I
always breathe a little sigh of relief when we hit the last week of a class.
This time, it was a HUGE sigh of relief. The workload was quite a bit higher
than my other classes have been. I spent about 20 hours a week on this course.
To put that in perspective, the EMBA program at Yale admonishes prospective
students to be prepared to dedicate 25 hours per week which includes classroom
time. (Perhaps others don’t require the same investment of time for the course
but that is what I required to do an adequate amount of research to actually
learn the material to meet the objectives and not just bluff my way through it
as that would not help with practical application.) Understanding that I
invested that amount of time into it and knowing the levels of frustration that
I often faced, the question is – was it worth it? What did I get out of it? I
feel that the value was 100% worth the cost.
The
first main takeaway from the course was learning about the primary theories of
ethics. We can break everything down into two primary categories –
consequentialism and deontology. “Consequentialists argue that we should act in
ways that produce the best consequences” (LaFollette, 2007, p. 23). On the
other hand, “deontology states that we should act in ways circumscribed by
moral rules or rights, and that these rules and rights are at least partly
independent of consequences” (p. 22). Loosely put, a consequentialist looks at
the big picture and bases ethical decisions on the effects of actions. Though
this sounds wonderful in theory as you can argue that your actions serve the
greater good, purse consequentialism is disastrous. Think George Orwell’s
“1984”. Yep. Two plus two make three because it’s good for the people.
Doublethink, I know. Really, though, consequentialist ethical decision-making
has led to some of the most heinous acts in history to include genocide.
Deontologists, on the other hand, act based on the principle of the matter
regardless of the cost. Though it might seem appealing to take the morally high
ground, the cost can be unthinkable at times. Many a Lifetime movie script
involves repairing relationships broken by deontologists. Simply understanding
the difference in the two and knowing how we base our own ethical decisions may
help us to know when to give a little and when to take a little.
The
second takeaway from this course for me was learning that ethics are morality
aren’t necessarily easy and we may be obligated to be morally “superior” to
others in our spheres of contact (LaFollette, 2007). We may want to stomp our
feet and say, “well, that isn’t FAIR that I am held to a different standard”
but the fact is that variables such as our age, level of education, level of
ability, and even the timeframe may alter our moral obligations. As an example
of that, I am a member of the New York Athletic Club which is a private
athletic and social club. It’s a suit and tie kind of place and the membership
rolls include people such as Governor Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani, GEN Petraeus,
and many high-level executives and old rich people…and me. (They are very
pro-military so I am one of their charity cases, I guess.) As one that it
outspoken for equality, I often find myself at odds with some very influential
people. However, we are not all held to the same standard. When they began
their careers, society had not embraced women in leadership roles like it has
now. They are not immoral just because they are of that older generation.
Likewise, it is probably a little more morally acceptable for me to
over-indulge in the libations than it is for the CFO of Oppenheimer who tends
to hang out on Wednesday evenings there. This rationale is why I get so angry
today that all of these old monuments to leaders of the Confederacy are being
removed. It is like our history is being erased! What’s next? Removing George
Washington from the dollar bill because he was a slave owner? It was a
different time. They had a different understanding! These great leaders were
not any more immoral than Martin Luther King, Jr! Why are we erasing them from
history? If we do that to them, will future generations do that to us? Think
about it. What we know to be right today may be very wrong tomorrow.
My
last and most powerful takeaway from this course has been incorporated in
discussion after discussion with me. It was something that caught me so
incredibly off guard that it completely changed the way that I view just about
everything, especially in the political realm. (Maybe I shouldn’t say that it
changed the way that I viewed things so much as helped me understand why I had
already begun to view them differently.) Morality is not relative but our
ethics are (LaFollette, 2007). Our ethics are based on the situations in which
we find ourselves and therefore are based on facts and not opinions. For
someone right leaning, their political views are based on facts. For someone left leaning, their political views are based on
facts. However, again, the morality
itself is not relative. This explains the polarization for some of the hottest
issues. Take abortion for example. 100% of people agree that murder is wrong.
If pro-lifers like myself are right in that abortion is murder, how can anybody
be pro-choice? Because our ethics are relative, for someone that is pro-choice,
abortion is not murder. (By the way, I don’t get how you can be pro-life and
support the death penalty. It seems that pro-life is a deontological view as a
consequentialist would see the effects of having a child in the wrong
situation. However, being pro-death penalty is more of a consequentialist thing
so how can you be a deontologist in one situation and a consequentialist in
another? Things that make you go “hmmm”.) The bottom line is that when we
understand that the ethical views of others are based on the facts of their
lives, maybe it helps us to be a little more empathetic which can probably help
us work together just a little more, don’t you think?
Again,
was this class worth it? Yes. It absolutely was. Knowledge is the first step
toward practical application.
LaFollette,
H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
No comments:
Post a Comment