Ethics for Postmoderns

An Environmental Ethic of Experience

2011-04-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

from a speech upon receiving the Albert Schweitzer Medal from the Animal Welfare Institute, December 5, 1962, Rachel Carson:

In his various writings, we may read Dr. Schweitzer's philosophical interpretations of that phrase [Reverence for Life]. But to many of us, the truest understanding of Reverence for Life comes, as it did to him, from some personal experience, perhaps the sudden, unexpected sight of a wild creature, perhaps some experience with a pet. Whatever it may be, it is something that takes us out of ourselves, that makes us aware of other life. From my own memories, I think of the sight of a small crab alone on a dark beach at night, a small and fragile being waiting at the edge of the roaring surf, yet so perfectly at home in its world. To me it seemed a symbol of life, and of the way life has adjusted to the forces of its physical environment. Or I think of a morning when I stood in a North Carolina marsh at sunrise, watching flock after flock of Canada geese rise from resting places at the edge of a lake and pass low overhead. In that orange light, their plumage was like brown velvet. Or I have found that deep awareness of life and its meaning in the eyes of a beloved cat.

Commentary: Ms. Carson’s epochal Silent Spring, that awakened the contemporary environmental movement offered a three part environmental ethic that spoke to 1) preserving human health, 2) respect for the intrinsic value of non-human life, and 3) keeping Nature for human edification and happiness.

How was this ethic arrived at? Through personal experience, that she later described as a sense of wonder, where the aesthetic, the intellectual, the intuitive, and the imaginative faculties converged. Moral psychologists, drawing on evolutionary biology, now speculate that “do no harm” is one of five moral colors that are hardwired into the human psyche; that "do no harm" is a recognition of the life of the other being.

Search yourself: Have you had experiences similar to the sort that Ms. Carson describes—a transformative experience that took you out of self into an awareness of another life or lives?Ms. Carson’s awareness didn’t anthropomorphize, but respected the other life on its own merits, for its own being. Have you ever encountered another life in its full uniqueness, what the philosopher Martin Buber declared to be a subject and not an object?

Animal Rights: An Ethic of Species Equality

2011-01-05T10:50:00.000-08:00

in Tom Regan and Peter Singer (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations, New Jersey, 1989, Peter Singer wrote:

A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons and an extension or reinterpretation of the basic moral principle of equality. Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an unjustifiable prejudice. Who can say with confidence that all his or her attitudes and practices are beyond criticism? If we wish to avoid being numbered amongst the oppressors, we must be prepared to re-think even our most fundamental attitudes. We need to consider them from the point of view of those most disadvantaged by our attitudes, and the practices that follow from these attitudes. If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may discover a pattern in our attitudes and practices that consistently operates so as to benefit one group—usually the one to which we ourselves belong—at the expense of another. In this way we may come to see that there is a case for a new liberation movement. My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species. …

But what is this capacity to enjoy the good life which all humans have, but no other animals? Other animals have emotions and desires and appear to be capable of enjoying a good life. We may doubt that they can think—although the behavior of some apes, dolphins, and even dogs suggests that some of them can—but what is the relevance of thinking? Frankena goes on to admit that by "the good life" he means "not so much the morally good life as the happy or satisfactory life," so thought would appear to be unnecessary for enjoying the good life; in fact to emphasize the need for thought would make difficulties for the egalitarian since only some people are capable of leading intellectually satisfying lives, or morally good lives. This makes it difficult to see what Frankena's principle of equality has to do with simply being human. Surely every sentient being is capable of leading a life that is happier or less miserable than some alternative life, and hence has a claim to be taken into account. In this respect the distinction between humans and nonhumans is not a sharp division, but rather a continuum along which we move gradually, and with overlaps between the species, from simple capacities for enjoyment and satisfaction, or pain and suffering, to more complex ones.

Commentary: Peter Singer is a controversial ethicist whose general outlook is utilitarian: the greatest good for the greatest number. His 1975 book Animal Liberation anticipated and helped lead the late 20th century animal rights movement, though he obviously prefers the notion of liberation over rights. This outlook seeks to lessen the oppression of animals generally by the human species. He also helped promote the notion of speciesism, similar to parallel prejudices such as racism and ageism.

