Laying a Foundation
Every rational ethic is based on some core value
that’s thought to be of supreme importance. Now, most personal ethics
include many values, but it’s very useful to identify one of them to
have priority over the others. This core value is the ethic’s ultimate
guide, the conflict-resolver and tie-breaker in cases where other values
are found to be at odds with each other. It’s the key element to a very
important aspect of our lives, so we ought to take great care in
selecting it. Once the core value is established, we can judge whether
a behavior is good, bad, or neutral, depending on whether it tends to
promote that value, detract from it, or has no effect on it.
Some of the ancient Greeks thought of virtue as
the supreme value. However, they had trouble defining to everyone’s
satisfaction just what virtue is. Aristotle proposed that to learn what
virtue is, one should observe a virtuous man and learn to emulate his
behavior. But then how is one to decide upon a virtuous role model, if
one initially has no clear idea what qualities would identify a man as
being virtuous? A value that can’t be clearly defined isn’t of much
practical use. We need something that can be readily identified and
applied.
Happiness has also been suggested as a value to be
sought above all others. But then the question arises: Whose
happiness? Should we be primarily concerned with our own happiness?
With the happiness of others? With the happiness of the greatest
number? And what do we mean by happiness anyway? Indulgence in
pleasure? Maybe simply avoidance of pain and misery? Or is it
something that could be described as contentment, or perhaps wisdom?
The Greek philosophers conjectured that ultimate happiness is something
they called eudaimonia (ευδαιμονια), the happiness of
contemplating ultimate truth—whatever that might be. The Greek thinkers
were champions at answering big questions with answers that explained
nothing but simply led to bigger questions. This is fine, if all one
intends to do is play idle thought games. For something as important as
ethics, though, we need something we can actually work with.
Pleasure and avoidance of pain are certainly
effective motivators. But if the short-term pleasure of avoiding the
dentist (for example) eventually results in an inflamed mouthful of
rotten teeth, the long-term prospects of this behavior don’t seem very
pleasant. Perhaps we should adjust our concept of happiness to embrace
something more like well-being, which would advise the endurance of
whatever doses of tolerable unpleasantness or sacrifice might be
required in order to maintain overall levels of health, wealth, and
knowledge adequate to a satisfactory existence.
Even most religious morality ultimately distills
to this level, albeit by way of a detour through less down-to-earth
territory. Many religious people might object to this statement,
arguing that they try to be moral simply for the sake of pleasing God.
But if we demand to know just why they want to please God, and if we
pursue this path of inquiry to its ultimate end, in most cases it comes
down to a belief that pleasing God assures one of attaining a happy
afterlife, or at least of avoiding an unpleasant one. Indeed, for
affirmation of this we need simply consult the holy writings of the
Judeo-Christo-Islamic tradition (or the ancient mythologies of Greece
and Egypt, for that matter), which often frame divine instructions to
mortal humans in terms of reward for obedience and punishment for
disobedience. It seems assumed, even by the world’s most popular
religions, that people can’t be relied on to do good just for the sake
of doing good, but only in hope of reward or fear of punishment. So,
the ultimate objective is one’s personal happiness after all, even if
this hoped-for gratification might be delayed until after death, and
might entail a stout measure of sacrifice in the meantime. Still, the
pains of life can be tempered with the anticipation of ultimately being
reunited with one’s friends, and the grim satisfaction of believing that
one’s enemies will spend eternity in torment.
Likewise, the altruist must, at some point,
concede that he or she derives personal satisfaction from contributing
to others’ happiness or from helping to relieve their misery—whether
this satisfaction springs from the expressed personal gratitude of
others, public recognition, or simply the inner gratification of
anonymous acts of kindness and magnanimity. For example, U.S. Steel
magnate Andrew Carnegie furnished funds to build and stock public
libraries all across America. He did so without a hope of personally
making a dime on the project; even extra business sparked by public
relations for U.S. Steel wouldn’t begin to pay back the investment.
Furthermore, being an atheist, Carnegie held no expectation of being
rewarded after death. We might speculate that he did it for public
recognition, except that he was already a world-renowned industrialist.
But here might be a clue: "Teach a man to be a good citizen and you
have solved the problem of life," he once remarked. Perhaps his motive
was simply a hope that the project would eventually result in a wiser,
more creative, more productive, more prosperous, and thus happier
America for generations yet to come.
On close analysis, it would appear that happiness
plays some significant role in virtually everyone’s motivation to behave
morally. This being the case, it shouldn’t trouble or embarrass us in
the least to adopt well-being, taken as a sober-minded and
forward-looking form of happiness, as a demonstrably effective component
of a practical, rational ethic.
