usually known as rule ethics, normative ethics, or duty ethics. It tells us what we ought to do in any given instance. This is a primary ethical framework of Catholics, which have upwards of 2000 canon laws, a majority of which involve ethical norms. Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and "Evangelical" Protestants also rely on a large number of ethical rules, received as divine commands. Perhaps the best known are the Ten Commandments.

Another broad rule ethic source is "natural law" which is assumed to be known inherently by all human beings and derived from nature rather than from a particular society's enacted laws. This goes back to Plato and to his student Aristotle's assertion that there was a natural justice equally valid everywhere and "not existing by people's thinking this or that." Regrettably, Aristotle's idea of inherent universal justice allowed for slavery, the subjugation of women, and treatment of non-Greeks as second class citizens.

Not many years later, the Stoics, founded by Zeno of Citrium, adopted a wholly egalitarian natural law, based on the logos (reason) inherent in the human mind.

This concept passed into Christianity through Paul, a Greek-educated Jew, who argued that one did not have to adopt all of Judaism to be a Christian: "When gentiles who have not the law [Torah] do by nature what the law requires, ... they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts." (Romans 2:14-15).

Later, Augustine, blending the Stoic-based teachings of Cicero with Judeo-Christian traditions, defined three levels of moral rules. The highest was divine law by direct revelation, received through faith. At a second level was natural law, which he defined as divine law understood inherently through one's their reason, heart, and soul. The lowest level was temporal, or "positive" law which differed according to time and place and was valid only to the extent that it was compatible with divine and natural law. This was adopted with embellishments by medieval Christian scholars such as Aquinas.

In the seventeenth century, when the Christian church was no longer monolithic, Hugo Grotius, the "father" of modern international law, evolved "the law of nations," and John Locke, whose natural law was inherent in the minds of all men "in the state of nature" and was the basis for laws of society under the Social Contract, separated the concept of universal consensus natural law from theology. This was expressly affirmed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence which said that Lockean natural law rights (life, liberty, and property/ pursuit of happiness) were both "self-evident" and "unalienable." The ensuing Constitution in 1787 and 1791 (Bill of Rights), was a serious if imperfect attempt to embed universal natural law into the positive law of the new nation.

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is a contemporary worldwide rule ethic, rooted in natural law as it evolved through Grotius and his successors into a law of nations. So are, so far as they go, the Geneva Conventions rules of war.

On a more parochial level, professions such as law and social work have highly detailed rules spelled out in a Code of Ethics, which is usually a mix of true ethics with rules for orderly transactions with each other and for defending their profession.

Rule ethics may be comprehensively elaborated as in some of the above. At the other extreme there may be a single all-encompassing rule, the most famous of which is probably the Golden Rule, which has existed for more than three millennia and is found in one form or another in most of the world's major historic religions, East and West.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from What's Right?by Hobart A. Burch Copyright © 2009 by Hobart A. Burch. Excerpted by permission.
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