Ethics for the real world by Ronald A. Howard & Clinton D. Korver

• The gist is this: We must master ethical distinctions to enable clear ethical thinking. We must commit in advance to ethical principles. And we must exercise disciplined decision-making skills to choose wisely.
• It is useful to clarify a few issues that often come up in ethics. The first is the distinction between moral and ethical. Although many people use the words interchangeably, we do not. For us, moral refers to behavior customary in our culture or society--or someone else’s culture or society. Ethical refers to behavior considered right or wrong according to our own benefits--no matter the culture or society.
• Ethical compromises both big and small hurt us, and we underestimate how much. For one thing, one compromise can lead to another as we let our standards slip. Once we cross the line, we may find it hard to resist crossing the next. We can get started going downhill on the proverbial slippery slope, where each compromise becomes easier, and we fall asleep to their consequences. As we develop bad habits, no matter our accomplishments and virtues, we may find ourselves in shocking situations.
• What causes most people the greatest pain is that compromises create barriers in relationships.
• Most ethical transgressions fall into roughly three categories: deception, stealing, and harming. Although there are many variants, these three encompass most wrongdoing. They also tempt us like the Sirens in Greek mythology: we find it hard to escape all their seductions.
• Lying, a form of deception, plays a central role in ethical compromise. We single it out for separate treatment because it appears so commonly in ethical thinking.
• Lying is defined as telling someone something we know not to be true with the intention of misleading them.
• One indication of the central role of lying in our lives is the number of words we have to describe it.
• There is a psychological cost to lying. Even if no one else discovers our lies, we know. Our lies often clash with the people we would like to be.
• We routinely face ethical decisions in which we make thinking errors just like those of Gerstein.
• Distinctions are the keys that unlock understanding. They give us the power to separate the issues of the world into new and useful parts. The better we can discriminate between the parts, the more skillfully we can function as ethical thinkers. Each time we fail to discriminate, we hamper ourselves with a lack of clarity.
• In decision analysis, the most basic distinction we make is simply our choice of words, the building blocks of our thinking. They are the basic units for helping us to discriminate between one thing and another. Learning and using words precisely fosters skillful thought.
• Word choice matters. It highlights some elements of a thought and disguises others. If we can agree that words paint pictures, we also have to agree that they put some things in the foreground, some in the back, some in the sunlight, some in the shadows. Often, the trick in making a good decision is finding the right words to paint a situation. The reverse is also true. If we paint carelessly, we make distinctions unwisely.
• To asses the ethics of any action, it is useful to separate three dimensions of the action: prudential, legal, and ethical. Within the prudential dimension, we distinguish between what is prudent or not prudent,; within the legal dimension, between what is lawful and unlawful; and within the ethical dimension, between what is right or wrong. Ethically sensitive situations are often confounded by prudential and legal issues we fail to see.
• An action raises questions in the ethical dimension when it pertains to our predefined standards of right behavior. An action in accord with our code of behavior is obviously ethical, and in conflict, unethical. As we saw in the last chapter, the principle issues in the ethical dimension are lying, deceiving, stealing, and harming.
• An action raises questions in the prudential dimension when it pertains to our self-interest, as in whether we should brush our teeth or refinance our house. An action that is prudential accords with such issues as our notions of financial gain, loyalty to others, friendless, thriftiness, or just being “nice”. We can usually tell we’re dealing with the prudential dimension when we balance one issue with another, trade off pluses and minuses, and weight opposing risks, to decide what the “smart” thing is to do.
• An action raises questions in the legal dimensions if it pertains to the law in the prevailing social system.
• When we become practiced at drawing the distinction between prudential, legal, and ethical dimensions of decisions, we notice something surprising: we encounter ethical dilemmas--situations in which two ethical principles conflict--only rarely. We do not routinely have to decide between two wrongs--for example, between lying and stealing, or cheating and hurting.
• In other words, we get ourselves into most ethically questionable situations when we are simply tempted to do something wrong.
• The second useful distinction for skilled ethical reasoning is the difference between negative and positive ethics. Negative ethics are prohibitions that take the form “You shall not…” Negative ethics take little or no energy to fulfill.
• Another characteristic of negative ethics is that they create bright lines. We can easily determine whether we have cheated on a test, killed an innocent person, or lied about having an affair.
• Positive ethics are obligations that take the form “You shall…” Positive ethics require virtuous behavior, and energy, to fulfill.
• A key characteristic of positive ethics is that they create blurry lines. We often have trouble knowing whether we have fulfilled them.
• The third distinction we must draw for skilled ethical reasoning is perhaps the best known in ethics: the difference between action- and consequence-based decisions.
• The fourth distinction we must draw for clear ethical thought is the difference between reasoning and rationalization. Reasoning is a process of analysis for forming judgements. It clarifies the distinction between right and wrong action. Rationalization is a process of constructing a justification for a decision we suspect is really flawled--and often one that was arrived at through a mental process characterized by contrivance and self-dealing. Rationalization purposefully blurs right from wrong.
• We can fool ourselves into thinking something is justified when it isn’t.
• With practice, we can ethically desensitize ourselves to the point that we are likely to repeatedly do the wrong thing.
• When we rationalize, we devise specious but self-satisfying reasons for acting. Or ascribe our actions to high-mindedness when our motives are actually otherwise. Or employ a faulty analogy or wishful thinking. In effect, we create a story that holds together but, upon examination, doesn’t hold up.
