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Ethics for the Real World

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Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life 2008 book by Ronald A. Howard and Clinton D. Korver

Chapter 2: Draw Distinctions

Distinctions

  • Be distinct with your choice in words to avoid ‘loaded words’ (‘fetus’ versus ‘unborn child’ when describing stem cell research)
  • Prudential (self interest) vs. legal (mandatory) and ethical (moral duty) dimensions of action
  • Positive (aspirational) versus negative (preventative) ethics
  • Action based versus consequence based ethics
  • Ethical reasoning (clears up right and wrong) versus rationalization (purposely blurs right and wrong)
  • To assess any ethical action, there are three dimensions
    • Prudential - what is prudent to our own self interest
    • Legal - what are the rules in place within the prevailing social system
    • Ethical - what is right and wrong
  • actions based in one arena may also include facets of another (stealing food is illegal, but may be prudential if we have no money)
  • Identifying action types
    • Prudent - regret
    • Ethical - guilt/remorse

Positive vs. Negative ethics

Chapter 3: Consult the Touchstones

Chapter 4: Draft Your Code

Ethical Code Process

1. Drafting Standards

  • Standards rely on a baseline understanding of how you aim to deal with ethical dilemmas
  • A simpler ethical code is a more effective one: Keep your code to move over fundamental issues to grasp at larger context
  • Reflecting on large fundamental ideas such as deceiving, stealing and harming lay the groundwork for how to deal with ethical conundrums.
    • When is each permitted? When is it not? Why?
    • Use situations that you regret in order to reflect on principles
    • Look forward to possible situations in order to anticipate how your standards may apply (eg. Lying/deceiving is wrong except for: when it saves lives) 2. Testing Standards
  • Check the Logic
    • Universality: Would I want everyone to follow this rule?
    • Reciprocity: Would I appreciate if someone else applied this rule to me?
    • Testing for both allows us to apply our position and reflect on wether it goes against our ethics (gives us regret)
  • Check for Focus
    • Good codes cut the fat and keep only a dozen or so.
    • Focus allows for more application
    • BEWARE OF POSITIVE ETHICS
      • Prudential statements are often too ambiguous and ambitious to ever be applied (eg. I will have a balanced work and family life)
      • They are vague, difficult to apply and don’t inspire investigation on application/logic
  • Test Drive for Usefulness
    • Committing to a code we can keep is essential
    • We must calibrate the code in order for us to win against temptation
    • Codes that stretch our ethical performance are less likely to be followed.
    • The Energy Rule - we only have so much positive energy to give each day
    • Tests
      • Newspaper Test - if my actions were made public would I be okay with how I dealt with the situation?
      • Fresh Perspective - imagine a different person receiving your action.
    • A well tested code will reveal what you are willing to give and take and lead to more application 3. Refining the Code to Make it Practical
  • Clarify degrees of separation
    • How close is too close to a position you find unethical?
      • Is purchasing products from a company that does animal testing unethical?
      • Is investing in a mutual fund that includes military contractors against what you believe?
      • Does volunteering for an organization that you find is inflating numbers for donations unethical in your mind?
    • Create boundaries for proximity that lay outside of direct contact
  • Draw Sharper Lines
    • Create defined boundaries for your ethics to work around
    • Immediate surroundings make your actions much easier to control
    • The further out and more vague you make them, the more involved they become to uphold
      • “I will feed those who are hungry” 850 million people suffer from malnourishment. Can you help them all??
    • Immediate actions - ethics, Extra steps - virtues
  • Consider a Hierarchy
    • Making trade offs with the knowledge of ethical outcomes becomes impossible
      • Your actions to override another ethic incurs consequences
    • Hierarchies are not recommended for codes of ethics

Pitfalls

  • Confusing positive ethics and ethical issues
    • We must decide where to draw the line between right and wrong
  • Using loaded language
    • Euphimisms and cacophemisms (eg. pro-life) prevent clarity and muddy an ethical decision
  • Judging the actions of others
    • Codes are meant to guide personal action and not judge others actions
    • “I support capital punishment” (judgement) versus “I will not take the life of another person when that person is guilty of a capital crime” (ethic)
  • Basing ethics on judgement of others
    • Typical for our codes to be surrounding our community
    • A standard based on others is arbitrary and can change with their opinions
    • Create a code that does not require others responses
  • Making it praiseworthy rather than livable
    • Create ethics that don’t raise the bar too high that you cannot reach it
  • Vague standards
    • Don’t create a code that leaves loopholes to easily jump through
    • More distinct code creates better commitment

