Building a Viable Ethic

Building a Viable Ethic
An Example of Practical Philosophy

Contents

Why Ethics?

What Is a Core Value?

How Can a Value Be both Constant and Adaptable?

How Does an Ethic Distinguish between Good and Bad Behavior?

Are Rational Ethics Too Complicated for Practical Use?

How Can We Be Sure Ethical Theory Works?

Why Ethics?

We already have conscience, morality, and law, so why do we need ethics?

Conscience is very handy, but it's often vague and inconsistent, relying on conditioned, subjective feelings, which differ from one individual to the next, and even in the same individual with mood and over time. In contrast, both morality and law tend to be rigid and can't cover all eventualities. Consider, for example: Is truth an absolute value never to be violated, or are there circumstances under which dishonesty is permissible in order to avert a greater evil—say, lying in order to prevent the deaths of innocents? We can view ethics as a way to fill in the gaps in more traditional methods of behavior control, making them simultaneously both more adaptable and more consistent. Ethics is a way to adapt morality to new, unusual, or complicated situations, particularly where values come into conflict, or where innovation gives rise to a kind of injustice previously unknown (e.g., "software piracy," which didn't exist before computers became common).

Perhaps without even realizing it, most thinking people fall back on some form of ethics when confronting situations in which conscience, law, and traditional morality either don't seem to apply or else are in conflict with each other. But even here, ready-made ethics, such as ethics of business, journalism, or medicine, are mostly applicable only to certain situations, and are difficult or impossible to adapt to other contexts. Thus, it would be nice to have a general-purpose ethic that could be called upon whenever the need arises, anchored upon some constant core value, yet adjustable to the particulars of virtually any conceivable situation.

Let's see how such an ethic might be developed. As an example, I'll use an ethic upon which I myself rely (though you might choose something else), an ethic that I suspect many people nowadays share in general principle, but which relatively few have taken the pains to think through in any detail.

What Is a Core Value?

A core value is the value designated as the central focus of an ethic. It's the one value considered supremely important, more important than any other. It's what commands our attention as the ultimate guide and tie-breaker in any ethical problem. (Now, I must beg the reader's pardon. We must briefly indulge in a little abstract philosophy here, but only to make a point that should make the following discussion easier to understand.) It's important to understand that the words importance and value are relational terms, not things unto themselves. They're mind-dependent relationships, which express the necessity or desirability of something and to someone. Without a someone (a subject with a perceiving and judging mind) to attribute importance or value to something (a perceived object), importance and value simply do not exist in any meaningful sense, and any statement about importance or value in the absence of such referents is likewise meaningless. To put it another way, importance and value (and similar terms, such as duty and purpose) acquire meaning only with respect to both a subject (mind) and an object (thing, person, action, or idea).

Different people have different notions of what's most important—family, community, love, security, health, wealth, power, freedom, justice, the environment, pleasing God, and so forth. Value does not exist in any of these objects as a measurable substance. Rather, we as subjects attribute varying degrees of value to each object, according to the degree of benefit each of us feels he or she derives from them, or which he or she would lose if the objects were to be lost. One person feels that justice is most valuable to him, another that family is most valuable to her, and others that pleasing God is most important to them.

Now, "pleasing God" might seem an exception to some, because they hold God to be innately important. Being moral is how we please God, they say, and only God can know what the true importance of morality is. However, while we may concede that the pleasure of God is important to God, it's also important to the believer, though for a different reason. Cynical though it might sound, the believer's true motive is, at least in part, that his own afterlife happiness depends on how pleasing his behavior is to God. In other words, the believer wants to please God, not only for the sake of pleasing God, but also (and probably mainly) to earn a pleasant afterlife, or at least to avoid an unpleasant one. So we see that, even where the religious believer is concerned, the personal importance of morality actually distills to its importance to the subject himself, because of what he hopes to gain by complying with it, or fears to lose by violating it.¹

Although it might have a less than noble or pious ring, it's most honest to admit that what we hold to be of ultimate importance is unquestionably important to us, whether anyone else shares this sense of importance of the same object or some other. Thus, the ultimate value for each person (at least for each person who has the courage and integrity to be flatly honest about the matter) must be interpreted in terms of "importance to me."

