Maintaining Ethical Integrity—The Rules of Engagement

Presented to

The International Symposium of Military Ethics

Adazi Training Center

Riga, Latvia

March 5-10, 2002

by

John A. Haien

Department of Philosophy

The Metropolitan State College of Denver

USA

jhaien@mrktngintell.com

The powerful technology of our age places equally powerful demands on our ability to make responsible ethical decisions.  The civilian tools of production and the military’s tools of war stand ready upon a moment’s decision to influence millions of lives for better or worse.  Moreover, modern communications technology allows both responsible and irresponsible decisions affecting entire societies to travel toward implementation at the speed of light.  

       Our technology being so powerful, we feel a need for organized reflection on the far-reaching consequences of our decisions.   Standing in conflict with a need for reflection is an ability to almost instantly communicate and implement decisions.  We can be made to feel as if the process of choosing an action should be as undelayed and immediate as the means of communicating it.  This conflict creates tension in the boardroom and battlefield alike.   The human decision-maker increasingly becomes a scapegoat in the timeline of action.  His immediate decision and action receives higher value than his responsible, thorough, and organized reflection.

       How can we organize our ethical decision making and maintain ethical integrity under the demands of this age?  How can we resist arbitrary pressures from superiors, peers, society, and our own hurriedness in order to reason responsibly and even defend our decisions when necessary?

PART I.  THREE ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES

The first step in answering these questions requires a survey of the technique of moral decision.  Philosophers have traditionally proposed various theoretical methods for deciding a moral issue.   Each of their methods falls under three different groups or classifications. [1] I will call each of these three groups a “perspective of reflection.”

The Benefit Perspective

Through reflection by benefit, we consider how a course of action will cause pleasure or pain, benefit or harm, to everyone affected.  Applying this perspective is often referred to as seeking “the greatest good for the greatest number.”  As a first step, we divide consequences of the action into two categories—beneficial ones and harmful ones.  We then consider how many people will be touched by these consequences, along with the intensity of the benefit and harm they will experience.  An action is morally right if it creates more pleasure than pain, more benefit than harm.  Conversely, a wrong action generates an excess of pain over pleasure.

The debate over searching the traveling public’s belongings shows a familiar application of the benefit perspective.  Such searches create delays, inconvenience, and embarrassment for every passenger boarding a commercial airline.  But why does this practice meet with so little resistance?   Applying the benefit perspective, the main considerations are the pain and inconvenience endured by the majority of travelers balanced against the preservation of pleasure in the form of security for a minority of these travelers who would be at risk in a highjacking. Very arguably, searching travelers creates a net benefit in terms of keeping safe the very lives of the few hundred travelers who might die in highjackings each year—a benefit which is not even offset by inconvenience and displeasure to millions of travelers who will reach their destinations safely.  By the benefit perspective, airport searches are rightful.

The benefit perspective appears very straightforward and intuitive at first.  However, it may lead us to judge as rightful several types of actions which affront our moral sensitivity.  Because it emphasizes a balance of pleasure over pain as the touchstone of right action, it can sanction actions which are widely considered immoral.  Consider, for example, the United States court case of York vs. Story.  The plaintiff, a woman of the State of California, was victimized by an assault.  A male police officer photographed the woman unclothed under the pretense of collecting “evidence” of her injuries.  Instead of maintaining these photographs in confidential evidence files, however, the police officer made duplicate photographs for his own use.  He later distributed these photographs to other officers in a spirit of humor. [2]   Here it is at least possible that the enjoyment to the officers who viewed the photographs far outweighed any embarrassment to the woman.  However, we feel very instinctively that some actions such as the policeman’s are wrong regardless of how much net benefit or enjoyment these actions generate.  For emphasis of this point, let us suppose that the plaintiff in the case never discovered this prank.  Therefore, she would never have felt any embarrassment or displeasure.  In such a case, the enjoyment of several police officers would not be balanced by any harm caused to the victim of the prank.  Even in circumstances where the victim is unaware and therefore unharmed by the deception, it is difficult to accept that the prank was an example of right action. [3]

Adherents to the benefit perspective are certainly correct that our moral reasoning involves attending to the happiness and unhappiness caused to others.  However, they tend to overlook the fact that we sometimes disqualify considerations of net happiness from standing alone in the determination of rightful action.