Chapter 5: Choose Action, Systematic Ethical Decision-making

  • Our ethical code may lead us to the right answer, but not the best answer
    • TGN1412 drug trial was guided by ethical medical practices, but the answer still lacked the depth of response needed for how serious it was.
  • We can supplement our ethical code with a decision making process for the answers we receive

Quality Decisions

  • Taking time to work through ethical decision making based on our code builds integrity
    • Responding on reflex reflects ignorance
    • Responding on reasoning reflects thought
  • If we can stop and identify an opportunity for a quality decision, we can build character and deepen our relationships with others

1. Clarifying

  • Clarifying a questions context before asking it is important when understanding our ethical dilemmas
  • Example: A mother wants to check her sons emails in order to be sure he is safely using the internet
      1. Use Value Neutral Language
      • “I have a right to check his email because it is my duty as a parent”
      • The mother may have a high minded view of a right of duty to protect her child in the face of their privacy (also a loaded word) - INCORRECT
      • loaded words shade the ethics of a question
      1. Disentangle legal, prudential and ethical concerns
      • “Should I deceive my son if it is part of my ethical code?”
      • Is it a legal, prudential or ethical concern?
      • Go back to the basics of ethics: stealing, harming, and deceiving.
      • High minded loaded words shade these basic facets and promote behavior against ones ethics
      • We benefit greatly from checking bare bones ethics when framing questions
      1. Expressing issues in term of relationships
      • “Does covertly checking the email enhance the relationship with my son or with others?”
      • Our ethical actions are part of an ongoing relationship with have with others
      • Questioning decision benefits to others brings to light ethical decisions benefits

2. Creating Alternatives

  • Satisfice - picking the first alternative before evaluating the other options.
    • Good for low stake decisions (ordering food, buying a book), not for ethics
  • Do not judge your choices to critically, it stops your creative practice of creating alts
  • Example: You just started a new position and you hear a coworker make a racist joke you find to go against your ethical code. You don’t want to stay quite as it shows you are compliant towards such jokes and you don’t want to be deceptive towards your own ethics. You also don’t want to say something that would ruin your first impression.
    • 1. Refrain or comply:
      • “Just don’t laugh, frown, leave the group, quit your job”
      • Choose an alternative that fits your minimum ethical standards
      • Use that as a jumping point for other alternatives (quit your job -> talk to person in private, talk to HR, lobby for tolerance training)
    • 2. Elevate
      • Think what an ethical role model would do
    • 3. Transform
      • “How would I discuss my displeasure with the joke to a friend?”
      • Creating solutions based on what you would do to a loved one

3. Evaluating Alts

  • You can now take what you’ve created and test for ethical quality:
    • 1. Evaluate based on ethical code
      • The mother will cut out options like “break into son’s email” as it goes against her code on deception
    • 2. Evaluate against role model (mother test, front-page test..)
    • 3. Test for reciprocity (shoe-test, biased language test, loved ones test)
      • the mother will not stay silent
    • 4. Test for universality
      • The mother will not disconnect the internet
  • Alternatives are weighed in a stepwise fashion against each:
  • Kant’s ethical behavior process (categorical imperative) is that an action is ethical if:
    • it can be willed as universal
    • we treat the person as an ends not a means
    • possible to be self imposed by each person

Chapter 6: Transform Life, Skillful Decision Making in Personal Life

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. ~ William Butler Yeats

Choosing to Avoid

  • As we move more towards ethical decision making, we can shift our focus to ethics that change ourselves and our relationships with others
  • Opportunities that will improve us/relationships:
    • 1. Finding the whole truth -> clarifying motivation/motives in order to live authentically
    • 2. Framing issues as relationships -> how our actions will affect others now and moving forwards
    • 3. Raising the reciprocity bar -> framing alternatives based on how we want to be treated/how others will want to be treated
  • Moments of transformation are opportunities to uphold our ethics and change ourselves

Transform Lies: Tell the whole Truth

  • by revealing our truth through vulnerability we can deepen our relationships with others
  • we also dignify ourselves as human’s upholding a society
  • What is the whole truth? Who are we affecting?

“By a lie a human being throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a human being.” ~Kant

Transform Deception

  • Deception is a two way street of negativity
  • We can deepen our relationships by uncovering the truth as to why we want to deceive and giving a truthful response
  • For our response: Is it true, kind and useful?
    • such a response takes into account the long term, mutually beneficial relationship you have with another person
  • Exercise: HBR Left column write up
    • Draw a line down a sheet
    • Write on the right the transcript of a recent conversation
    • Write on the left the thoughts you are having at each point

Transform Broken Promises

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