So, what is ultimately important to me? It's a question we must answer before we can begin to build a meaningful ethic, and each of us might answer it in different terms. But if we were to distill all these individual statistics, we'd probably find the final product to be something akin to happiness—my own happiness.² This doesn't sound very noble either; in fact, we might be inclined to dismiss it as self-indulgent hedonism, base and unworthy. Still, if we're honest, we have to admit that personal happiness (coupled with avoidance of pain) is a very effective motivator for most people, and probably for ourselves. And if we study the matter at all, we soon realize that hedonism is only the shallowest sense of happiness. As most of us learn through experience, real happiness is much more than that, involving such things as love, health, prosperity, security, trust, social acceptance, and salvation or vindication; and these require some investment of planning, effort, and even self-discipline, to achieve and maintain. So, our notion of happiness—or whatever else we determine our ultimate value to be—evidently needs to be fleshed out considerably. Once we've figured out the whole picture, we'll have both a clear goal and a personal motive to achieve it—our core ethical value—around which we can build an ethic, which we should then be able to apply to any problem or decision having a moral aspect. But we obviously aren't there yet; we've more figuring to do, concerning all the important factors that affect happiness.

1. Albert Einstein commented, "If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot!" But even Einstein would have to count himself a member of this "sorry lot," since he was no less motivated by hope for reward—albeit in intensely personal terms of "unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it," not in terms of wealth, power, or salvation.

2. In communally oriented Eastern traditions, happiness is customarily interpreted in terms of the honorable reputation of one's family and community, whereas in Western society happiness is usually seen in terms of individual success. Although we'll focus here on a Western view, we're sure to find some overlap if we broaden our perspective even a little.

How Can a Value Be both Constant and Adaptable?

Every rational ethic has a core value, which serves as its compass. An effective ethic's core value must be firm enough to provide reliable guidance, but also flexible enough to adapt to an immense variety of situations. All human values are arbitrary, in that they express human sentiments and interests, to which the rest of the universe is utterly indifferent. However, we can limit their arbitrariness by clearly understanding our own natures and needs, and expressing our values in terms of these. To make an ethic's core value both reliably firm and sufficiently flexible, we must define it both consistently and comprehensively, with respect to who and what we are, and to our legitimate interests. Let's consider how someone might realistically outline the scope of his or her concerns against this background reference:

I am a human being. As a self-aware being, I have an interest in my own happiness.

Humans are social creatures. They derive benefit from interacting with a social unit¹ (which is to say: self, family, friends, coworkers, clients, community, nation, species, and planet).

Insofar as my happiness is affected by this benefit, I have an interest in the well-being of my social unit.

So, my behavior should at least not detract from, and should preferably contribute to, the well-being of my social unit.

In addition, considering that the well-being of each social unit and the happiness of each person derive in part from the results of decisions and behavior of previous generations, it behooves me to consider any effects of my own decisions and behavior on future generations.

As applied to a social unit, the term well-being includes whatever factors enable it to yield the desired benefit to its members. Among society's benefits are prosperity, safety, and justice. Among the factors that make such benefits possible are a just social order and competent leadership.

As the foregoing outline shows, and as any thinking adult knows from experience, one's own happiness actually entails a number of responsibilities to the social unit, and the appropriate context of one's social unit depends on the particular issue in question. Indeed, we might come to see real, enduring happiness as synonymous with personal well-being, to include not only pleasure, but also such essentials as health, security, education, trade, and ready access to necessities—not to mention justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, liberty, and other benefits we've come to take for granted since the late eighteenth century.²

One would begin the ethical assessment of any particular behavior starting with its possible consequences at the highest social level at which the behavior would have a significant social impact. For scientific research, it might be the "planet" or "species" level; for public service, it's the "nation" and "community" levels; in the case of marriage, it's the "family" level. From there, one works one's way down, step-by-step, to the level of individual self-interest, giving priority to the interests of the higher relevant levels. Such a "telescoping" range of human well-being allows us to adjust the scope of our core value to the social context of the particular issue at hand.

