FEA ConstitutionManual of Professional Practice, Part IManual of Professional Practice, Part IIResolving Ethical DilemmasExample ExaminationMini Case StudiesBiblical ReferencesCommon Sense and Everyday Ethics, Part IA FOUR-WAY TEST Here's a brief four-way test that may help you to determine what is right and what is wrong in a given situation. Of course, if you are a philosopher who has been tenured in your tower for twenty years, you might think this procedure is just too elemental, too understandable, and much too practical. (1) Look at the community in which you live and the society in general. What is the normal behavior in this society? Relate your question to this normative standard of conduct. How does it fit the social norms that reflect the ethical principles society has developed as its core guidelines? (2) Now, consider your question again and think about the laws of your community, of your state, and of your nation. How does your question satisfy the laws? (3) Then search out an answer from your conscience. No one knows exactly what a conscience is, but everyone seems to have one. Sometimes the door to your conscience may not have been opened in such a long time that you'll need to pry it open. But do it, and see how your question fits your conscience. (4) There is still one more step. Most people believe in God, but if you don't, imagine there is a God - ask Him your question. He may only give you a hint as to what you should do, but ask Him anyway. Since this is a private exercise, and none of these steps costs you anything, you might as well go the whole way if you really want to know what is ethical. You'll notice I put asking God last in this series of steps because that gives you a chance to review your first three checks before presenting the results to God.
As we try to achieve our human potential, our ethical potential, we need all the help we can get. So try this absurdly simplistic, but profoundly elemental method some of the time or maybe all of the time until you get in the habit of telling the truth and trying to be ethical.
For those who might have dropped out at one of the steps in our procedure, let us discuss our conscience for a moment. The conscience is where the ethical and moral unite to become one force. (Later in this essay we shall discuss the distinction between the ethical and the moral.) It is usually biased toward the good, often representing our "second opinion." It combines our intuitive response and our reflective response. The conscience is the coalescence of empirical reasoning and the faith that is mystical. When we use the term mystical, we suggest that there are sources of influence not derived from the norms of society. If any society derives its total ethical guidelines from the society alone, it will first stagnate and then deteriorate.
But it is not desirable only to "let your conscience be your guide," as the old admonition says. By a process of Iying to oneself, one can disconnect the mystical or transcendental message of the conscience from the rational. If this process becomes a habit, wrong can appear as right, to paraphrase Thomas Paine.
What about Iying?
Lying is an omnipresent social disease that may be endured in mild forms, but at advanced and epidemic stages it can erupt to destroy the foundations of a free society. Today many people do not consider Iying dishonest. To them the threshold of dishonesty begins with stealing! A significant number do not even consider stealing very dishonest, maybe not at all when one steals from large businesses such as insurance companies, big retailers, or utilities. Some people feel so impersonally toward big business that they do not think of a big corporation as having any particular ownership.
And the government doesn't fare any better. The honor system of paying one's proper taxes, which has been so effective, is now eroding noticeably. The "underground economy" is already enormous, and is still growing. Unreported earnings from cash income taken in by various industries and services have been estimated at over $200 billion annually. As the tax of inflation increases, the pressure to stay off the books increases. This type of Iying isn't just a harmless social habit or game that can easily be tolerated ethically or morally. Whichever comes first, a decline in a society's honesty and morality or a severe inflationary spiral, the two do seem to go together.
People will claim that they lie because they do not wish to hurt someone by telling the truth. Such a statement represents one of the most common lies extant. Much so-called kindhearted Iying not to harm others or to help others is really intended to obligate or tempt others to lie for you, if the occasion arises. The inescapable conclusion of this line of thinking is that it is all right to lie anytime it will benefit oneself or one's friend. But what if everyone used this standard? The danger in tolerating or institutionalizing Iying is that sooner or later, when everyone thinks the other person will lie, you won't be able to trust anyone. Such a life would be scarcely worth living, or at least it would not be the sort of life that would be meaningful and enjoyable.
There are not many forms of Iying that the average child has not figured out by the time he is in the sixth grade. Unfortunately, his parents and the adult population as a whole will often fail to progress beyond the sixth-grade level in their own reasons for Iying. Lying often results from a person trying to conform. To a considerable extent, such conformity is socially necessary and desirable, but conformity should not be confused with a necessity for Iying. Doubtless there may be times when it might seem preferable to lie rather than not to lie, but there is seldom an occasion in the entire lifetime of a citizen living in a free country when he must lie to save his life, his country, or even his business.
Can ethics be taught?
After several decades of supporting a predominantly value-free educational policy, many public school systems in recent years have begun to recognize the urgent need to teach values again. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of suitable and well-tested value-teaching materials. Certain value-clarification materials in use may have done more harm than good, considering the effects on student behavior. But the most confusing question is: Where do ethics and values end and morality and religion begin? This question is aggravated by the continuing tradition of most philosophers and educators to concentrate on the term "moral education."
Parents are often suspicious of the term "moral education," whereas they are generally supportive of "ethical values" in education. They welcome all the help they can get from the schools in teaching their children to be honest, self-disciplined, responsible, and trustworthy and in assisting them to become good individuals and good citizens. But they do not wish to have their own roles or that of their church or synagogue supplanted when it comes to teaching religion and morality.
The terms ethics and morality have long been used more or less interchangeably. Both ethics and morality refer to rules or standards of conduct. We can distinguish between the two by stating that when the term morality is used in our society, it is generally assumed that what is moral or immoral relates to religious guidelines. Ethical standards, although common to all major religions, need not be related to any transcendental or religious source. Ethics is the common denominator of science and religion.