The Perspective of Self-Interest

A second perspective requires reflection exclusively on the long-term consequences of an action to oneself.  According to this means of decision, an action is right or obligatory if it maximizes my happiness.  Pursuing self-interest, however, does not exclude me from performing actions which benefit others.  It is perfectly reasonable for me to act in the interest of others so long as what I do will also bring about the most happiness for me.  Also, it does not mandate the performance of selfish actions.  I am not required to act in such as way that pursuit of my self interest is always accomplished at the expense of others.  For example, good relations with other people being important for my happiness, I will be careful not to alienate others by rude behavior,  I may even pay other persons compliments, keep my word, or perform favors for them to maintain their friendship.  Through their friendship, I hope to receive their respect and favors at a future date. Preserving their happiness is a means to fulfilling mine.  This stands in strong contrast to the benefit perspective, according to which I guide my actions in pursuit of the greatest net benefit for everyone.

The perspective of self-interest, like the benefit perspective, has critical weaknesses or blind spots.  For example, self-interest does not explain how to arbitrate conflicts between mutually exclusive actions.  Suppose a situation where two men are in need of a heart transplant.  Both receive news that a heart is available.  Applying the self-interest perspective, each will recognize his obligation to secure the organ for his own use.  Each is right to do whatever is necessary to assure that his life and happiness are preserved.  Each is required to recognize the other person’s obligation to take the heart for himself.  A hopeless moral deadlock results from conflicting obligations.  Yet our purpose for using ethical perspectives is to decide between conflicting actions and decide moral priorities.  Self-benefit sometimes does not provide a means for navigating a conflict of obligation.

A more serious failing of self-interest as an ethical perspective is its arbitrary emphasis on the happiness of the decision maker.   According to the philosopher James Rachels, self-interest forces us to separate the world into two categories, “ourselves and all the rest.”  Then we are to give our own happiness priority over the happiness of others.  This can be justified only if there are specific reasons why I am different or more deserving than others of having my happiness fulfilled.  Unless I can give such a reason, pursuing my self-interest exclusively is a form of moral prejudice.   As Rachels sums up, “We should care about the interests of other people for the very same reason we care about our own interests; for their needs and desires are comparable to our own.” [4]    No moral contemplation can be complete unless it considers the interests of others in some respect.

The advocate of self-interest is surely correct that our personal happiness is important to determining rightness of actions.  The conscientious objector is certainly making a meaningful claim when he says he could never bring himself to kill another person.  And “I could never live with myself” is often the last word in deciding that an action is wrong.  Always refusing to consider how our actions influence our individual happiness would certainly be foolish.  Others being like us, however, they also deserve a place in our consideration.  And under certain circumstances, we may have to set aside our happiness to be fair to others’ needs and maintain loyalty to our moral principles.

The Principled Perspective

“It’s just wrong, and that’s all there is to it!”  is sometime heard in response to arguments for the rightness of an action according to the benefits it generates—whether the benefits accrue to everyone affected or to an individual pursuing his self-interest.  Such a strong declaration alludes to the fact that we are often willing to disregard or sacrifice nearly any benefit to uphold principles of morality.  The tragedy of war, the equality of persons in their humanity, the wrongness of theft, lying or adultery; these are some of the moral precepts we feel strongly about upholding regardless of the number of benefits one might present in argument that killing, prejudice, and acts of deception are rightful after all.

