Ethics Newsline®

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Want evidence that the global moral barometer is in steep decline? Look at Myanmar, where the ruling generals have only recently permitted outside aid to reach cyclone victims. In the end, when history does its tally, the deaths caused by a tyrannical government working in secret may far outnumber those caused by the forces of weather.

Want evidence that the barometer is rising? Look at China, where last week the government responded to an earthquake by sending in thousands of soldiers and taking unusual steps to share the story with the outside world. History may eventually note that this disaster, coming so close upon the opening of the 2008 Olympics, forced a new openness in this once-secretive nation.

So which is it? Is the barometer rising or falling?

Questions like these were on the table when I joined a group of Nova Scotia public-school educators to consider questions of ethics last week in Halifax. Dividing the group down the middle, I asked one half of the room to list as many arguments as possible — quickly, in bullet-point form — to indicate that ethics is in free-fall and that the world is plunging deeper and deeper into turpitude. The other side had the charge of arguing the opposite — that the barometric uptick is taking us incrementally but steadily toward a more ethical future.

As you might imagine, the conversation was rich and varied. Each time the negativists tossed out a point, the upsiders came right back with a rejoinder — and vice versa. Within moments the room was thick with problems, from AIDS and cheating and global warming to Enron and pornography and Eliot Spitzer. But the countercurrent was just as strong, with talk of diversity, recycling, charitable giving, energy conservation, gender equity, and Nelson Mandela.

“So which is it?” I finally asked. “Is the barometer rising or falling?”

“Yes!” someone replied. His quip was met with a general chuckle around the room as people recognized the impossibility of any such oversimplification as I had proposed. It was a nice answer.

But I think the best answer is, “That’s a really dumb question!” Over the years, I’ve had scores of similar conversations with groups in various parts of the world. People often come into these discussions with a bias toward cynicism or optimism. But when forced to confront the range of evidence — even briefly, under broad headings without detailed analysis — they quickly sense the complexity of the issues and the difficulty of making a categorical judgment. Optimists are sobered, cynics are undermined, and a quiet sense of moral nuance sets in.

These days that moral nuance is hugely valuable. At every turn, it seems, our public discourse demands that we commit ourselves to categorical judgments. Going out in public without an opinion somehow feels like arriving at the supermarket without your pants: You can function fine for a while, though sooner or later someone’s sure to notice and ask you to explain yourself.

That’s especially true when ethical issues are at stake. We may feel uncomfortable taking positions on topics requiring specialist knowledge — immigration, the economy, healthcare policy, future sources of energy, or the like. But on the broader topic of ethics we feel an impulse, even an obligation, to speak up. We feel prepared to chart the ebb and flow of responsibility, respect, fairness, compassion, and honesty. And well we should. Ethics is first and foremost a personal topic, open to every voice and inviting each individual’s response. While it sometimes can appear academic and arcane, it’s actually an immediate set of ideas, grasped through intuition and reasoned out in commonplace language. Everyone deserves a place in the ethics conversation — except, perhaps, those who insist that if you haven’t read the right texts and don’t know the proper scholastic language, you aren’t qualified to talk about this most commonplace of topics.

Yet that very commonality poses a threat to ethical discourse. It can turn too easily into unwarranted certainty, smug self-confidence, and prickly assertiveness. The startling superficialities that pass for opinions on cable television and in today’s blogosphere remind us what happens when a culture of glib obduracy replaces a culture of reasoned questioning.

As we head into the election season, we may encounter a surfeit of mulish, unbending self-will on questions of values and ethics. The reaction may be to write off all moral discourse as perverse and pointless, and retreat into a disdain for any sort of ethical conversation. Needed, instead, is a capacity for moral nuance. If we remember that every assertion of a declining moral barometer is apt to be followed by the demand, “Therefore, vote for me!” — while each claim of moral improvement invariably precedes the request to “Reelect me!” — we’ll be better equipped to resist demagoguery. The more we respect moral complexity, the less we’ll be in danger of falling for either the dogmatic or the dismissive. Of such quiet nuance is civil society made.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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