Ethics in the community

In today's entry from The Writer's Almanac, the playwright David Hare is quoted in one of his plays as follows: "[In England,] people lead shallow lives because they don't believe in anything anymore. [In Israel,] in a single day I experience events and emotions that would keep a Swede going for a year."

Is the depth of our living brokered away by our failure to believe in things beyond ourselves and our desire to be entertained or enriched? The surviving part of Rene Descartes' writing is "I think, therefore I am." However, the end of Descartes' equation was his proof that God exists. How many of us end our search for understanding with the simple acknowledgement that we exist and go no further?

I read a piece that my wife Cindy had saved for me out of Business Week magazine. The piece was a letter to the editor from a Journalism Professor at Washington and Lee University. The piece was written in response to an article about a cheating scandal in the business school at Duke University. The article apparently had attempted to justify or explain the cheating scandal by claiming that today's business students are taught to work with each other, even to the extent of cheating off of each other on tests, through the lessons they are taught in class about how business works in the real world. The letter to the editor mirrored the honor code at W&L and stated that lying to the professor by stating that no cheating was done in taking the tests, when, in fact, there was cheating taking place, was simply that: lying and cheating. No amount of justification or rationalization would change that.

In ethics, sometimes the simple response is the correct response. I am proud of the fact that a professor from my alma mater would write such a response. I wish the simple understanding of what is fair and equitable and reasonable was more universally understood.

Ethics requires us to look beyond ourselves to see our connections with others. Ethics is a system of rules designed to inform our actions. The basis for ethics lies in our connections to others. If we lived in this world all alone, there would be no need for ethics, because we would only be required to act for our own benefit. Since we live in a world in which we have to interact with others, the connection with others requires us to act towards each other in a certain way, toward a more communal benefit. The alternative is anarchy.

In a community, such as a university, we are drawn to act in concert with each other to enable each member of the community to strive to his or her best ability. In order to ensure that each member of the community is on an equal footing, each member must act in a manner which is fair and equitable as concerns the other members of the community.

At Washington and Lee, Robert E. Lee, as President, instituted the Honor Code, which required that each student act as a gentleman. This code, enacted when all the students were men, required a socially accepted standard of conduct which was considered "gentlemanly." It is my understanding that President Lee defined this standard of conduct as withholding any advantage one might have over others. This standard was created at a time when the social strata of the United States were more clearly defined than in modern times. Lee came from an upper class family in Virginia which had many cultural and social advantages over other less privleged citizens of Virginia. Lee recognized these differences and defined a gentleman as one who does not take use of those advantages to the detriment of his social inferiors.

Beyond the socially restricted laboratory of planter culture Virginia, we must broaden this concept to require that when one acts inside community one should not make use of advantages we might have to better ourselves over others. Now this doesn't mean that we don't take advantage of the talents and birth advantages we are given. Rather it means that we acknowledge our place in the community and treat the other members of the community fairly and equitably. This requires us to refrain from behavior which would unfairly gain us an advantage over our fellow citizens. In the university context this means we don't lie, cheat or steal. Expanding this concept outside the university means that we, as members of society, don't lie, cheat or steal from our fellow citizens.

Perhaps the most difficult part of this concept of community ethics involves the concept of "fairness" and "equity." In determining the requirements of ethics, we ultimately have to decide what actions are fair and equitable and which are not. In the community in which we live are found people with differing talents and levels of
wealth and position, based on what is given to them at birth or through accomplishment. There is little we can do to make that inequity of natural or family gift equal. It is questionable as to whether anything should be done to make that playing field equal. However, as concerns the way in which the members of the community interact, there is a lot that should be done in the way of ethics.

We acknowledge that members of the community are born with differing talents and gifts. Perhaps Marxists would argue that everyone should be treated equally and talent and social strata should not enter into the equation. However, Marxism is not strictly an ethical system. It doesn't really inform individual action, rather it works within the culture or community as a whole.

Ethics may be potentially applied to a culture or community as a whole; however, the basic application of an ethical system devolves down to the individual. In a libertarian community where each individual in the community acts as a free agent within the context of the community, the ethical system is the main determiner of conduct other than bare self-interest.

Some might argue that self-interest is the only determiner of conduct in society. However, the history of culture does not bear this out. In fact, the history of culture shows that whenever people are drawn into community, they create codes of conduct, to some degree, which proscribe conduct outside what is considered "legal". At its bare essence, what is considered "legal" is considered the "moral" thing to do, as well. In fact, it is arguable that conduct which is legal is based on conduct which is considered ethical.

For instance, most early codes of conduct proscribe murder and theft. Whether you call this unethical or illegal, the proscription is the same. From the basic proscriptions of conduct fall any number of exceptions. In the case of murder, the first exception probably involves a killing outside of the community. The next exception might involve a killing which the culture considers excusable for some reason. Different factual situations create any number of value judgments on the part of the society as to whether or not the killing should be proscribed or allowed, given the facts involved in the situation. There may be different determinations depending on the findings of the particular society involved in the action. In this way, the concept of ethics may have some fluidity depending on the society involved in the process.

The trouble really arises when we try to extrapolate this to something universal. The first problem arises in trying to determine the source of ethics. A Christian or Jew might argue that the source of our ethics comes from the Hebrew God and the Bible. A Muslim might argue that the source of our ethics comes from Allah and the Koran. A Buddhist or Hindu or other believer in a Universal God would point to their God or Gods and any holy script associated with God as the source of ethics. A secularist, no matter whether he is an Atheist, Agnostic or someone who simply tries to determine ethics outside the realm of theism has three choices: either ethics is universal or confined to a particular group or completely individual.

I acknowledge the problem created when we try to posit ethics on the backs of a theistic system. But I also see the problem created when we leave out a universal basis for our ethics. While theistic ethics is problematic for one who does not accept the theism upon which the ethics is based, it is equally true that an ethics created without resort to an outside source can become too fluid and subjective to be considered an universal system of ethics. Without the source the ethics becomes relativist and subjective.

We need a universal system of ethics to which we all must bow. Our interactions with others require us to submit to a code of conduct which informs our conduct toward others. In order to constitute a code which has universality and relevance, this code must derive from something or someone beyond ourselves.

I would submit that God is the only realistic source of such a system. My acknowledge that my understanding of this concept is based on faith and not on any scientifically demonstratable construct. However, my faith is such that I hope for an ultimate demonstration of such a construct in my experience. My further hope is for an ultimate demonstration of such construct as a universal experience. Until that time, faith and hope will stand as my basis for conduct.