In addition, the breadth of an adaptable ethic can be expanded to include areas of particular interest, such as business, politics, religion, or science. Someone especially interested in environmental conservation, for example, might incorporate ideas on resource conservation and renewal into the "planet" level of his or her ethical outlook. A Christian would want to include salvation as a factor in reckonings at the "self" and "family" levels, whereas a Buddhist would likely consider enlightenment a priority. An artist or an athlete might prize personal accomplishment, while an architect or an engineer might value the melding of conceptual form and practical function as additional factors in a personally meaningful consideration of well-being. In other words, pursuit of human well-being needn't be narrowly aimed solely at self- and species-preservation, but is capable of embracing both the dreams of individuals and the aspirations of mankind—so long as we don't attempt to impose our personal or group preferences on others, just as we expect the same sort of forbearance from those others.

Thus, we can adjust the scope of an ethic to the level of society appropriate to the issue at hand, and can also take a broader range of issues into account, all the while being reliably guided by the ethic's core value (human well-being, in the case of our example). Next, we'll take a closer look at the assessment process.

1. Even a hermit is not entirely self-sufficient. He might raise and prepare his own food, and make and mend his own clothes. Or he might cut his own timber, mine and smelt his own minerals, and craft his own tools and weapons. He might even write his own books and learn a little practical science on his own, though painful trial and error. But he'd need more hours than there are in a day to do all of these, all by himself, in enough quantity to enjoy 24 hours of even a desperately ascetic standard of living. Specialization, division of labor, trade, and prosperity are made possible by social interaction. Social interaction is facilitated by social order. And social order is made possible by a tacit agreement of individuals to renounce enough of their personal freedom to abide by common rules and standards, in the interest of mutual benefit. (Philosopher Thomas Hobbes called such an agreement a "social contract.")

2. Informed readers will note that the last few of these benefits are explicitly named in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. It's probably worth mentioning here that socially provided benefits are not free; they come at a cost, and must be paid for somehow, if not through charitable contributions or communal sharing, then through either user fees or general taxation. The benefit of society is its ability to secure such benefits at greater efficiency, more equitable uniformity, and lower cost, than individuals could achieve acting alone.

How Does an Ethic Distinguish between Good and Bad Behavior?

In earlier times, morality was usually framed in terms of personal virtue, obedience to God's will as revealed by the priests, and duty to one's king. But even the ancients had a tough time explaining exactly what virtue is. They "knew it when they saw it," and they wrote and argued about it a lot; but they couldn't seem to reach enduring agreement on its specifics. Then along came the printing press; people got literate, started reading scripture and philosophy for themselves, and began drawing their own conclusions. Nowadays, virtue is more subjective than ever, not everyone agrees on whose God (if any) is in charge, and in the developed world the Divine Right of Kings has been rendered obsolete by democratic law. In recent times, ethics have come to center on the consequences of people's decisions and actions, whether to oneself (egoism), to others (altruism), to the greatest number (utilitarianism), or to the government (statism¹). Each of these consequentialist ethics focuses on humanity from a particular viewpoint, and thus each is arguably more appropriate in some contexts than in others.

Another sort of consequentialist ethic (one which I'm not aware has a name, but which I'm inclined to call context-governed ethics²) attempts to address moral problems in a more dynamically balanced way, adjusting its focus to the social context of the problem at hand. In general, consequentialist ethics rely extensively on thoughtful consideration of issues, behaviors, and effects, using reason, rather than one-size-fits-all answers from one rulebook or another, to solve problems. Context-governed ethics, the formulation of whose core value we considered in the previous article, takes this a step further, in an effort to make the solution a better fit for any problem at hand, whether it concerns just a couple of individuals or all of humankind.