Search Yourself: Do you consider yourself, a member of the human species, "superior" to other animals--perhaps along the old biblical line of a hierarchy of creation. Do you agree with Singer that suffering is a primary criterion on which to center an ethical system?

The Ethic of the Common Good

2010-05-16T19:57:00.001-07:00

from 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, delivered by Barbara Charline Jordan, 12 July 1976, New York, NY

This is the question which must be answered in 1976: Are we to be one people bound together by common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor; or will we become a divided nation? For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future. We must not become the "New Puritans" and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals, and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

As a first step -- As a first step, we must restore our belief in ourselves. We are a generous people, so why can't we be generous with each other? We need to take to heart the words spoken by Thomas Jefferson:

Let us restore the social intercourse -- "Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and that affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things."

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good. A government is invigorated when each one of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation. In this election year, we must define the "common good" and begin again to shape a common future. Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.

And now, what are those of us who are elected public officials supposed to do? We call ourselves "public servants" but I'll tell you this: We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good if we are derelict in upholding the common good. More is required -- More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If -- If we as public officials propose, we must produce. If we say to the American people, "It is time for you to be sacrificial" -- sacrifice. If the public official says that, we [public officials] must be the first to give. We must be. And again, if we make mistakes, we must be willing to admit them. We have to do that. What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.

Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It's tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny; if each of us remembers, when self-interest and bitterness seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.

I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.

Commentary: This is one of the earlier articulations of the contemporary ethic of the common good. Read in light of the fractiousness and rancor of 2010 Ms. Jordan's words seem prophetic. The common good can be achieved only by individuals committing to work together for shared goals. Leaders, in particular, have a solemn responsibility to work for the common good--what they proclaim they must embody.

Search Yourself: What is the extent of your willingness to commit to the common good? Do you apply the values of harmony and affection in your social relations? What results from such social generosity?

Truth and Reconciliation

2009-12-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

from "Speech: Acceptance of Truth and Reconciliation Report." by Nelson Mandela, October 29, 1998

South Africa is no longer the country it was when we adopted the Interim Constitution in 1993, when together we resolved to overcome the legacy of our violent and inhuman past.

Out of that negotiation process emerged a pact to uncover the truth, the better to build a bright future for our children and grandchildren, without regard to race, culture, religion or language.

Today we reap some of the harvest of what we sowed at the end of a South African famine.

[Tribute to those who "opened wounds of guilt.]" And so as we observe this stage of the TRC process, we should pay tribute to the 20,000 men and women who relived their pain and loss in order to share it with us; the hundreds who dared to open the wounds of guilt so as to exorcise it from the nation's body politic; indeed the millions who make up the South African people and who made it happen so that we could indeed become a South African nation. …

[Report reawakens "troubling emotions."] Though the interim report is formally given to me as president, it is in reality a report to all of us.

For that reason it is being released to the public and given to our elected representatives without a moment's delay.

Its release is bound to reawaken many of the difficult and troubling emotions that the hearings themselves brought.

Many of us will have reservations about aspects of what is contained in these five volumes.

All are free to make comment on it and indeed we invite you to do so.

And for those who feel unjustly damaged, there are remedies.

[No instant reconciliation.] The commission was not required to muster a definitive and comprehensive history of the past three decades.

Nor was it expected to conjure up instant reconciliation.

And it does not claim to have delivered these either.

Its success in any case depended on how far all of us co-operated with it.

Yet we are confident that it has contributed to the work in progress of laying the foundation of the edifice of reconciliation.

Commentary: South Africa adopted a powerful ethical process, truth and reconciliation, to break the cycle of oppression and violence--the ugly legacy of apartheid. The notion of reconciliation has Christian overtones, as it seeks to restore estrangement. (In the Catholic tradition the Sacrament of Reconciliation involves confession and repentance.) Through reconciliation a relationship out of balance is ultimately restored. Truth-telling, by both parties, is the beginning. This mutual telling and being heard/understood triggers the process. (Think of the adage, "the truth will set you free.") In this regard truth is a moral force, like love, that transforms not only individuals but societies.

