What Ethics Is and Why We Need It
Ethics is a form of behavior control. Some behavior controls, such
as laws, are imposed by an authority. We, the ones whose behavior
is moderated by laws, would hope that there’s good reason for each of
them. In some cases, such as driving on the proper side of the
public highway, the reason is fairly obvious, since calamity is an
almost inevitable result of violating the convention. But in others, that
reason remains an undisclosed and undecipherable mystery that we’re
simply supposed to accept on the say-so of the authority doing the
imposing and controlling. But we’d still better go along with it,
if we don’t want to end up in court, or worse. This is the fundamental distinction between morality
and ethics. Although these terms are often used interchangeably,
there is this subtle distinction: In ethics, and especially in rational ethics, we want
to be able to know and understand the justification for each standard:
why complying with it is inherently beneficial, and why disobeying it poses a
distinct threat of harm. To understand these things, we need to
understand what we—human beings—are, what our needs are and how we
attain them, and which methods toward this end have historically
succeeded and which have failed—and how and why.
We’re human, and humans are social creatures by
nature. The specialized division of labor permitted by organized social
interaction enables us to be far more productive and prosperous than
would be possible if each individual had to supply all of his or her own
personal needs and wants entirely through his or her own labor and
ingenuity. Even among primitive hunter-gatherers, productivity is
improved if those especially good at hunting are assigned that task,
while those more talented at gathering take up that occupation, and that
the fruits of both fields of endeavor are shared by the entire
community. And as tasks become more complex, as with herding and
agriculture, crafts and trade, defense and warfare, mining and
metalworking, medicine and technology, engineering and planning, and
even arts and entertainment, specialization and organization become more
than just handy adjuncts to our labors. They’re essential to creating
and maintaining the social structure that makes possible the abundance
and the higher standards of living to which we soon become accustomed
and would be loath to do without.
An essential part of the social organization that
makes specialization possible is a set of behavioral guidelines, which
form the basis of smooth and efficient interaction among farmers, cooks,
toolmakers, physicians, administrators, and others. Such guidelines
form the social structure that enables and encourages specialization and
interaction according to rules to which everyone presumably agrees and
submits in order to obtain his or her fair share of the benefits that
such a system generates. In ancient systems, social structure typically
assigned certain privileges and obligations to each level of society,
the rulers and priests being the most privileged, the slave or serf
labor being the most obligated, with soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants
at various levels in between. In more modern, egalitarian systems,
everyone is (at least in theory) assigned the same basic privileges and
obligations with respect to interpersonal behavior. And indeed, the
egalitarian way of doing things has in most ways demonstrated itself to
be far superior to the ancient tiered systems, in terms not only of
productivity and prosperity, but also of humanitarian well-being,
justice, and happiness. Through its innate encouragement of individual
responsibility and initiative, egalitarianism has forced ancient
monarchic and caste-based systems into obsolescence in the developed
countries. And their success places pressure on less developed
societies to become more egalitarian in order to enjoy the benefits of
cooperation and competition in the modern environment.
The behavioral component of social structure takes
a number of forms. It might be religious morality, civil law, cultural
tradition, or personal and group ethics. Most often, it’s a combination
of several or all of these, each playing a particular role in the grand
scheme. Civil law is the codified standard to which all members of a
society are legally bound, under threat of penalty for failure to
comply. Cultural tradition is a non-codified norm that society assumes
as a sort of collective habit, but which is often informally enforced by
ostracism or various forms of discrimination. At one time, much of
religious morality was written into civil law, and thus the two were in
some respects synonymous. But with the advent of religiously
pluralistic societies, religious morality has become more of a group
ethic, each religious group being defined as people who share a certain
set of beliefs and who subscribe to a certain view of mystical authority.
Supposedly, civil law supersedes group ethics, and so takes precedence
when the ethics of different groups come into conflict. But civil law,
religious doctrine, and cultural tradition—all rule-based controls—could
never anticipate and
cover every possible eventuality, conflict, and combination of
circumstances.
This is why we need ethics. Ethics, the
formulation of appropriate behavior, is what fills in the gaps in law, morality, and
tradition. Indeed, because ethics is a dynamic process rather than a
static list of dos and don’ts, it can even furnish a stand-alone
morality—and a rationale for it—for those who lack religious belief or
who don’t subscribe to the norms of the culture in which they find
themselves.
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Laying a Foundation