Rational ethics acquire their flexibility from the active use of disciplined brainpower to evaluate information and to make decisions. They require time and effort, both to formulate initially and to resolve unusual situations as they arise. Thus, in this form, they are neither well suited to situations urgently requiring instantaneous response, nor appealing to the intellectually lazy who prefer textbook answers to everything. But for people who think of thinking as a normal (or even obligatory) part of their decision-making, rational ethics offers ways to make the best (or at least to minimize the worst) of real-world situations that aren't textbook-simple.

Any morality can deal passably with the simple opposition of good and evil, or with the greater of two goods, or even with the lesser of two evils. But rational ethics can also deal with issues where none of the available options is all good or all bad, but where each choice entails a mixture of both benefit and harm. Rational thinking allows us to weigh options, and to select the solution that yields the greatest benefit and the least harm in a particular situation.

A consequentialist ethic's rational evaluative process centers on the idea that a behavior can have any of three kinds of effects with regard to our ethic's core value: if the behavior promotes the core value, it's beneficial or "good;" if the behavior works against the value, it's harmful or "bad;" or if the behavior has no effect related to the value, it's ethically neutral. In some cases, the effects might be mixed, or depend on particular circumstances. In such cases we must weigh the individual effects, as well as the overall effect, to decide whether under the circumstances the bad effects are negligible or tolerable in view of the good.

To illustrate how the process works, let's use a relatively simple, common example of behavior: honesty. We begin by asking a non-leading question of the general form, "How does this behavior affect our core ethical value?" Specifically, in this instance, we ask:

How does honesty affect our core value of human well-being?

As we've already noted, we humans are social creatures; our standard of living is vastly enhanced by interaction with others of our species. Social interaction permits specialization, division of labor, production of surpluses, and trade. But these don't just happen. They depend on a degree of social order—organized mutual cooperation—to establish the customary structure to make these things possible. A key element of this order is reliable information, without which we find it difficult to make good choices and to avoid errors and misunderstandings. Moreover, developing the habit of being honest cultivates one's reputation of being trustworthy, and thus makes the honest person a preferred business partner or employee. If this reputation is damaged, then the person finds it more difficult to interact, because others don't trust him. Thus, it's generally to everyone's advantage—that is, it enhances both a person's own well-being and that of his associates and clients—to be consistently honest, even if doing so occasionally works against his short-term interest. In addition, setting a positive example for others (and getting good results) inspires them to do likewise; this increases society's overall level of trust, hence its efficiency, hence its potential benefit. So, as the saying goes, we see that honesty is generally the best policy.

But is this true in every case? There's a timeworn World War II example, in which an occupying Nazi officer questions a Dutch citizen about where the local Jews are hiding. If the citizen knows the answer, but suspects that innocents will come to serious harm if he tells the truth, is he morally obligated to give a truthful answer anyway? Let's frame the question in terms of our core ethical value: Would honesty in this instance tend to benefit human well-being, or to harm it? It would seem in this case that the effect of an honest answer would very likely be harmful to human well-being, if not at the citizen's or the officer's "self" level (assuming the Dutchman can lie convincingly), then certainly at the "community" level with respect to the citizen's Jewish neighbors. So, although honesty is generally the best policy, evidently there can be particular exceptions to that rule. And an exception needn't be so dire; it might simply be a "white lie" to spare someone's feelings when no good can come of the truth. For example, we could be kind to old Aunt Zola by telling her that she looks especially nice today, when even at her best she resembles a painted cadaver. Telling her the truth would improve neither her well-being nor ours, and the gentle lie harms no one.

