Our Ethics Are the Way We Make Decisions
People Have Different Values
Have you ever had a debate with someone and concluded that they lacked ethics? Or seen a senior business leader make a decision and decide that they lacked a moral compass? Or sit on a board of directors and determine that some of your fellow commissioners lacked principles in their decision making? If so, then the issue may be more with your understanding of ethics and less with the behavior of others.
Ethics are the way we make decisions. By one definition, ethics are a set of moral principles or system of moral values. All people have different values. Ethics are also defined as is the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group. That is why we often say that ethics are all about making choices. Ethics significantly impact the direction and shape of decision making.
A fundamental approach to ethics helps us understand decision making. Understanding decision making helps us to evaluate ethics. Understanding ethics and decision making helps us to be better communicators.
The Three Schools of Ethics
Establishing ethical theories into their three schools is a useful approach to understand ethics. Of course, there are other approaches. An ethicist is likely to say that the approach of three schools is an oversimplification. However, in simplicity there is understanding.
This approach is merely a framework and not an absolute. Several ethical theories or sub-theories have been grouped under each. Most people do adhere predominately to one of the three schools and secondarily to one of the others. In practice, the application often depends on problem context and the decision that is to be made.
Virtue Ethics
The first form of ethics is virtue-based. Aristotle described virtue as courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, proper, ambition, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, and righteous indignation and vice as rashness, licentiousness, prodigality, vulgarity, vanity, ambition, irascibility, boastfulness, buffoonery, flattery, shyness, and envy. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians described good as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. On the other extreme Paul characterizes bad as fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. In virtue-based ethics, there is an absolute right or wrong that should determine our decision making.
Virtue ethics helps us to define what type of person we want to be. The challenging issue with virtue-based ethics is that it is often difficult to determine absolute right and wrong when it comes to complex future events with high levels of uncertainty. Hopefully that is revealed in the analysis, but of course walking into the C-suite and explaining that some perspectives are ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’ is a good way to get eliminated from the entire decision-making process.
Consequence-Based Ethics
A second form of ethics is consequence-based. In this way of thinking, the information that is shared is that which is most relevant to the decision at hand. The trouble is that someone must decide in advance what is important and what is not, and in many cases this is shaped by what the information provider, not the decision maker, considers to be a desirable outcome. The same people who came up with marginal utility theory also came up with consequence-based ethics. If the good outweighs the bad, then the information related to the bad is not so important. In other words, the ends justify the means.
If you follow politics and political decision making, you will see many examples of consequence-based ethics. We often see legislators not read bills that are more than a thousand pages in length because they believe the ‘good’ of their position greatly and significantly outweighs any ‘bad’. Simply put, many people in power believe that the fulfillment of their causes (the ends) justify the incremental means of achieving them.
Duty-based Ethics
If you are a licensed engineer or licensed physician, your ethics are duty-based. This means that your primary duty is to public health, safety, and welfare above all other considerations. Process matters because it is possible that some good decisions, especially those that are complex and contain high levels of uncertainty, may ultimately yield undesirable outcomes. Your duty is to provide all of the significant information to your decision maker at the time a decision must be made. In matters of life, death, and significant injury, you share all of the information with your decision maker just as you would want if the roles were reversed.
Duty-based ethics is one reason we have all the long disclosures related to drugs and medical advice on television commercials. It is also a reason that your physician or your engineer babbles about all the numbers and decision options even if you do not completely understand the technical details. They are treating you in the same way that they wish to be treated in the face of a decision under uncertainty.
Practicalities
One of the most practical examples of the application of the three schools of ethical thought and decision making comes from local land use planning cases. During the planning process, the local Planning Board or Town Council will often use a virtue-based approach in their decision making. Terms like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘this is my belief’ are often used in the discourse.
The thought process usually shifts when the actual construction does not match the plans. On the back end when matters come before the Board of Adjustment or back to the same Town Council for remedy, terms like ‘it is not a big deal’ or ‘this will cause hardship’ to support a consequence-based decision.
It is interesting that you may hear more virtue-based thinking in up front, planning decisions and more consequence-based thinking on back end, dispute resolution decisions. You are likely to encounter duty-based thinking equally in both situations. That is because duty-based ethics are rooted in treating others as you wish to be treated, making all information transparently available, and trusting people to understand that logically correct reasoning based on the information available at the time of decision constitutes a good decision.
The reality is that most decision makers want to do the right thing. Decision makers tend to not wish to do any harm to others. Being fair and treating others the way you wish to be treated may create some apparent but necessary inconsistencies. However, these apparent but necessary inconsistencies are not sufficient to classify someone as unethical.
Summary
Approaching ethics from three schools of thought — virtue-based, consequence-based, and duty-based — is important for understanding ethics and decision making. Understanding the practical application of ethics and decision making will make you a more effective communicator.
