Discussion Group Report

Is there any more important subject than ethics? In an article in The Humanist, March-April 2003, Gregory D. Foster says, "Nearly all of us acknowledge the importance of ethics. Most of us hope for and expect ethical behavior and treatment from particular segments of society...But regrettably few of us really understand ethics as well as we think we do or as well as we should."

He suggests that there are a whole host of issues that can be treated as ethical issues. Abortion, globalization, capital punishment, defense spending, gun control, and genetic engineering are just a few.

What is ethics all about? Foster says it is about right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, benefit and harm, propriety and impropriety. But it is also about principle--fixed, universal rules of right conduct that are contingent on neither time nor culture, nor circumstance;

"If habit is not a result of resolute and firm principles ever more and more purified, then, like any other mechanism of technically practical reason, it is neither armed for all eventualities nor adequately secured against change that may be brought about by new allurements."--Immanuel Kant.

And ethics is about character--the traits, qualities, and established reputation that define who one is and what one stands for in the eyes of others. It is about example--an established pattern of conduct worthy of emulation--and conscience--the voice of the soul," "the pulse of reason," "that inner tribunal," "the muzzle of the will," "the compass of the unknown," "a thousand witnesses."

"The moral sense follows, firstly, from the enduring and ever-present nature of the social instincts; secondly, from man's appreciation of the approbation and disapprobation of his fellows; and thirdly, from the high activity of his mental faculties, with past impressions extremely vivid; and in these latter respects he differs from the lower animals...Hence after some temporary desire or passion has mastered his social instincts, he reflects and compares the now weakened impression of such past impulses with the ever-present social instincts; and he then feels that sense of dissatisfaction which all unsatisfied instincts leave behind them, he therefore resolves to act differently for the future--and this is conscience."--Charles Darwin.

"Ethics involves critical analysis of human acts to determine their rightness or wrongness in terms of two major criteria: truth and justice."--Clarence Walton. Walton observes that ethics has virtually everything to do with the quality--even more than the content of our thinking. How we think may not guarantee a right or best answer but it dramatically improves the prospects of finding one in sound, defensible fashion.

"To think well is to think critically," suggests Foster. Critical thinking--the conscious use of reason--stands clearly apart from other ways of grasping truth or confronting choice: impulse, habit, faith, and intuition. Impulse is nothing more than unreflective spontaneity. "Given the magnifying and accelerating effects of the media," says Foster, "impulsiveness is much more likely than deliberation in characterizing the response of today's policy practitioners to the manifold crises that define contemporary political affairs." Habit is programmed repetition, the routinization of thought by which we remove presumably mundane matters to our subconscious so they can be dealt with more efficiently or conveniently without the attendant need to constantly revisit first principles. It is what we do when we standardize, generalize, or stereotype. Faith, in the words of Walter Kaufman, "means intense, usually confident belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person." "For the true believer, though," says Foster, "it isn't just the certainty of proof that is unnecessary; evidence itself is superfluous, especially evidence that contradicts an established belief system, worldview, or doctrine. This is what cognitive dissonance is all about--the prevalent human tendency to ignore events or data that run counter to one's preconceptions or predispositions," "Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not to be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism and doubt."--Henri Frederic Amiel. Intuition is a way of speculative "knowing" based more on experience than on reason, more on our overall sensory apparatus than on the workings of the mind. In it superficial impression of what appears to be often gives birth to deep-seated pseudoknowledge of what is. George Santayana says we must discount this subjective or ideal element in thought if we are anxious to possess true knowledge.

What distinguishes the above forms of unreason from critical thinking is the systematic, investigative nature of the latter. "If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure," said Henri Heine, "then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then enquire." Thinking critically, states Foster, is a disciplined pattern or mode of thought or inquiry that requires, first, questioning rather than accepting at face value; second, seeking and weighing all evidence on all sides of an issue, not just evidence that affirms one's beliefs; and third, employing rigorous logic to reach defensible conclusions. The object of critical thinking is to achieve a measure of objectivity to counteract or diminish the subjective bias that experience and socialization bestow on us all. Why is this necessary? Because when we are dealing with ethical matters, the well-being of someone or something beyond ourselves is always at stake. "If we live according to the guidance of reason , we shall desire for others the good which we seek for ourselves." --Spinoza.

What should be the bases for analyzing human acts, for determining their rightness or wrongness? There are many bases that are sometimes used, but Foster suggests we should have two major criteria in mind--truth and justice. "Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it [truth] to affairs."--Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ethics requires that we seek the truth in order to have a proper basis for achieving justice. Justice served is ethics realized, argues Foster.

Truth is what is--conditions, occurrences, and statements whose existence and nature are there to be confirmed or verified by observation or reason. To possess truth is to have knowledge, the expected outcome of critical reasoning. If we possessed the truth, we would know what is ethical. But there's the rub. Truth is inherently elusive, and our ability to grasp it is tenuous at best, even illusory. "A man with a watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches isn't so sure."--Old Saying.

Together truth and justice constitute a basis for trust, offers Foster. "Trust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe and the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed societies falter and collapse. --Sissela Bok. "Trust is a social glue," says Foster. "If I am sure I can count on you to tell me the truth, to seek the truth where I am concerned, to treat me fairly, to care whether I get what I deserve and deserve what I get, then our relationship is more likely than not to be characterized by trust... Where such trust exists, ...the prevalence of ethical conflict and the burden of ethical choice are materially diminished. Restoring trust thus is the great task of ethics, and understanding ethics accordingly is the great task of humanity today."