Thus, we can incorporate the behavior of honesty into our ethic as generally "good" (promoting well-being), but with the awareness that honesty under some circumstances might be "bad" (harmful to well-being). Still, honesty is more beneficial than harmful in such a majority of cases that we'd encourage it as a rule, even if we don't anticipate any personal benefit from it in some instances. Cultivating the habit of being honest prompts others to trust us, which offers the direct advantage of making our interactions with others more fluid and less stressful. But it also sets a positive example for others, some of whom might emulate it. The cumulative effect of habitual honesty works toward the well-being of society, enhancing the benefits it can provide us, and thus indirectly benefits each of us in the long term.

We'll likely get similar results for many other common behaviors. Loyalty, for example, we find generally beneficial to the stability and cohesion of the social order; but it can lead to stagnation and corruption if indulged when not deserved. Courage is generally a virtue if applied with knowledgeable intent to the benefit of one's family, community, or nation; but it's a pointless, self-destructive vice if indulged simply to show off. Toleration is generally good when it promotes acceptance of diversity, but bad if it condones or encourages destructive behavior. On the other hand, piety is assumed good by those who prize unquestioning faith (at least in what they themselves happen to believe), but of dubious value by those who see it as a barrier to critical inquiry into mind-controlling doctrines. Thus, whether a behavior is evaluated as good or bad sometimes depends on the situation, or occasionally on the perspective of the evaluator.

Now let's discuss a different kind of behavior: stealing. Again, though we might have some preconceived notions about stealing, we begin what we hope to be an unbiased evaluation of it by asking the non-leading question:

How does stealing affect our core value of human well-being?

Again, we must go back to the matter of social order, which makes possible the benefits that society has to offer to individuals. One of the major features of social order is that it allows each person to concentrate his or her labor upon what he or she does best. This improves efficiency and enables the production of surpluses, which can then be traded for goods and services one needs or wants but doesn't have the time, talent, or training to produce. For instance, a tailor doesn't produce his own food, but he can produce far more clothing than he needs for himself. He can thus trade some of the surplus clothing to a farmer for meat and vegetables, and to a baker for bread, and to a brewer for beer. Or, he can sell his surplus clothing for money, which he can then exchange for whatever he needs.

Stealing disrupts this flow of earned wealth, by transferring something of value from an earner to a non-earner, without the earner's consent, and without the non-earner's contribution of anything of value in return. This sort of behavior has several effects.

In the short term, unless he's caught, the thief's well-being is obviously increased, since his wealth has increased without his having to earn it by engaging in productive labor.

The victim's well-being is diminished, because he has less to show for his labor.

Instead of enjoying his wealth, the victim feels compelled to invest in security and insurance to protect what's left.

In the long term, if stealing becomes widespread, earners eventually lose incentive to produce, because there's less chance they'll be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.³

Consequently, production and supplies decrease, and market prices for goods and services increase, even beyond whatever's being spent on additional security.

When allowed to go this far unchecked, these effects lead to others. On the economic side, we'd see inflation, diminished value of currency and savings, and increased insurance rates; on the human side, we'd expect to see low morale and public unrest, increasing demands on law enforcement, and resulting erosions of liberty.

The parasitic practice of stealing introduces a variety of inefficiencies into the socio-economic system. These inefficiencies reduce the per-person benefit that society can offer. In other words, the well-being of society is reduced, and the well-being of individuals correspondingly suffers, on the whole to a greater degree than the thief's is enhanced. Indeed, even the thief's future well-being is adversely affected by society's diminished benefit to him. So, we see that stealing is generally a bad thing with respect to our core value.

But is stealing always bad? Suppose we find ourselves in a tight spot: the economy is in a deep recession. We've been laid off from work for an extended period, our unemployment benefits have run out, our savings are used up, and the rent is due. We can't borrow from family and friends, because they're experiencing similar hard times, and even the local charities don't have enough resources to go around. In such a case, we might justify stealing food to keep our family from starving. Here, we can't really say that stealing is good, but rational ethics nonetheless enables us to choose stealing as the lesser of two evils in some situations. (It also obligates us to compensate the victim of our misdeed when we're able.)