Whereas the benefit and self-interest perspectives tested the rightfulness of an action by its ability to generate favorable consequences to one or more persons, the principled perspective proposes a test of its own: an action is right only if it can be understood by our reason as an action to be practiced freely by everyone. [5]   When using the principled perspective, we are to first describe the action under consideration, formulating a “maxim”, as the philosopher Kant called it.  The maxim captures the circumstances of the action and what I intend to do.  Suppose, for example, that I require a loan of money.  I must agree to repay the loan as a condition of receiving it.  However, I am contemplating whether it would be rightful for me to agree to repayment while knowing that I can never repay the sum.    In this case, my maxim might be, “When I think myself in want of money, I will borrow money by promising to repay it although I know I can never do so.”

The principled perspective rules an action right or wrong not by the pleasure or pain it creates, but by its reasonableness and consistency.  If an action is responsible for me to carry out, surely it is responsible for everyone else to perform it in the same circumstances.  It would be inconsistent or arbitrary for me to preserve a privilege as uniquely my own, upholding myself as a moral exception among mankind.  Therefore, we must consider a world where everyone practices my maxim and no one who accepts a loan fulfills his promise to repay it.  Such a world contains a paradox: no one in such a world would be willing to loan money, it being the rule in this world that promises to repay loans are never honored.   Indeed, there would be no such thing as a loan.  In such a world where everyone practices default, I would not be able to secure the loan I hope to have through the use of false promises.  I could never accomplish the very action I am contemplating.  The paradoxical nature of the action marks it as wrongful or irresponsible.

Reflection by principle offers us a process for determining which actions are right and wrong.  However, it fails to provide a means of determining our obligation when we must choose between two mutually exclusive actions or obligations.   James Rachels describes the situation of Dutch fisherman who smuggled Jewish refugees to England during World War II.  When stopped by German patrol boats, the fishermen would be asked their destination and the number of people on the ship.  Caught between their absolute obligation to tell the truth and their obligation to protect innocent persons from execution, the fishermen would lie to the Germans and be allowed to pass. [6]   Whereas the benefit perspective requires us to choose the action which yields the greatest net benefit, the principled perspective provides no such means of deciding which action has moral priority based on net benefit.  Yet we do choose among conflicting moral obligations and rightful actions.

Strongly held principles binding upon everyone through the logic of reason are certainly part of our moral thinking and instinct.  But evidence that we make choices between obligations, choices supported by reasons such as intentions to preserve the happiness of ourselves or innocent persons, suggests that principles of pure reason cannot capture all of the dynamics of moral thinking.

PART II.  THE RULES OF INTEGRITY

Preserving moral integrity requires that our personal choice of actions conforms to all sound reasons and logical principles people habitually use to judge our behavior.  Considering that each perspective works comfortably for some ethical circumstances, but leads us to morally unsettling decisions in others, none of the three stand out as the most accurate or useful for preserving integrity.  Each has advantages and liabilities.  Which one should we choose to follow to determine our duty and moral destiny?  Philosophers have debated this question for centuries.  I suggest that instead of picking and defending a “best choice” from these three candidates, philosophers should apply their excitement for inquiry to the habits of language from which each perspective draws validity and attend more carefully to the fundamental reasons why each perspective sometimes guides us effectively yet can also leave us feeling uncomfortable about their determinations of right and wrong.  Turning our inquiry in this direction reveals a first rule for maintaining ethical integrity. 

Rule 1:  Apply All Three Perspectives To Assure Moral Integrity

A language is the structure of our thoughts and our strongest habit.  And the part of our language used for discourse concerning responsibility, duty, right and wrong, praise and blame is tremendously rich and complex.  We are very practiced in the subtle distinctions for the use of moral language when our situations and actions change from context to context.  The persons who authored the perspectives I have outlined intended to provide us with a means of making distinctions between our actions.  They wished to help us conveniently and systematically distinguish which actions would excite judgments of injustice and blame, and which would evoke judgments of rightness, fairness, and justice.   Their failing was to seize upon just one of the main considerations of right and wrong and then generalize that this consideration would capture the whole of our use of moral language and decision.  The followers of the benefit perspective, for example, focused on benefit and harm as the principle consideration behind selecting the word “right” over “wrong” in a certain context.  Likewise, the defenders of a principled perspective believe that ability to conceive an action as universally adopted is the motivation for calling actions right or wrong.

