Turtles, Taxes, and the Jobless: What Ethics Organizations Do
Jun 28th, 2010 • Posted in: Commentaryby Rushworth M. Kidder
Twenty years ago this month, we launched our nonprofit organization in a two-room walk-up office in Maine. That summer, my ninth-grade daughter volunteered to help. I heard her answer the phone one afternoon with a cheery, “Institute for Global Ethics.” After a long silence, she peered around the corner into my office, her hand cupped over the receiver. “Dad,” she whispered, “what do we do here?”
I took the call, but not without reflecting that, for any ethics organization, that’s the central question. Are we here to wag fingers at individual miscreants or to condemn systemic turpitude? Are we training the young to read their moral compasses or coaxing the mature back to their overlooked values? Do we zero in on the ethical leadership of a few or strengthen the moral character of the many? Does our mandate lie with governments, schools, and companies, or with faith communities, nonprofits, and families? Does our middle name describe our programs, requiring us to work in an array of countries, or does it denote a mindset that sees ethics as transcending national boundaries?
The best answer is yes. The moral universe, like its physical counterpart, is strikingly resistant to division and fragmentation. Ethical constructs, like quarks and force fields, operate the same way whether you’re a general or a private, a symphony or a one-man band. Ethics isn’t limited to particular topics or personality types. It’s about life itself — in all its variety.
Which is why, when you hit a week like this last one, you find widely different news stories displaying the same ethical frameworks. You might have thought that the sacking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the failure to extend unemployment benefits, and the death of sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico were wholly unrelated. But when you pry them open, you see they’re each driven by a tension between two views of what’s right.
When Gen. McChrystal, the now-former commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was caught by a Rolling Stone writer bad-mouthing the administration, President Obama immediately relieved him of his duties. Was that the right decision? Some observers, pointing to the principles of military authority and discipline, said yes: You can’t tolerate insubordination in the chain of command. But others, pointing to McChrystal’s effectiveness in directing the war, said no: When a good leader under stress lets fly a few intemperate remarks, you rebuke him but keep him on the job. For the former group, ethics is a matter of principle. For the latter, it’s a question of outcomes. Both are right.
So, too, with the vote to cut off unemployment benefits. Senate Democrats who supported the extension were adamant about consequences: Without support, the jobless would find themselves in a terrible plight. The Republicans who filibustered the bill were equally wedded to principles: Don’t spend what you don’t have, and don’t inflate the nation’s deficit.
And the sea turtles? In a story kicked off by a much-watched YouTube interview, we now know that rare and endangered sea turtles are being caught up by booms sweeping up the floating oil in the Gulf. As the oil is being burned off, some turtles have been spotted and rescued, but others presumably are being incinerated. For some observers, it’s a matter of principle (supported by legal protections for endangered species) to put the turtles’ safety ahead of oil burning. For others, it’s worth sacrificing a few animals to prevent many more from being damaged.
Three different stories, each balanced on the same moral fulcrum. If ethics, for you, is a matter of consequence, you sign up to the utilitarian dictum of doing the greatest good for the greatest number. If it’s a matter of principle, you come under the Kantian standard of following whatever basic precept you want to see made universal and timeless.
On reflection, then, it was a week like any other. It reminds us that the toughest choices a nation makes are essentially ethical. They’re tough not because they’re weird, bizarre, and novel, but because they conform exactly to the common elements of the moral universe in which each side has a noble claim to rightness. As an ethics institute, what do we do here? Among other things, we try to help people spot moral patterns where before they saw only personal opinions. Armed with those patterns, it’s easier to cut through disagreements, find commonalities, design policy, and build a better world. Each week gives us plenty of opportunity.
©2010 Institute for Global Ethics
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You mention the Utilitarian philosophy as an ethical principle that would question the firing of General McChrystal. That is true, but using this principle as an ethical support for an action requires further steps. If we believe the outcome justifies the process, then we need to be absolutely clear that the outcome is positive, is working, and we need to be able to provide evidence of that. In the case of the war in Afghanistan, I think finding that evidence would be quite a stretch.
Thank you!
Thank you for writing this piece, it is so timely, I have recently been in great debate with friends all over the political spectrum in how we need to step past the quick reactionary response to “prepared” clips about issues and actually dig deep and see true motivations and how things are not “black & white” most of the time.
This was a very reaffirming article for those of us who challenge others about leaving the “norm” and traditional partisan, system based ways of group think and decision making.
Thank you,
Mike
Excellent summary of two views. And it’s very important that we each understand which view we espouse. It colors not only our choices, but our ability to discuss with others. Thank you.
Letting alone the good sense of this commentary, another question is raised about form, not content. We are beliegered by questions of ethics and morality. Like so many terms over years of our society and years of maturation of our dictionary I am sore put to have a precise definition of the two even though it seems proper to have one. Morality seems to me in my 74 year old frame of mind to deal with the prurient side of life. The tacky, the improper behavior leading to abusive or improper relationships.
Ethics seems to me to relate to the higher order state of mind concerning right versus right and wrong versus right, or do I repeat myself. Perhaps a discussion from the top of these terms might help in our understanding of such comentary and lead to better quality comment than the foregoing. It might set us all on a closer plain. These terms are used in such close form within these discussion as to leave my question begging an answer.