So, we see good reason to rule some behaviors generally good and others generally bad. Yet we must acknowledge instances in which rules can be legitimately overridden by reason, under circumstances that would otherwise result in greater detriment to human well-being.

1. In theory, statism is concern for the well-being of the state—the governing body, its institutions, and its resources. In practice, however, statism hasn't worked out very well. At the national level, its motives have tended to degenerate into individual ambition for power on the one hand, and fear of being sacked (or worse) on the other. In extreme cases, it becomes oligarchy (as in the People's Republic of China) or autocracy (as in the Soviet Union under Stalin), while the genuine interests of a healthy and beneficent state are ignored or trampled along with civic interests of the people. Statism is listed here, not because there're any current working examples, but simply to round out the spectrum of theories (some of which actually do work).

2. While working on my own brand of humanism in the 2000s, I came up with the idea of context-governed ethics. It often turns out that concepts I've thought of are not new, but have already been worked on by others for years. So far, though, I haven't encountered any other work on this or a parallel line of thought, so perhaps it's original.

3. This is analogous to what happened in the 13th century, when many productive societies were conquered, one by one, by Mongol warlord Genghis Khan. Deprived of the fruits of their labor, the frustrated victims gave up producing. And when the stock of goods that could be extorted from them had been depleted, the invaders then had to move on to conquer and plunder another productive civilization in order to survive. Thievery in any form is essentially parasitic; it consumes without producing anything of value, and thus imposes a burden on society.

Are Rational Ethics Too Complicated for Practical Use?

The adaptability of rational ethics comes at a price: it's clearly thought-intensive, in contrast to rule-based morality, which requires only unquestioning obedience to memorized or documented lists of dos and don'ts. Rational ethics requires an investment in preparation, discipline, and effort, which not everyone is prepared to make. But for those who are, the superior results more than compensate for the time and effort expended, and are thus well worth the cost.

Once the start-up effort is out of the way, the day-to-day process can be streamlined. To keep rational ethics from becoming perpetually bogged down in commonplace situations, we can make it a dual-approach operation, analogous to the "act" and "rule" versions of utilitarianism.¹ When developing a new ethic, or when using an existing ethic to address a new problem, we must use the "act" approach. The first few times we encounter a certain kind of problem, this more intensive method empowers us to analyze it and find what seems a consistently optimum general response. Once satisfied with the results, we can tentatively consider it a "rule" to apply the ethic in this tested way, so long as there're no complications. We may then set aside the more labor-intensive "act" version to address special cases, such as when we find two or more rule-based principles in conflict.

To recap our results so far: As a rule, honesty is the wisest choice in most cases; but occasional misadventures arising from irrational behavior can sometimes be thwarted by a prudent falsehood or evasion. As a rule, loyalty and courage in defense of principles of liberty and justice are laudable; but overripe allegiance to a corrupt regime stands in the way of needed change, and foolish bravado is not to be confused with genuine courage. As a rule, toleration of diversity enriches the social environment and gives rise to innovation; but acceptance of ill-founded prejudice gives rise to friction and scapegoating, and turns society against itself. As a rule, stealing is a parasitic practice, which burdens not only the victim, but also the rest of society; however, if stealing might be justifiable in desperate circumstances, if it is the least bad option available.

Once we've evaluated these and many other behaviors as generally good or generally bad, what we've compiled is a rough equivalent of a rule-based morality. The difference is that rules developed in this way are backed by reason and (in many cases) evidence. They don't just assert that a behavior is good or bad; they explain why and under what conditions it's good or bad. We need no longer take morality on blind faith or authority. We can figure it out. We can understand it. And if we find something about it that doesn't work properly in today's world—e.g., it leads to an unfairness or fails to address an injustice—we can fix it!

Rules aren't meant to be broken, but conflict with an ethic's core value occasionally dictates that the rules be subjugated to the higher priority. (Either that, or the core value itself needs reexamining.) Even well intended and well crafted rules aren't perfect; they can't foresee every eventuality. When their imperfections threaten the very values they're intended to support, then rule of reason must prevail over rule of thumb. This is precisely why rational ethics is necessary, if not for every member of society, then at least for policymakers.