Our occasional discomfort at what one of the perspectives would have us call right holds a clue to the necessity of using all three perspectives in consort.   The generalization used by each perspective to decide right and wrong—the notion that benefit, or self interest, or principle must be the central consideration for decision—aligns our process of decision with only a small part of the workings of moral language.  But our use of moral terms stands upon considerations much broader and more subtle than any one of these perspectives can capture in one generalization.  Our habitual uses of language which are not aligned to the generalization built into any one these perspectives force us to revolt against some decisions toward which that perspective guided us.  In the case of York vs. Story, for example, a benefit perspective suggested that this action was right simple for its net benefit.  However, we felt uncomfortable to affirm this. 

Here is why.  The human conscience, moral instinct, call it what you will--far from being a mysterious force or division of the mind--is a rich collection of habits for making moral decisions and using moral language in various circumstances.  Breaking any deeply ingrained habit causes discomfort.  The variance between our habits of using “right” and the use of “right” recommended by the benefit perspective’s underlying generalization created our discomfort.

Upon recognizing the insufficiency of any one perspective to capture our habits of moral discourse, one reaction—already favored by some philosophers--might be to discard all of these perspectives as vain and incomplete attempts to guide our moral thinking.

This would be a mistake.  Although none of them fully captures the dynamics driving our rich use of ethical judgments, each perspective captures some essential part of these dynamics and reminds us of the unique species of reasoning behind our use of language in the same way that an automotive engine—very mysterious at first with all its hidden workings--becomes more comfortable to understand and more familiar when we have learned the operations of its distinct systems.  The three perspectives, used together, capture moral reasoning completely enough that when one suggests behavior which our habits of language indict with an unsettled feeling, one of the other perspectives draws our attention to our habits of language which stand in variance and cause that feeling.   In the case of York vs. Story, for example, we felt dissatisfied with a judgment that the prank played by police was right because it satisfied the interests of several people at the expense of only one woman’s embarrassment.  Important elements of moral judgment captured in the principled perspective can remind us why this is so.  To wit, in certain circumstances like York vs. Story, our habitual use of “right” is blind to net benefit and more driven by principles having no exceptions.

A need for speedy decisions in business and in warfare can force us to innocently overlook critical circumstances and facts necessary to decide right conduct.  Each of us is drawn to using one of the perspectives as a starting point—either by considering our happiness, the benefits to everyone involved, whether we could enforce the same moral choice for everyone, implications of “The Golden Rule” or even the will of God.  If we bend to haste, we can innocently end consideration after applying just one point of view, overlooking other perspectives which would uncover more options, more information, and direct our attention to the entire pallet of judgments our habits of language could evoke concerning right or wrong.  In such a case, the three perspectives are heuristics reminding us to attend to benefits and harms, self-interest, and universal logical principles which--because they may all be used in judging the moral worth of our conduct--must be identified and accounted for at the start of our decision making. 

Another metaphor clarifies the need for three perspectives.  If we reach the summit of a mountain and desire to choose our route ahead, we are wise to turn stepwise until we have looked in every direction.   We would be irresponsible to choose a route from the first direction we happen to be facing.  We would instead want to consider our options in all directions.  Rule of integrity 1 reminds us to take in 3 moral vistas of 120 degrees each to assure we choose the best path possible.

Rule 2:  Resist Rationalization and Irresponsibility

Sometimes an irresponsible decision is not a matter of oversight; it is instead very deliberate and made in bad faith.  In such situations, a person has usually decided what to do in advance of using any moral decision model.  Perhaps he has determined to satisfy his own selfishness regardless of the obvious harm or risks to others. To accommodate his choice and hide from the influence of conscience, he uses rationalizations to distract him from an obligation to choose wisely.  The rationalizations become his “reasons” why his habits of moral language and judgment deserve to be ignored.  In the words of Michael Josephson,

Moral blindness . . . is a major source of impropriety.  In some cases, this blindness results from the operation of subconscious defense mechanisms which protect the psyche from having to cope with the fact that many of the things we do and want to do are not consistent with our ethical beliefs.  Elaborate and internally persuasive excuses and rationalizations are used to fool our consciences.  Among the most potent are:

·          Everyone does it.