Search yourself: Have you exerienced the transformative power of truth: 1) as a truth teller and 2) a truth hearer? Remembering Sisela Bok's insights into Lying, what are the practical, corrosive consequences of not telling the truth?

A Moral Order of Human Freedom and Rights

2009-11-18T16:58:00.000-08:00

from "The Four Freedoms," Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 6 January, 1941

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment -- The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. …

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. …

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.

Commentary: With remarkable efficiency of words Roosevelt connected human rights and freedom with a moral order extending beyond the American experience to embrace the whole world. This source of American national security promises to lead to world stability/security. This people-centered world view as a basis for meeting global vulnerabilities is a radical departure from traditional, nation-based schemes of effecting international relations. A doctrine of human security (in contrast to national security) is a signature of an emerging globalization.

Search yourself: Do you agree that freedom--everywhere and for everyone--is the basis of a world moral order and path to a secure American nation and a secure world? Are there reasonable limits to freedom, specifically freedoms of speech and religion? What role does economic justice play in the scheme of civil liberties?

The Ethic of Unconditional Love

2009-11-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

from “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” Martin Luther King, Jr,, delivered April 4, 1967

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

Commentary: In this, one of his most remarkable speeches, Martin Luther King Jr. raises up love as "the supreme unifying principle of life," recognized by the world religions and certainly at the center of Christianity. It is time, in the course of world events, to practice "an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind." He also posits love's opposite, hate, as "a self-defeating path." He implies that love is the path of life.

Search yourself: Is love a universal organizing principle realized throughout the world? Can the various components,--nations, ethnicities, and religions--of what remains a contentious world practice "an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind?" Can you shift your attitude to love all humankind unconditionally?

Self -Transcendence: The Will-to-Meaning

2009-10-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

from Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, 1963

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding hismouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way —an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. …

By declaring that man is a responsible creature and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. By the same token, the real aim of human existence cannot be found in what is called self-actualization. Human existence is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. Self-actualization is not a possible aim at all, for the simple reason that the more a man would strive for it, the more he would miss it. For only to the extent to which man commits himself to the fulfillment of his life's meaning, to this extent he also actualizes himself. In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

Commentary: Viktor Frankl, relative to the search for meaning, places the individual squarely in the world. He later asserts there are three ways of experiencing meaning: by doing a deed, by experiencing a value, and by suffering. Originally his narrative had the title From Death Camp to Existentialism. His ethic of the will-to-meaning is conditioned by being not separate from, but being embedded in the world. In this regard each individual has her or his unique vocation or mission to fulfill. It is in fulfillment of this unique and personal task that meaning with a measure of transcendence is realized.

Search yourself: In your experience how have you realized meaning and self- transcendence? (Remember Frankl's three ways: doing a deed, experiencing a value such as love, or by suffering.) Do you agree that self-actualization is a futile quest, whereas it is achieved through self-transcendence?

Choice: Thou Mayest

2009-10-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

from East of Eden, John Steinbeck, 1952

"After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—'Thou shalt' and 'Do thou.' And this was the gold from our mining: ''Thou, mayest.' 'Thou mayest rule over sin.'"

"Don't you see?" he cried. "The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—'Thou may-est'—that gives a choice. It might be the most impor tant word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' Don't you see?" …

Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is impor tant. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win." …

It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentle men who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?"

Adam said, "Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?"

Lee said, "These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars." Lee's eyes shone. "You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness." …

I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed— because 'Thou mayest.'