Rational ethics presumes rational thinking, which means a working knowledge of logic is a necessity, not merely an option. Ethics practiced by irrational minds isn't just inferior; it's a travesty, and often a supremely ugly one at that.

1. Utilitarian ethics is divided into "act" and "rule" approaches. The first is necessary for identifying and responding intelligently to new or complex problems. The second relies on experience, and is simpler and more expedient when dealing with familiar problems with no complications. There's no reason that the same duality of approaches couldn't be adapted to any consequentialist ethic.

How Can We Be Sure Ethical Theory Works?

Behavioral standards are important, beyond doubt. Indeed, we could safely say they're essential to maintaining a society stable enough to provide the benefits we need and have come to expect. So they'd better work, because if they don't, we're in serious trouble. How can we be sure that ethics will deliver as expected? The traditional view of morality is that it's purely conceptual; it's not an object, and can't be observed or measured in any way. Thus, it's entirely outside the realm of scientific investigation, and has been considered the rightful province of law, tradition, religion, and philosophy.

But this view is now changing. Consider that, in the natural sciences, there are things, such as radio waves and x-rays, which can't be perceived directly, but whose effects can nonetheless be observed, measured, and controlled. Work in the social sciences has shown that, while we might be unable to observe the processes of the human mind directly, we can to some extent observe both the influences upon mind and the mind's resulting effects on behavior. The human mind is extraordinarily complex and highly individualistic, even so, we can observe general patterns of influence and effect that apply to most normal people, as well as patterns characteristic of groups afflicted with specific kinds of psychological aberrations. (Moreover, we've been able to understand many of these aberrations in physiological terms, and thus have been able to develop effective treatments for them.) In sizable populations, careful observation and control of variables can yield meaningful statistical data showing the correspondence of behavior to specific stimuli. Although as individuals humans aren't very predictable, as groups their behavior exhibits statistical patterns which are highly predictive of the general behavior of larger populations.

So, why couldn't similar methods be developed to study and guide ethics? The answer is that there seems no reason they couldn't, on the condition that all relevant factors are identified with enough precision to permit reliable independent verification and rational analysis. With adequate control and honest accounting for discrepancies, we should be able to identify relationships of behavior, not only to the things that influence it, but also to its effects upon clearly defined ethical values. After all, once concepts of "good" and "bad" have been rescued from the miasma of vagueness and confusion, and are defined instead in terms of some specific and relevant value (as our core ethical value is), we then have a clear reference by which to mark behavioral effects, whether good or bad.

A problem that ethical experimentation presents is the very control that must be imposed in order to conduct it in a way that makes the results reliably consistent with reality. In the natural sciences, where the objects of study are insensate matter, energy, and cells, this isn't a problem. But in the social sciences, where the objects of study are human beings and their behavior, there arises the question of whether it's ethical to study a person, or even to expose him or her to potentially hazardous or embarrassing situations, without his or her informed consent. However, if we inform the person beforehand, then he or she will likely behave differently, and thus the results of the experiment won't reflect "normal" behavior.

The field of psychology has already judged it unethical to experiment upon people, or to expose them to potential harm, without their informed consent. However, it has devised methods of testing capable of obtaining realistic results without compromising the subject's well-being. For example, a subject may be told that she'll be observed at random for a total of sixty minutes over a two-week period, but is not told which sixty minutes will be observed, or even whether it will be a single hour or a number of shorter increments. Or he may be told that he might be exposed to a non-lethal virus, but not told what effects to expect from it. He or she can then choose whether or not to engage in the experiment based on the frank but non-specific information offered. When necessary, the field of ethics might adopt similar strategies for experimentation. For instance, prospective subjects could be informed that they might, as part of the test, be instructed to perform a morally questionable act, or that they might be the target of such an act, and they could decide whether or not to participate in the experiment on the basis of this limited information.