We found in our consumer survey on the meaning of ethics and morality that the public does tend to associate ethics with rational, nonreligious choices concerning values, honesty, whether to steal or not, work hard or even enough, and so on. But people seem rather instinctively to associate morality with sex and the self, and readily to ascribe a transcendental or mystical origin to morality. Morality seems to have its own special connotation.
The public is often considered to be not so smart, but it always seems to be more shrewd than politicians and educators think. I believe the public's attitude toward the different meanings of morality and ethics is correct. Ethics should not be primarily perceived as a moral guideline, but as a cooperative, basic, working social principle. Most of the value-teaching materials available to schools should be reassessed and reconceptualized to fit more suitably into what the public already believes and the sociobiological sciences suggest.
The essence of ethics is action, and the clergy should demand more of the faithful.... The evidence of faith is good works.
Some church leaders have failed to show the courage and forthrightness that an uncompromising faith should have given them. They should not fear to tell any audience that one cannot substitute capital for labor in affirming one's faith. A tithe is not a ticket to heaven. One cannot do good by doing nothing. Being good is more than sitting at home listening to a radio or TV sermon in response to which you are asked to "send your letters" with a cash contribution. The essence of ethics is action, and the clergy should demand more of the faithful. As has been told to us, the evidence of faith is good works.
And what do government bureaucrats think about all this lack of self-discipline and short rationed responsibility to the country as a whole? It may surprise some of their critics, as it did me, that many government bureaucrats wish to be good citizens first. They think just as you and I do. They think it is one of the burning shames of history that individuals and groups in a great nation such as the United States should elect to rip off one another and create such disruptive disorder as to not only invite but make necessary an ever-increasing number of government regulations and interventions. Yet so very many of these bureaucrats still fear to speak up.
More than at any time in many years, the top priority for politicians must be to put the welfare of the nation first. If you are a member of the United States Congress who has put forth your best effort on behalf on your constituents, assure them that you have done just that. Then tell them there are times when you believe that it is most beneficial to them and to the country as a whole if you rank the national welfare first. Of course, such a decision would not leave you much time for the special issues and special interests.
The listing of priorities is a game that could include many participants. There are numerous individuals who ask: "What can I do to help in the campaign to make America honest enough to stay free?" The answer is simple. Wherever you are and whoever you are, first make sure that you are honest yourself. Then take the next step; it is a long and continuous one. Make sure that those with whom you do business are honest. Whenever anyone tries to shortchange you in money, product, or services, demand satisfaction. If you do not get satisfaction, then call the president of the company or the owner, wherever he or she is. Most businesses really want their customers to be happy. But always be persistent in your demands for honesty. If everybody demanded their money's worth, people would soon find it was not profitable to be dishonest. Every individual citizen owes it to every other citizen to be honest and to demand that others be honest. This should be our way of life - the character of our habits.
We are not interested in virtue for virtue's sake. We want the dishonest people, white collar and blue-collar criminals alike, to be considered as aliens in our society. They are enemies who will eventually destroy our freedom, if we just sit back and tolerate them. To be honest, a society must believe in honesty. To be free, it must believe in freedom.
If everybody demanded their money's worth, people would soon find it was not profitable to be dishonest.
There are still some business leaders, including economists and planners from both the public and private sectors, who have failed to recognize that as an economy expands and as technology advances, the need for better ethics increases exponentially. The question is not whether or not we are as honest and ethical as we used to be. The more complex and interdependent a social system becomes, the more we have to cooperate with, to trust and depend upon, one another. The problem of energy illustrates this challenge. The movement from our historical abundance of cheap energy to a period of scarcity and high cost makes our society vulnerable to severe economic and social dislocations. To meet this challenge and others in its wake, to function efficiently as a free society, we must be far more ethical, more self-disciplined and responsible, than we ever thought we could be.
We have heard much criticism about the United States. Nevertheless, individuals and nations throughout the world still look to, and expect, the United States to set ethical and moral standards for world civilization. Not only does America provide military security for other nations, but it is also our moral and ethical obligation to exemplify the advantages of economic and political freedom. The United States is mankind's best hope not only to survive, but to evolve, to move up to a higher level of civilization.
Leaders in other areas of the world should not be in a position to excuse their own failures by pointing to the United States and saying: "Look, America with all its great resources, with the Bill of Rights, is not doing all that well." We are failing the people of those nations and failing ourselves. We have bribed where the worst have bribed. We have "pornographied" with the lowest. We have accelerated our crime and corruption, apparently for no other reason than to prove that greed to the affluent is as powerful a temptation as is bread to the starving.
We urge our fellow Americans to rise to the demands of our times and create a strong, unified, and proud feeling for our country, for the nation as one. Let us not sit and watch our home of the free be destroyed from within. Let those critics and cynics who clamor for fairness and justice come down from their catbird seats and lead the way by first demanding the honesty and ethics without which there can be no fairness and justice. No matter by what name the system is described, democratic capitalism, democratic socialism or whatever, no government that is not honest will benefit the people. No fraternity of peers, in politics or professions, should accept those whose actions serve to debase or destroy the ethical standards of society. We must have the courage to reject those who blatantly or deviously place their own short-term political or financial gains ahead of what's good for the nation. Let us face the question that now confronts every businessman, politician, professional person, and indeed, every citizen: Shall we be honest and free or dishonest and policed?
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