Commentary: In East of Eden Steinbeck dealt with the great issue of good and evil in the guise of the story of Caine and Abel. (Remember he wrote in the wake of the Holocaust and Hiroshima.) He settles on an ethic of choice, that in every situation a person has the free will to choose good or evil. This freedom to choose is a transcendent ethic, "a ladder to the stars" and the means to a god-likeness. He doesn't neglect the reality that some degrade themselves, however this is a matter of weakness, cowardice, and laziness--not essential aspects of the human condition. This is a heroic ethic, as well as an heroic appraisal of the human soul, always attacked and never destroyed. I find the ethic of choice reflective of 20th existentialism and humanism.

Search yourself: Do you feel a full measure of your existential freedom, to literally choose your destiny in every situation of your life? Can you envision yourself as an everyday hero? Do you actively resist weakness, cowardice, and laziness--all those attributes that threaten that glittering instrument, the human soul you posess?

A Land Ethic

2009-10-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

from A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, 1948

When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in Troy, he hanged all on one rope a dozen slave-girls of his house-hold, whom he suspected of misbehavior during his absence.

This hanging involved no question of propriety. The girls were property. The disposal of property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not of right and wrong.

Concepts of right and wrong were not lacking from Odysseus' Greece: witness the fidelity of his wife through the long years before at last his black-prowed galleys clove the wine-dark seas for home. The ethical structure of that day covered wives, but had not yet been extended to human chattels. During the three thousand years which have since elapsed, ethical criteria have been extended to many fields of conduct, with corresponding shrinkages in those judged by expediency only.

The Ethical Sequence

This extension of ethics, so far studied only by philosophers, is actually a process in ecological evolution. Its sequence may be described in ecological as well as in philosophic terns. An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct. These are two definitions of one thing. The thing has its origin in the tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve modes of co-operation. The ecologist calls thse symbioses. Politics and economics are advanced syrnbioses in which the original free-for-all competition has been replaced, in part, by co-operative mechanisms with an ethical content.

The complexity of co-operative mechanisms has increase with population density, and with the efficiency of tools. It was simpler, for example, to define the anti-social uses of sticks and stones in the days of the mastodons than of bullets and billboards in the age of motors.

The first ethics dealt with the relation between individuals; the Mosaic Decalogue is an example. Later accretions dealt with the relation between the individual and society. The Golden Rule tries to integrate the individual to society, democracy to integrate social organization to the individual.

There is as yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus' slave-girls, is still property. The land relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but no obligations.

The extension of ethics to this third element in human environment is, if I read the evidence correctly, an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity. It is the third step in a sequence. The first two have already been taken. Individual thinkers since the days of Ezekiel and Isaiah have asserted that the despoliation of land is not only inexpedient but wrong. Society, however, has not yet affirmed their belief. I regard the present conservation movement a the embryo of such an affirmation.

An ethic may be regarded as a mode of guidance for meeting ecological situations so new or intricate, or involving such deferred reactions, that the path of social expediency is not discernible to the average individual. Animal instincts are modes of guidance for the individual in meeting such situations. Ethics are possibly a kind of community instinct in-the-making. ...

The Community Concept

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for). ...

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. ...

The 'key-log' which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Commentary: The genius of Aldo Leopold involved extending ethics from the merely human to a larger realm--the biotic realm or Nature. He argued that in the course of human civilization and understanding ethics have evolved, that ethics might also have an ecological dimension. Similar to Albert Schweitzer, Aldo Leopold arrived at a simple ethical formula: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Search yourself: How far do your relationships extend? Do your responsibilities, your sphere of cooperation, include the realm that Aldo Leopold summarized as "the Land," including all the life the land sustains. Do you see this larger community as a matter of interdependence in which you are implicated/involved?

Lying: White Lies

2009-09-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

from Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, Sissela Bok, 1978.

Any awareness of how lies spread must generate a real sensitivity to the fact that most lies believed to be "white" are unnecessary if not downright undesirable. Many are not as harmless as liars take them to be. And even those lies which would generally be accepted as harmless are not needed whenever their goals can be achieved through completely honest means. …

I would not wish to argue that all white lies should be ruled out. Individuals caught up in the practices of making inflated recommendations, for example, may have no other recourse. In a few cases, placebos may be the only reasonable alternative. And certain marginally deceptive social excuses and conventions are unavoidable if feelings are not to be needlessly injured.