·          To get along, go along.

·          They don’t understand.

·          I can’t do anyone any good if I lose my job.

·          I have no time for ethical subtleties.

·          Ethics is a luxury I can’t afford right now.

·          It’s not my job/worry/problem. [7]

In 1968, the B. F. Goodrich Corporation attempted to defraud one of its customers.  Goodrich personnel prepared false information certifying that a brake system for a military aircraft conformed to the customer’s requirements.  In fact, the system’s capabilities fell far short of specifications.  Involved in the irony of falsifying certification reports for a brake which would not stop the aircraft on which it would soon be installed, a test laboratory supervisor remarks,

“I’ve been an engineer for a long time, and I’ve always believed that ethics and integrity were every bit as important as theorems and formulas, and never once has anything happened to change my beliefs.  Now this . . . .  Hell, I’ve got two sons I’ve got to put through school and I just . . . .”  His voice trailed off.

“Well, it looks like we’re licked.  The way it stands now, we’re going ahead and prepare the data and other things for the graphic presentation in the report, and when we’re finished, someone upstairs will actually write the report.

“After all, we’re just drawing some curves, and what happens to them after they leave here, well, we’re not responsible for that.

He was trying to persuade himself that as long as we were concerned with only one part of the completed picture, we really weren’t doing anything wrong.  He didn’t believe what he was saying, and he knew I didn’t believe it either. [8]

       Applying the three perspectives helps us resist rationalizations, forcing us to question whether the rationalizations and excuses we might employ completely reflect the way in which people will judge our motivations and the extent of our obligations.  Using the techniques of all three perspectives, we can more thoroughly test whether our self-persuasion is a true-to-life application of moral judgment or a vain and narrow-minded rationalization likely to distract us from the fact that consideration of benefit and harm, principle, and self-interest all belong in moral judgment.   In some cases, the three perspectives allow a self-diagnosis of our moral failing and show how to recapture integrity.  In the context above, the characters consider the issue exclusively from the perspectives of benefit and self-interest, these being the most adaptable to their need to rationalize irresponsibility. [9] (In this way using just one or two moral perspectives can actually encourage us to compromise our integrity.)  Though acknowledging principle at first, they ultimately discard from their judgment the possibility that principled reasoning applies to their work   If they had been attentive to the inflexible obligations revealed by principled judgment, if they had used a principled perspective as an objective reminder that their rationalization conveniently ignored judgments likely to be made against them, they would have been less likely to rationalize that the true scope of their obligation can conveniently conform to their irresponsible intentions.   Greater allegiance to principle could have helped them recapture their moral integrity.

Rule 3.  Persuade By Asserting The Moral Perspectives

       When we are confronted with irresponsible moral decisions of others, or when others attempt to sway us to immoral action, the three perspectives provide us with powerful tools and reminders to persuade reconsideration, defend our moral position, or rebut demands to behave unethically. [10]   Let us suppose, for example, than I am encouraged by one of the officers in the case of York vs. Story to participate in the prank.  The officer might offer a rationale by benefit, claiming that distributing the photographs will be “great fun” with no adverse consequences because the woman will never know of the activity between officers.  In keeping with the perspective of principle, I might ask if he had considered “what the world might be like” if everyone were to do such things—and even if he would be willing to choose that others might visit the same conduct on him.  For a second example, suppose the case of an anti-abortionist, his thoughts focused exclusively on the principle that abortion is wrong or murderous because it involves killing of a child.  I might admit the application of principles proscribing killing, but suggest he also examine what good or ill might come to all persons in a particular situation where an abortion is considered.  Perhaps he will be less extreme if I draw his attention to the fact that doctors predict a low chance of survival, with much agony to the point of death, should the child be born and leave the life-supporting environment of the womb.  My comment stands as a reminder that we are accustomed to finding a middle ground between strict principle and weighing of benefit.  For surely no one would say that a deformed fetus must be born and suffer to death so that principles may be preserved.