By now, it’s apparent that what we’re searching for is a
worthy objective, to be the intended result of our behavior, as
contrasted with blind obedience to some authority. The branch of ethics
that concerns itself with the consequences of behavior is
called—appropriately enough—consequentialism.1
Being concerned
with the outcomes of actions, consequentialism contrasts with
deontology,2 a tenet of traditional rule-based morality
that actions themselves are inherently either moral or immoral. There are several varieties of consequentialist ethics,
each reflecting concern about some practical aspect of the consequences
of behavior.
First, consider that our actions don’t always have
the results we anticipate. Should an ethic assign blame or credit for
the actual consequences or for the intended consequences
of an action? Traditionally, consequentialism has tended to focus on
actual results rather than intent. But while we should try to make
realistic predictions about our actions, this isn’t always easy to do,
especially if circumstances are complex or unfamiliar. We can exert
control over our intentions, but outcomes are often influenced by
factors outside our own will and understanding. So, it would seem
appropriate to apportion some responsibility to the intent of an
action. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge a bad outcome too harshly if it
resulted from the best of intentions and was prudently thought out using
available evidence. Still, it seems reasonable for an agent to assume
some measure of responsibility if the actual results of a deliberate
action are different from what was intended. Whether the actual results
turn out to be better or worse than expected, we must be equally willing
to accept either praise or blame.
Then, there’s the matter of who or what is to benefit from
an action. Three of the best known types of consequentialist ethics are
egoism, which concerns itself with benefit to oneself;
altruism, whose aim is to benefit others; and utilitarianism,
whose objective is the greatest benefit for the greatest number. Each
of these has a particular focus, and thus works better in some
situations than in others. Could there be a single objective suitable
to resolve all moral questions? Probably not a single one; but perhaps
there might be a series of closely related objectives which could be
selected from in order to frame any particular problem appropriately.
Let’s propose that well-being is a prime candidate for our
ethic’s core value, the intended consequence of ethical behavior. But
whose well-being? There’s nothing wrong with starting with
our own, since it’s the most directly obvious and immediately
motivational. But, having proposed this, we should take a broad
view as to what actually contributes to personal well-being. An
individual’s well being is affected in various ways, not only by his own
immediate state of affairs, but also by the well-being of his social and
material environment: his family, his friends and colleagues, his
community, his nation, his species, and his planet, including the other
creatures with which he shares it.
What harms the
planet threatens the things that inhabit it, including us; what benefits
our species constitutes a potential benefit to every individual human;
what discredits our nation discredits us as people in the eyes of the
world; what brings prosperity to our community increases each family's
and citizen’s chances of sharing in it; and so forth. In other words,
we ought not to look at our own well-being too narrowly, taking an
unrealistic view that we’re entirely self-sufficient, that we can
exploit and abuse others at will, or that we can plunder and poison the
environment at our convenience, without concern for either social or
material consequences. This would be to hide our head under a blanket
and pretend that everything outside doesn’t matter because we can’t see
it. For in truth, as individuals we are not self-sufficient. Working
alone, each relying solely on his or her own limited initiative,
knowledge, skills, and efforts, we couldn’t hope to provide for all our
own needs and wants beyond a bare subsistence level. In today’s world,
each of us is a specialist of one sort of another. We benefit greatly
from belonging to a society of diverse specialists—artists, bankers,
builders, craftspeople, doctors, engineers, farmers, fishermen, miners,
programmers, scientists, teachers, technicians, truckers, writers, and
many others. Each productive specialty benefits society as a whole, and
thus enhances the level of benefits that society can return to each of
us.
So, it seems wise to expand our initial notion of personal
well-being to include also the well-being of our social and material
environments: our family, our community, our nation, our species, and
the very planet and various other species on which we all rely. For if
the well-being of any of these is seriously harmed through either
carelessness or misplaced priorities, then our own personal well-being
(or that of our descendants) is correspondingly diminished, if not
directly, then indirectly through the lingering effects on society.
Now, in human well-being we have a core value that’s
(1) self-motivating, (2) clearly defined and firmly centered to serve as
a moral reference in virtually any situation, (3) yet flexible enough to
adjust to a wide variety of situations and contexts, (4) and in
addition, able to work in conjunction with other values whenever
necessary or desirable, so long as those other values are not contrary
to human well-being. Of course, this humanistic core value isn’t
the only one we might use. However, it’s the only one (of which
I’m aware) that combines and coordinates these particular advantages.
So, it’s the one I use as my personal guide, and will continue to use in
this working example for the sake of convenience and clarity.
1 Consequentialist thinking
dates back at least to the Classical period of ancient Greece (fifth
century BCE), but its modern reincarnation is generally attributed to
English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), whose ideas contributed
to the founding principles and subsequent reforms in the United States
and other democracies.
2 Deontology categorically defines actions as either virtues or vices,
on the assumption that the effects of virtues are always beneficial and
the effects of vices are always harmful. A deontological approach
works well enough in a majority of cases, but often can't adjust to
complex or unusual situations in which value conflicts arise.
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Next:
Applying Values