But these are very few. And it is fallacious to argue that all white lies are right because a few are. As a result, those who undertake to tell white lies should look hard for alternatives. They should see even these lies as links in much wider practices and should know the ways in which these practices can spread. If they do, white lies, where truly harmless and a last resort—told, for instance, to avoid hurting someone's feelings—can be accepted as policy, but only under such limited circumstances.

Most of us doubtless come into more frequent contact with white lies than with any other form of deception. To the extent that we train ourselves to see their ramifications and succeed in eliminating them from our speech, the need to resort to them will diminish. If we can then make it clear to others that we stand in no need of white lies from them, many needless complications will have been avoided.

A word of caution is needed here. To say that white lies should be kept at a minimum is not to endorse the telling of truths to all comers. Silence and discretion, respect for the privacy and for the feelings of others must naturally govern what is spoken. The gossip one conveys and the malicious reports one spreads may be true without therefore being excusable. And the truth told in such a way as to wound may be unforgivably cruel, as when a physician answers a young man asking if he has cancer with a curt Yes as he leaves the room. He may not have lied, but he has failed in every professional duty of respect and concern for his patient.

Commentary: Few areas are more explicit regarding moral relativism than the realm of "white lies." Sissela Bok points out the dangers inherent in not taking white lies seriously. She cautions "most lies believed to be 'white' are unnecessary if not downright undesirable." Few areas of morality are as ubiquitous /ordinary and therefore as dangerous a slippery slope. To thoughtlessly accept or offer white lies contributes to a culture of deceit.

Search yourself: When/how do you use "white lies." What is your motivation: to "save" yourself or to "save" the other? And what are you saving the self or the other from?

The Banality of Evil and an Ethic of Nonconformity

2009-09-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

from "The Penguin Reader’s Guide" to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)

"Arendt portrays Eichmann as a 'joiner,' a conformist, describing him as 'a leaf in the whirlwind of time' (p. 32). It is this aspect of his character, according to her, rather than any deeply held convictions shared with the Nazi Party or a rabid hatred of Jews, that accounts for his actions during the war. Apart from determining Eichmann's motivation is the question that, as Arendt observes, must be asked of any criminal defendant: was he aware that his actions were in fact criminal? The prosecution had to assume that he was, as all ‘normal persons' would be (p. 26). But Arendt asserts that, 'under the conditions of the Third Reich only "exceptions" could be expected to react "normally"' (pp. 26–27). With considerable insight and detail, Arendt explains how Germany's leaders went about creating these conditions, to the point that 'conscience as such had apparently got lost in Germany.' There were individuals who resisted, she notes, but 'their voices were never heard' (p. 103).

"In Arendt's view, the real circumstances of Eichmann's actions never came fully to light during the trial. This is why, in part, the trial obscures what for Arendt is 'the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil' (p. 252). Eichmann claimed that as his job shifted from forcing Jews from their homes to arranging for them to be killed, he was troubled by the new policy but felt duty-bound to obey his superiors. In fact, he said that not following orders was the only thing that would have given him a bad conscience."

* * *

“The Unknown Citizen”(1939) by W.H. Auden

(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Commentary: Hannah Arendt and W.H. Auden look at modern man/woman, c. mid 20th century, as conformist, who do not think for his/her self and therefore have no conscience, or at the very least whose conscience is mere loyalty to the state or an echo of public opinion. Arendt and Auden insinuate an ethic centered in reason or rational thought with a commensurate responsive conscience: an ethic of non-conformity and personal responsibility. In the contemporary world one must be a non-conformist to be truly free and then possibly happy.

Search yourself: Do you imagine your life in society "as a leaf in the whirlwind of time?" Dare you ask yourself, "Am I free, am I happy?" Are you complicit in the banality of evil?