Rule 4:  Attend To Critical Facts And Be Guided By Their Ambiguity

The advent of an ability to communicate with the speed of light has created a tendency to devalue justified moral reflection, to oversimplify our reasoning to meet arbitrary standards of prompt decision, and to thereby avoid accusations of  “paralysis by analysis.”  Indeed, willingness simply to act immediately can be elevated as more courageous than knowing when, and upon what information, to act. 

Multiple moral perspectives provide a structure allowing us to discover our obligations more confidently—and with greater awareness of moral liabilities--in circumstances requiring prompt decisions on minimal information. Absent a structure for organizing our thoughts, we are likely to be overwhelmed by the enormity of a moral decision.  We simply defer to superiors or fail to act, hoping that the situation will pass without incident.  Guided by the reasoning techniques of the three perspectives, we can understand when to act, upon what information to act, how to preserve the need for ethical reflection, and how to justify our decisions to superiors and accusers—even when a responsible decision creates a tragic result.

The press, for example, is especially attracted to the ethical implications of using highly destructive weapons in cases where weapons malfunctions or vague intelligence might cause “collateral damage” to innocent civilians.  At the time of this writing, military officials are being questioned severely about their decision to launch a cruise missile against an outpost presumed to be occupied by terrorists.  The errant missile struck a nearby string of civilian homes and a clinic for the wounded.  In another incident, U.S. military commanders decided to target a convoy supposed to contain high ranking terrorist operatives.  Their decision relied on indirect information from intelligence sources and the indistinct video images from a drone aircraft carrying the missile used to obliterate the convoy.  This convoy was later reported to contain a group of civilians.  

As military commanders are proving in their interviews with the press, our language of moral judgment accommodates the necessity of deciding and acting upon imperfect information, especially when indecision and inaction will certainly cost lives. Their interviews also reveal that we distinguish between actions with bad or unintended consequences and ones which are irresponsible because of imperfections in the reasoning behind them.

Consider a hypothetical case related to the recent news reports.  Intelligence discovers a near certainty that a terrorist outpost thought to contain 100 men will launch an attack on 200 encamped servicemen within 48 hours.  Retreat and avoidance of attack is not an option.  To complicate matters, the outpost abuts a hospital containing an unknown number of civilians and heightens the need for ethical attention to the matter.  Should the outpost be attacked preemptively with remote guided ordnance, possibly risking civilians; or should the terrorists be allowed the opportunity to attack first, risking untold casualties in both enemy and friendly forces?  Universal principles applying to the situation included the sanctity of all human life and the avoidance of killing if at all possible even though the enemy may not share this aim.  Relevant facts required for benefit analysis include (1) the number of civilians at risk in the hospital, (2) the chance of mistargeting, (3) the military capability of the enemy.  In addition, self interest reminds us that we must preserve the safety of our own soldiers.  Reducing risk to innocent civilians being a chief measure of success, (1) becomes a critical piece of information without which a benefit perspective cannot be accurately applied—a severe handicap in making a decision for or against pre-emptive action. [11]   Can this information be obtained in time?  We should postpone a decision if the critical information can be gathered in the next two days.  If we cannot get an on-site count in 40 hours, can we settle for a report of hospital headcount 6 months old?  Let us suppose that a definite count is impossible in the time provided and that a report of 6 months prior states 50 souls inside.  Complex as the situation is, we ultimately  decide to launch a cruise missile against this complex immediately.  The worst possible consequences result: the hospital is obliterated, and 200 people killed, the terrorist post is undamaged, and both sides take heavy casualties in ground combat.