Fortunately for us (though unfortunately for the victims), examples of detrimental influences and behaviors we might want to study can often be found both in current events and in history. Records of crime, genocide, injustice, negligence, oppression, persecution, slavery, wars, and the like yield a gut-wrenching abundance of information about misfortune, unsavory behavior, and their consequences, from ancient times to the present. In many cases, enough reliable data could be gleaned from historical and current accounts to provide working hypotheses, or sometimes even an adequate equivalent of observational results, provided that the biases of the perpetrators and of those who did the recording can be ascertained, and adjusted for if necessary.

As a powerful example of how historical events provide evidence to guide human action, let's compare the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars. After World War I, harshly punitive economic restrictions were imposed on the conquered nations of Germany and Italy. Economic hardship there gave rise to social unrest, which resulted in the election of radical fascist regimes, which assumed dictatorial power and instituted militaristic policies. And in only a couple of decades, Europe once again plunged into war. Following World War II, events took a different turn, when the United States introduced the Marshall Plan to rebuild not only their allies, but also their vanquished enemies.¹ The result of this grand "experiment" was astoundingly positive. In the ensuing prosperity, nations that had traditionally warred among themselves for centuries discovered that they had far more to gain through peaceful cooperation than through military aggression, and there hasn't been a significant outbreak of international hostility within Western Europe (or in Japan, which was treated similarly) since. Now, although it might be a stretch to apply the lessons from this multinational series of events to personal ethics, it illustrates the general value of consulting experience and history for evidence to guide human behavior away from harmfully obsolete traditions into demonstrably more beneficial channels.

To return to the topic of active research, in cases where the only potential effects are favorable or neutral, harm ceases to be a factor in ethics experimentation. Subjects may ethically be observed in public without their knowledge, provided that details of any such observations are kept strictly confidential and the subjects are not identified without their explicit consent. Still, as in science, professional experimenters must take care to select samples, conduct tests, collect evidence, and account for anomalies, in ways compatible with scientific method if they're to be taken seriously.²

However, people for whom ethics is primarily a personal matter needn't worry so much about whether their results can withstand the rigors of scientific method; for them, reliability in practice is what's important. For their own purposes, rational adults who are well intentioned and well informed may find it adequate to use whatever sources are readily available to them, including personal experience, word of mouth, factual news media, and historical record, as evidence for or against hypotheses of personal ethics. The use of such non-systematically gathered evidence is expedient for day-to-day decision-making, even if it doesn't meet the standards for scientific investigation. Even a quasi-scientific approach to ethics, using evidence, reason, and cool-headed reflection, should in most cases turn out to be more consistently reliable than the odd brew of Bronze-Age doctrine, tradition, gut emotion, and guesswork that typically passes for morality and conscience.

1. An ulterior motive of the Marshall Plan was to lure devastated and disoriented countries into alignment with the West and away from alliance with Stalinist Russia. But although this was arguably a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, it provided strong evidence to justify the reevaluation and replacement of obsolete norms, rather than complacent reliance on tradition.

2. As far as I'm aware, no peer review network yet exists for scientific experimentation in ethics. This would probably have to be developed at the academic level, perhaps in conjunction with psychological research, since support for such a project from many leaders of government, private business, and other institutions where the topic of ethics is routinely viewed with contempt, might be anemic to non-existent.

To Be Continued

This webpage is a distillation of ideas that I've been developing and integrating for several years, in my leisure moments. It's a work in progress, and might well remain so for some time to come. Notwithstanding, I think that even in an incomplete state the work might have value to others. So, I've decided to publish it, and update it as things progress.

As always, reader feedback, whether complimentary or critical, is welcome and earnestly solicited. (While compliments are encouraging, I find criticism far more useful. It calls my attention to things I've overlooked or misunderstood, and thus helps me do a better job.)

=SAJ=

MAIN	ISSUES	LINKS	RINGS
Philosophy & Religion: Articles