• We commonly rationalize to avoid embarrassment, get ahead, or be kind.
• We are especially vulnerable to rationalize and poor ethical thinking when our situation encourages it. Separating our acts from the stage on which we’re acting can be difficult. The influence of surroundings--people and place--can push us into doing things that, to observers, appear out right idiotic.
• The ultimate danger is that we put ourselves on a slippery slope, and we wake up after having slid much farther downward than we would like.
• For many of us, the most prominent strains of ethical guidance come from religion. Whether we have chosen to or not, we have soaked up all manner of principles and rules of thumb from scripture, parables, and stories, derived from prophets, disciples, and sages. Even is we are atheists, we have absorbed teachings woven into our social and cultural fabric.
• No matter what our faith, we need additional thought about the deeper issues of ethical behavior to make the right decision.
• It [the Golden Rule] doesn’t actually bar unethical acts by both sides. It doesn’t define who the “other” is when the recipient of our behavior is not a specific person. And in religious scripture, the Golden Rule comes in many forms, some with different meanings.
• The lesson: our religious touchstones simply don’t offer an ethical algorithm to give us easy answers--or at least ones that are easy to live by. They aren’t a perfectly polished touchstone to support clear decisions. We have to do some thinking ourselves. We have to reflect.
• Next to religion, perhaps the most prominent strain of ethical guidance comes from our upbringing--from family, school, friends, community, and nation. When we look to these secular influences, the difficulty of coming up with solid personal principles actually becomes harder--and yet more important--because so many nuances and conflicts emerge.
• If we are to look to “great leaders” for touchstone material, we learn an old lesson: popularity is no indicator of character. Leaders sometimes follow the old adage: “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.” And that goes for leaders from all walks of life.
• A successful code helps you clarify for yourself your ethical principles. It helps you resist temptations, especially those most relevant to you, your profession, your weaknesses, and your aspirations.
• The three steps we follow to write our code are (1) drafting standards, (2) testing standards, and (3) refining the code to make it practical. While we don’t need to do the steps in order, each one adds to a more thoughtful code--and lays the basis for more skillful decision making.
• To get started with our code, the easiest approach is to focus on the three principal categories of ethical wrongdoing: deceiving, stealing, and harming.
• Small things, no less than the big ones, reveal unresolved conflicts. In fact, the big ethical topics of the day often figure far less into our daily lives than a host of small persnickety ones.
• The issue that figures most prominently in our daily lives is usually deception.
• Two principles of logic guide the construction of durable, thoughtful codes. The first is universality. The second is reciprocity. When we draft an ethical standard, we should ask, “Would I want everyone to follow this?” And “Would I want other people applying the same rule to me?” We need to shift our perspective in the same way we would with the Golden Rule--to a person in another set of shoes.
• Many people accept fuzziness when they draw their lines. This leaves them unsure of compliance with their standards. So when we refine our codes, the rule is, the more specific our positive injunctions, the better.
• The first hurdle in making high-quality ethical decisions is simply overcoming the tendency not to think. Most of the time, we remain numb to critical issues, ignorant of our biases, and guided in decisions by age-old ruts.
• It’s hard to overestimate how much shifting the question can reshape our perspective.
• Satisficing is a reasonable strategy for low-stakes decisions--where to eat lunch or what book to buy. But when relationships and character are at stake, it often leaves much to be desired. We then need a better way to think.
• Critical thought quickly shuts down creative thought.
• Long-term consequences are often not given enough attention. Simply picking an appropriate time horizon can be difficult.
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to deal with many unethical or ethically debatable situations is to avoid them. Avoidance is much easier than blundering into an awkward situation. So always try avoiding before transforming.
• One of the most useful decisions we can make is to refuse to join causes, groups, and organizations whose ethics are inconsistent with our own. Once we are inside a group, we can’t easily walk out an our obligations.
• Too often we encounter bad organizational fits. Feeling trapped, we may fashion rationalizations that lead us to break our ethical code.
• Keeping secrets can radically change our relationship with those who might benefit from knowing them, so we must accept them and handle them with care.
• Loyalty has a strong hold on all of us because it stems from primeval tribal emotions. We are essentially hardwired to think first of kin, clan, caste, and class. We raise arms against others to protect our tribe from interlopers, outsiders,, and barbarians.
• A simple technique too often gets overlooked: ask the people with whom we made the commitment what they think. The act of renegotiate is an opportunity to build an even stronger relationships. This principle works the same as in our personal lives.
• Commitments to keep secrets are among the most difficult to maintain.
• In every profession, the issue of exposing incompetent peers is taboo. No one wants to out the charlatans of our own kind.
• In ethics as in everything else, developing habits requires repetition and reinforcement. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect--or more accurately, perfect practice makes perfect.
• If we are to make the most of skillful ethical decisions making, we must turn it into a habit.
• Ethical compromise comes from thinking errors.
• Do not blindly use others’ ethics; develop your own.
• Ethics is about actions, not thoughts.
• Lying is telling someone something we know not to be true with the intention of misleading them.
• Deception is intentionally giving a false impression with or without telling a lie.
• Stealing is appropriating the property of others without permission.
• Physical harming is the use of or threat to use violence against another person.
• We numb ourselves to harm more easily than we think.
• The lesser of two evils is still evil.
• To make the best decisions, we need to follow a three-step process:
• Clarify the ethical issue.
• Create alternatives.
• Evaluate the alternatives.