As indicated in the previous post, we will bring to a close this (long) series on Knowing Oneself by addressing the topic, “Knowing Your Values and Your Ethical Stance.” On what basis do you make a decision about what you will do in a situation with “moral weight?” Consider the following incidents.

• A young bank employee was indicted for embezzlement, and the evidence all seemed to point to a conviction.  But he knew he was innocent, and his wife believed him.  She was soon informed by another bank employee that he could get documents that would reveal the real embezzler and prove her husband’s innocence.  But he made it clear that he would give the evidence only if she made herself sexually available.  The couple were devout Christians, but to clear her husband of almost certain conviction, she made the decision to get the information at whatever cost.  She spent several nights with the other bank employee; he gave her the documents, her husband was exonerated, and the real embezzler convicted.  Was her act moral or immoral?   Right or wrong?  Good or bad?
• The story is told of a tragic incident that occurred when a frontier village was raided by bandits.  Several members of the village hid where they could not be found.  One woman had a very small baby in her arms.  As some of the intruders drew close, she smothered the baby rather than risk giving away their hiding place and ensuring death for all of them.  Sometime after the raid, she was punished by both church and community for committing murder. Another version of the story has her found out in the open and asked by the bandits whether there are other people in the village. She lies and says that there are not. Moral or immoral? Right or wrong? Good or bad?

Now we could debate these issues all day, but unless we can agree on some STANDARD of moral/immoral, right/wrong, good/bad, we could reach no conclusion.  And that’s where ethical standards come into play. Because they are not concerned primarily with whether sexual activity outside of marriage or killing or lying are right or wrong in a particular instance, or even right or wrong in general.  They are primarily concerned about what constitutes the standard of right and wrong by which you determine such moral issues.  Without an understanding of those standards, criteria, norms, we can never make any headway in our debates about moral issues

Let me pose a dilemma for you and then see how all this is relevant.  Suppose you work in the library, checking out people’s books as they leave, and a friend asks you to let him or her smuggle out a hard-to-find reference book that he wants to own.  You might hesitate to do this for various reasons.  You might be afraid one or both of you will get caught and get into serious trouble.  You might want the book to stay in the library so it’s available if you need to use it.  But you might also think that what she proposes is simply wrong–she shouldn’t do it and you shouldn’t help her.  If you think that, what does that mean and, what, if anything, makes it true?

It might be (1) that you think it would be wrong to help your friend steal this book because the consequences of this deed would be bad for everybody–the two of you because you could get caught and punished, and for everybody else because they would be deprived the fair use of the book.  Or (2) you might think it’s wrong to help steal the book even if you never got caught and no one ever again wanted to consult that book, because there is something inherently bad about the act of stealing and it would be a rotten and impossible world if everybody just took whatever they wanted.  Or (3) you might say that, while there could be some circumstances in which stealing is not wrong and the consequences would not be bad, this is not one of those times.

In the simplest of terms, those are the lines of reasoning recommended by the three major ethical theories. With apologies to those for whom this is “old news,” I have outlined each of them briefly below, so that any, or all, of those who may choose to read and participate in the challenge of this final blog—to know and be able to state the criteria upon which one’s ethical choices are made—can do so from this common set of standards.

• Formalism, or dependence on a formal ethical code, takes the view an act is right or wrong in itself, depending solely upon whether it conforms to some universal moral law. Formalists do not deny that our acts have important consequences, but they deny that these practical implications have anything to do with the rightness or wrongness of an act.  For example, the Ten Commandments, considered as absolute and incontestable rules laid down by God.  Or the approach of Immanuel Kant, who argued that universal moral laws exist and are discovered by reason, and for an action to be ethical, you must be willing for your action to become or to conform to a universal law of humankind. So formalism says always do your duty, act on principle, know what is right ahead of time by knowing your obligation under a universal moral law.
• Utilitarianism takes the view that the rightness or wrongness of an act or a rule depends on the consequences, its effects on other people. Utilitarians such as such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill argued that individual ethical decisions and the rules that govern societies can only be justified by seeking to maximize “the greatest good for the greatest number.” In other words, individual rights should always be seen in the context of society and the greater good.  John Stuart Mill held that the only basis upon which individual human rights can be limited is to protect others.
• This leads to the final ethical theory, which in some ways “comes down between” the other two.  While duty-based ethics emphasizes the Act itself, and utilitarianism emphasizes the Consequences of the act, virtue- based ethical theory emphasizes the Agent, the person making the ethical choice.  In this case, one cannot decide ahead of time what is right or wrong.  Each person and each situation is unique. Plato and Aristotle both agreed that our task as humans is find balance and harmony by reason.  There is a “right relative to me in this set of conditions.”  My responsibility is to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons. A contemporary version is called contextualism or situationism.  In this ethic, like Plato and Aristotle, there is a principle or guideline that is used in making all ethical decisions, but that principle must be applied individually to each situation.  That guideline is concern for the well-being of others. While the rules and principles of one’s society are usually adequate for making ethical decisions, in a given unique situation, the follower of this ethic will break a rule if the well-being of a person seems best served by doing so, and that act will be seen as the most moral act possible in that situation.

My hope is that some of you will, in the comment section of the blog, state and expand upon the standard you identify as your own and perhaps offer an example of your use of it in some moral choice in your own experience. Anyone who may wish to offer a different standard or some personal combination of the ones described above are welcome to do so. And if you want to go a step further, what are the 2 or 3 “principles” you think/believe you could never compromise?

Within the next few days I will identify the standard I have chosen as my own and briefly—really!—offer an example of its use in my own experience. That post will be the final “pre-hiatus” blog for the next few months!