Rightfulness and responsibility of an agent’s actions always depend first of all on the wholeness of his perspective and knowledge of the judgments that will be applied to his action.  A person must be able to demonstrate completeness of moral attention.  He must make all effort to seek the moral principles and facts relevant of the situation, especially facts having to do with the number of people directly affected and the benefits and harms resulting from a proposed action.  If the Pentagon were to admit that the value of the lives of foreign citizens are not a consideration in warfare, their decision will be judged harshly for its incompleteness of principled perspective.   Using the three perspectives helps to preserve wholeness of moral contemplation.

Second, the agent must show loyalty to the critical facts and willingness to disregard irrelevant facts of a situation. He must allow himself to be objectively guided by the facts and ignore external influences such as pressure to decide and act promptly.  The certainty of facts, their relevance to the decision, and their availability must be his guide.  For example, should someone discover that those responsible chose to act on 6 month old information out of expediency without even considering the possibility of gathering highly contemporary information, the decision and action are more likely to be considered irresponsible.

 Third, when one ethical perspective cannot be used reliably in the way that consideration of benefit cannot be reliably informed in our hypothetical case, an agent should demonstrate a willingness to attend to logical or factual information revealed by other perspectives.  When facts of benefit and harm are indefinite, principles of the absolute worth of human life, along with self-interested concern for our own lives, must become the stronger anchor points of justification.   Imagine the harsh judgment forthcoming if the military were to argue that a count of potential casualties being impossible, consideration of the sanctity of human life no longer mattered!  An inability to calculate harm to lives does not entitle us to ignore principles of the importance of human life.  With no analysis of benefit to show that violating a principle against killing might allow greater benefit than harm, possibly preserving precious lives, we expect that principled thinking should receive greater attention.  Who, after all, when losing his eyesight should not rely more heavily on his sense of touch?

Being guided by facts revealed through ethical perspectives allows us to objectively justify time taken to collect critical information and also to anticipate the moral liabilities of ignoring available facts.  For example, we can explain that without a knowledge of persons in the hospital, our ability to decide a course of action aligned with judgments of benefit is nearly impossible.  Time to study the number of lives affected adds accuracy to the moral decision and lessens moral liability.  Relying only on principle and self-interest when information to calculate benefit is available risks placing our decision out of step with up to a third of the habits of moral judgment which might be brought to bear against it.  Specifically, we may find ourselves at a moral crossroads between absolute obligations, with no serious means of deciding between them by investigating benefits and harms.  And though we meet one obligation such as defense of our own troops by means of a pre-emptive strike, we may find ourselves accused--and without defense--for failing our obligation to safeguard civilians’ lives when their death is attributable to our use of errant weapons or poor intelligence.

PART III.  QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIONS

Philosophers and professionals alike may object that my ideas for using the three perspectives leave us no closer to a single program of decision which will guide us systematically to responsible moral choices.  After all, the philosophers who formalized these perspective were seeking a systematic decision program.  I should at least attempt to unite them or build a hierarchy among them to clarify and systematize their usage.  I answer that any attempt to unite the perspectives or systematize their usage would itself require generalization and simplification of our rich moral language and concepts.  Such simplification requires overlooking how our habits of language and judgment might bear differently upon a choice of action as circumstances vary. [12]

The practice of ethical reflection is more akin to the practice of medicine than to systematic mathematical, logical, or scientific inquiry.  Like the circumstances of moral decision, every doctor’s patient is a new and unique challenge.  The physician uses perspectives which are proven to uncover the cause of disease and indicate effective treatments.  The physician might analyze a patient’s condition from the perspectives of infection, of physical dysfunction and of psychology.  Next, he uses these perspectives to gather facts about the illness by means of tests.  Because of his training, he may use one of these as his first choice, yet he remains open minded to all three and exercises patience so long as the patient is not in danger and the discovery of further facts may help refine his diagnosis.  Following the diagnosis, one or more of the perspectives may be ruled out as inapplicable to the condition.  A very low hemoglobin count rules out depression as a cause of the patient’s fatigue.  If a patient is in danger and immediate action is essential, the physician uses his experience and instincts, reminded by his perspectives that using only immediately available information has ascertainable liabilities and risks.

