Who thinks of herself / himself
as unethical? Who thinks of herself / himself as less ethical than the average
person? I certainly don’t – on both accounts!
There is some definition &
boundary of ethicality that is known to me, but I can neither accurately define
it nor mark out everything that lies within that boundary…essentially, I don’t
know what my ethical standards are, and where my ethical standards end. Yet, I
believe myself to be an ethical person – furthermore, I believe I am more
ethical than the average person. Interestingly, this is still not the complete
truth, or the truest account of how I see myself when ethics are concerned. In
my mind, I truly believe I am an ethical person, who does almost next to
nothing that is unethical.
There is a reason for my giving
two versions of how I see myself when ethics are concerned – I have recently
completed reading a book: Blind Spots. This book has pushed me to think deeply
about the concept of ethics, widen the definition of unethicality and see
myself with new found understanding of ethical & unethical.
This blog post is not about the
book, i.e. this post is not a review of the book. All I will say about the book
is that it is a must read for everyone who: a) has any interest in the subject
matter (ethical / unethical – decisions, behaviours, attitudes), and b) is
willing to challenge herself / himself on this, rather, sensitive issue.
While reading the book, I could
identify and understand the many reasons why I believe I am / was an ethical
person (at the very least, better than the average person). More importantly, I
could identify and understand reasons why I am / was mistaken. Not only did I
question my own decisions and behaviour on the parameters suggested by the
authors of Blind Spots, but also, I questioned some of my basic
life-approaches.
Through this blog post, I wish to
discuss two parameters that seem to make a lot of sense as life-approaches
(whether for the sake of ease of life, or keeping a positive attitude), but
indeed cause inherent unethicality that goes unidentified, ignored or worse –
justified. As is the purpose of the book, so is mine with this blog post – not
to term anyone, and most certainly not myself as unethical – but simply to
question how & why our self-belief about our own ethicality is flawed. I
merely am trying to add judgement parameters, to come closer to whatever may be
the actual boundary that clearly separates concepts of ethicality from that of
unethicality.
First - Men can and do think as
if their life (and people in their life) was divided in clearly defined,
separate compartments. One crude & extreme example can be - their work-life
and colleagues are not the same as their friends in their personal life. This
compartment-based approach makes things simple for men – almost like, “what
happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. This is a tool that allows us to lead a
simple life, because it requires less thinking and less justification of our
actions / decisions.
Second – the gaining popularity
of “live in the present” concept. People have been under such levels of stress,
by thinking and worrying about the future, that living in the present had to be
promoted to relieve some of the stress caused by uncertainty of future.
Although I agree with this philosophy, and to a large extent try to live by it
– Blind Spots raised some pertinent questions, which now make me believe this
philosophy has the capacity to make people give a blind-eye towards the issues
of ethicality.
By not mixing / sharing personal
and professional lives (or any other form of compartmentalisation) and / or
living in the present – one may ask: why does it raise questions of ethical
nature?
To understand the answer – we must
deepen our understanding of what is ethical and widen the boundary of what is
unethical (. Authors of Blind Spot tried to simplify this – think of 2 things:
1 a) should
do or want to do, i.e. – are we doing what we should be doing, or what we want
to do…more often than not, compartmentalisation leads us to do what we want to
do, rather what we should do. This helps in understanding the depth of what is
ethical – limit of “should” is clearly defined, also is generally known to us,
yet we stretch it and go beyond & out that limit.
2 b) “what
will my mother say” – I found this to be a simple & honest check of
boundaries where ethicality ends, and unethicality begins. If my mother won’t
be happy / proud, or worse still is expected to be unhappy / disappointed by
our action / decision, then we know there is something inherently wrong.
Now let’s apply both these tests
to the two blind spots that I have raised.
If one leads life in compartments
– then there is some element of life that is not shared with people that matter
(family, better-half)…I consider sharing, and honesty to be “should do”. By not
doing, we are being dishonest, trying to hide – although all this may not mean
cheating, or worse, yet it is dishonest. The fact this is dishonest, it should
not be done – and thus is an ethical issue.
On the same note, since it is
dishonest, it cannot be condoned by my mother. She may understand my point of
view, and reasons for doing so, but she would never accept this as the right
thing to do. Once again, we see that living life in compartments leads to
issues related to ethicality.
For living in the present,
consider the way we treat Mother Earth and environment. Personally, having
lived a typical middle-class life, if in future I can afford a car of my dreams
(even if it is a fuel-guzzler), then I would gladly buy it. I would want to
live the life that I haven’t lived in my past, fulfil my material wishes today
and not bother about the future – whether my own, and more so that of future
generations.
Let’s change the example – if I
lived a life that had only one-night stands, no steady relationships, no
lifelong partnerships, I would be living in the present. To this – my mother
definitely won’t be happy. Once again, it raises issues related to ethicality.
I accept that both, definition of
“should do” and “mother’s approval” would differ for from case to case.
However, what I have come to realise is that such theories and concepts work on
average – what should an average person do, or what would an average mother
approve of…and as always, there will be outliers or exceptions to the rule.
The whole idea of this post was to - first, share the concept that our own image of ourselves on ethics may be flawed, and second, add two more judgement parameters to various that have been talked about in Blind Spots. Nothing more and nothing less!