Reverence for Life

2009-09-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

from "The Ethics of Reverence for Life," Albert Schweitzer, in “Christendom” Magazine, 1936

“Here, then, is the first spiritual act in man’s experience: reverence for life. The consequence of it is that he comes to realize his dependence upon events quite beyond his control. Therefore he becomes resigned. And this is the second spiritual act: resignation. …

“I have said that resignation is the very basis of ethics. Starting from this position, the will-to-live comes first to veracity as the primary ground of virtue. If I am faithful to my will-to-live, I cannot disguise this fact, even though such disguise or evasion might seem to my advantage. Reverence for my will-to-live leads me to the necessity of being sincere with myself. And out of this fidelity to my own nature grows all my faithfulness. Thus, sincerity is the first ethical quality which appears. However lacking one may be in other respects, sincerity is the one thing which he must possess. Nor is this point of view to be found only among people of complex social life. Primitive cultures show the fact to be equally true there. Resignation to the will-to-live leads directly to this first virtue: sincerity.

“Having reached this point, then, I am in a position to look at the world. I ask knowledge what it can tell me of life. Knowledge replies that what it can tell me is little, yet immense. Whence this universe came, or whither it is bound, or how it happens to be at all, knowledge cannot tell me. Only this: that the will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. I do not need science to tell me this; but it cannot tell me anything more essential. Profound and marvelous as chemistry is, for example, it is like all science in the fact that it can lead me only to the mystery of life, which is essentially in me, however near or far away it may be observed.

“What shall be my attitude toward this other life? It can only be of a piece with my attitude towards my own life. If I am a thinking being, I must regard other life than my own with equal reverence. For I shall know that it longs for fulness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds good whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development. …

“Reverence for life is a universal ethic.

“We do not say this because of its absolute nature, but because of the boundlessness of its domain. Ordinary ethics seeks to find limits within the sphere of human life and relationships. But the absolute ethics of the will-to-live must reverence every form of life, seeking so far as possible to refrain from destroying any life, regardless of its particular type. It says of no instance of life, "This has no value." It cannot make any such exceptions, for it is built upon reverence for life as such. It knows that the mystery of life is always too profound for us, and that its value is beyond our capacity to estimate. We happen to believe that man’s life is more important than any other form of which we know. But we cannot prove any such comparison of value from what we know of the world’s development. True, in practice we are forced to choose. At times we have to decide arbitrarily which forms of life, and even which particular individuals, we shall save, and which we shall destroy. But the principle of reverence for life is none the less universal.”

Commentary: There is simplicity, yet universality, to Albert Schweitzer's ethic of Reverence for Life. Each of us, with a will-to-live, reveres one's own life. (We want to live and to live without suffering.) Through reason we see the same will-to-live in all other life forms. And what we want for self, life and freedom from suffering, we logically and compassionately, that is ethically, extend to those life forms. Yet we cannot live without taking life and inflicting pain. We endure ambivalence when we affirm and act from a simple ethical rubric: it is good to enhance life and it is evil to destroy life.

Search yourself: In what ways do you act so as to do as little harm as possible? (Example: as a vegetarian I eat eggs for protein, yet have vowed to buy only cage-free eggs, since caged hens appear to endure extraordinary suffering.) Also, because we must live with a resulting moral ambivalence (inevitably we take life and cause suffering for our particular welfare), how do you express reverence to the life forms that have been harmed?

Indifference

2009-09-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

from "The Perils of Indifference," a speech, Elie Wiesel, April, 1999

"What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

"Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction. ...

"In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.

"Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.

"Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment."

C0mmentary: Elie Wiesel raises up the value of humanity. In saying, Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction, he echoes the relational theology of Martin Buber. Buber posited that meaning is found through relationships, when subject (I) encounters subject (thou). (And according to Buber all genuine relationships converge in the Eternal Thou or God.)

Wiesel asks, Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it clear that indifference is never a virtue. In fact it is both a sin and a punishment.

The ethic Elie Wiesel puts foward is a hard, relentless, unforgiving ethic.

Search yourself: To whom are you indifferent? And what is your punishment? (How is your humanity diminished?) Is it possible to live in the real world without lapses of indifference, without subsequent sin and punishment?