Ethics

Do others have the right to define what’s ethical for me?

Comments

I think it might be helpful to unravel a couple of things here. Let's start by way of an example. Bob and Sally work for the same organization. To avoid irrelevant issues, let's suppose it's a generally well-run non-profit, much admired for its good work. Suppose Bob is bragging over drinks that he routinely pads his expense account in various hard-to-detect ways and gets reimbursed for a lot more than he's actually spent. Sally says: "That's unethical. You shouldn't do that." Bob replies: "Who gave you the right to define what's ethical for me?"

Bob's response is shallow to say the least. Sally isn't "defining" what's wrong for him. What Bob is doing is wrong, period. It's not just that his employer has the right to make this kind of theft grounds for firing. That's true, of course, and so his bosses can "define" at least this much of the code Bob has to abide by if he wants to stay out of trouble. But even if the company never says any such thing and never formulates any such policy, Sally is right: what Bob is doing is unethical and he shouldn't do it. Sally isn't "defining" anything; she's reminding Bob of what ethical behavior calls for.

There's a narrower sense of "ethics", alluded to above, having to do with things like explicit codes of professional responsibility: a profession really can define what's "ethical" in this sense for its members. But that's not the central case. Unless we give up the idea that there's a difference between right and wrong, then the core sense of "ethical" has to do with what really is right and wrong.

On the one hand, this isn't something anyone can "define." No one can make left-handedness ethically required just be decree or definition. On the other hand, it does mean that no one has the "right" to define what's ethical for you, but not for the reason one might have thought: it's because what's ethical isn't something that gets defined by anyone. If it were, it would be arbitrary; not ethical.

A foundatoinal question or a question that gets to the very basis of ethics itself! "Ethics" today includes matters of virtue and vice as well as the morality of action. In much of the history of ideas and culture as well as today, it is widely held that what counts as moral or immoral or as a virtue or vice is NOT a matter of an individual's decision so that I, for example, could re-label my massive, self-centered egotism as "humility" or I could define my stealing your money so that I can buy luxory gifts for my slaves as "charity." In a sense, being part of a community or (to get even broader in scope) being a mature human being involves taking seriously what it is to act responsibly and respectfully concerning oneself and others. And this seems to be a matter that cannot be done only in terms of how individuals define for him or herself what is good or bad. Still, there is a tradition in ethics going back at least to Kant which stresses the importance of each individual coming to understand his or her duty; Kant was no relativist, though, who though some might decide rape is good and others deny it. Also, there may be areas of life in which there is no evident, obvious right or wrong. Maybe (to take an arbitrary example) it is unclear whether physician assisted suicide is immoral. In such a case, a moral community may decide to permit the practice (not making it illegal) and leave the matter to the individual conscience of its citizens. This might be a case when you have the right to believe and act on the belief of what you think is permissible under conditions when a community elects not to intervene or impose a standard on you.

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