Sometimes the disease is so radical, unpredictable or unfamiliar that he loses his patient despite his best effort.   As long as he was thorough in using proven techniques to find the cause of illness, his treatment is likely to be judged responsible.  But if we discover that he arbitrarily overlooked infection as a cause of illness from the start, we will likely judge him irresponsible and careless even if infection was not the main cause of death.  So will we judge him if he neglects to perform tests or study key facts because they present difficulty or require available time which he prefers to use for his golf game or vacation.

Others may object that I place too much faith in habits of language and in conscience.  Whereas philosophers mean for us to structure our habits of thinking according to the logic of their normative theories, I instead use the theories of ethics to remind us of our habits of moral discourse.   In this strange reversal of thinking, I take for granted that anyone’s habits of moral analysis are themselves right and do not require the discipline of theory.  But couldn’t our habits actually be wrong and in need of re-examination by normative theory?

I answer that my ideas are very much in line with the intentions of philosophical theorists, and that these theorists themselves bow to the correctness of our habits, using them as pillars of validity for their ideas.  The benefit theorist Jeremy Bentham, for example, refers to our habits of thought and language to persuade us that calculation of benefit and harm is not something new to us.  It is already deeply ingrained in our thinking.  He means only to formalize and generalize upon what is already a habit in our use of “right” and “wrong.”  Says Bentham,

Not that there is or ever has been that human creature breathing, however stupid or perverse, who has not on many, perhaps on most occasions of life, deferred to it.  By the natural constitution of the human frame, on most occasions of their lives men in general embrace this principle, without thinking of it . . . . [13]

The philosopher Immanuel Kant also refers to our habits of language and thought to support his principled perspective of moral reasoning, saying, “The common reason of men in its practical judgments perfectly coincides with this and always has in view of the principle suggested.” [14]  

My thoughts depart from theirs only at the point where they claim that one perspective of moral reasoning “in general” “perfectly” or “always” represents our habits of moral language.  Perhaps if they has not been so eager to generalize and simplify they would have noticed that three perspectives, used without hierarchy or preferential status between them, more properly represent all our habits of language.  Then there would be no differences between us.

Finally, how will I explain how some persons have “bad habits” in the use of moral language and decision?  For example, must I concede that slavery or torture is right if people are in the “habit” of calling it a good thing?  For the most part, our habits of using moral terms are so deeply ingrained that most of us know when we resist them—just as the men at B.F. Goodrich did.  Such persons are still influenced by the habits of use common to us all despite their attempts to escape them.  For the small class of those who have acted immorally or with habitual injustice for so long that their habits are indeed corrupted, these persons stand in need of the reminders that perspectives will allow.  Either they will conform or will discover themselves misplaced in society—ostracized or in prison.  In the case of a slave owner, consider that slavery violates the logic of a principled perspective representing our habits of consistency in reasoning.  To point out that something is commonly called good at some time does not mean that it conforms to the logic of moral language.  The fact that persons thought it necessary to fight a war in opposition to slavery testifies to very active principled habits of reasoning which have influence greater than what even a large number of people might call good.   The habits at the core of our moral language (whether we use English or some other) are the anchor points and touchstones of any personal, local, national or generational “habits” for applying right and wrong.

The German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein remarked that philosophy’s true function is to simply place everything important before us, and that the work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose. [15]    Traditional moral thought encourages us to decide our actions by means of one or another generalizations about how we make moral judgment.  But generalization distracts us from seeing the breadth and intricacy of judgment at work behind our usage of moral terms.  We should instead use three common and established moral perspectives as reminders to increase the scope of our thinking and return our attention to the broad methods of moral judgment we commonly use yet take for granted. As reminders rather than a single process of thought, they will show how the critical and diverse elements of moral decision interact.  And in an age where we are encouraged to generalize, rationalize and expedite our thinking, they will help us observe important rules of moral integrity and keep our moral attention calibrated to our consciences.

[Home] [Latvia Main Menu] [Paper Titles, Abstracts & Texts] [Program] [Administration]