Choosing your principles.

Ethical choices – easy or hard?

I’ve been having an interesting virtual chat with someone on The Compost Heap (a blog worth looking at!) who has the dilemma of whether to fly to New York on a shopping trip for the “trip of a lifetime” while espousing a “carbon neutral” lifestyle, and, if I read it correctly, being opposed to the political and economic system of US.

The conversation has brought up some ethical points which I think are important to address.

The end justifying the means.
Suggesting that if you want to do something you know to be wrong (but feel you can’t do anything about to make it right) you can somehow take an ethical holiday and do it anyway. The “trip of a lifetime” offset by a generally carbon neutral lifestyle. I can’t buy it. Firstly, if your principles say that US and all it stands for is abhorrent to you, it is nonsensical to suggest that such a trip could be a “trip of a lifetime.” Why does someone who is opposed to the economic system of US WANT to “go shopping” anyway!?! With the belief that carbon emissions are bad then ANY such trip, even on a humanitarian mission to a developing country, is still BAD for the planet. The end never justifies the means. It may EXPLAIN why you choose to do an action but it does not ethically justify it.

Which brings us on to ethical choices. Let’s agree that you cannot “justify” your flying in a plane on ethical grounds, it is always bad for the planet (which either is or isn’t true and either is or isn’t an issue of principle for you) if you choose to go shopping or to go on a trip to tell people about the evils of flying, or go to do development work in a crisis torn country – all of these can involve flying – none of them can be ethically justified on BUT I still think it’s pretty clear if you do choose one of them which would be the best one to pick – shopping. NO.
Touring telling people about flying – kind of openly hypocritical (in terms of ethical principles) and there are lots of other ways of getting the message across that do not involve so many carbon emissions.
Helping other people is the best reason you can give (in my opinion) for flying BUT that doesn’t make it any less detrimental to the planet.

Yes you do have to prioritise your ethical CHOICES. But you need to be clear on your ethical principles before you are able to make good ethical choices. Without knowing the rules of a game you will not play it well.

Statement: Ethical choices are hard to make.
This is not necessarily true. If the end does not justify the means then it NEVER justifies the means.
An alternative (but perhaps weaker) ethical stand point is to say “the end sometimes justifies the means” Okay, if this is your view you can get away with a lot more.

But this is perhaps confusing ethical choices with ethical principles.

I believe that there are some pretty clear and straightforward ethical principles and that the “hard” bit is that we in the West simply by living our lives, compromise these ethical standards. We don’t like the fact that we can’t live up to our OWN chosen principles, thus, we want to look at opt out clauses.

You can believe the following:
1) The end NEVER justifies the means
2) The end sometimes justifies the means
3) It doesn’t matter.

Position 1 is easy from the point of ethics. But hard to live by.
Position 2 is easier to live by – but does this make it RIGHT?
Position 3 is very easy, but explains why the world is the mess it is!

Substitute end justifies means for - it is wrong to kill people.

You can believe
1) It is ALWAYS wrong to kill people
2) It is sometimes/usually wrong to kill people
3) It doesn’t matter.

Same thing re each of the positions.

My stance is that position 1, the ethical position is the one to uphold. As an ethical position it is easy. The right thing to do simply IS the right thing to do.

I believe that if people would get their ethical principles straight then they could deal with the real life problems that conflict with their ethical principles and make good ethical choices, which would be healthier for the world in general than being slack, woolly or simply lazy/self interested by saying “well, you know, it’s not that simple, because
a) I face a dilemma here or
b) It doesn’t suit my interests or
c) I’m going to have to admit that I can’t live up to my ethical principles.

Let’s take the “killing people is wrong”

This seems pretty clear to me. Take it as your start point. You can make it as complex as you like from this point on, but the base note, the point we always return to is KILLING PEOPLE IS WRONG. (It is wrong to bring about the death of another person)
You can get philosophical and debate the semantics of “is letting people die or not doing anything to promote the life of people” the same as killing them. Come on – you KNOW it is. If (as I do) you hold the principle of life as being one of the highest then doing ANYTHING that brings about the death of ANYONE is the wrong thing to do.

The complexity? Is that simply by existing in my privileged western life I am in fact every day contributing to the death of other people (I am not religious so I will not further muddy the water with the word INNOCENT. It’s not relevant folks.)

The problem is not with ethics, or even with my own ethical principles. The problem is that given the system I live in, by default I am living in conflict with my ethical principles. Yes, this is hard. But because it’s hard doesn’t mean I should water down my principles. It means I should look at what I can do, and work harder to try and uphold my principles whenever I can. And I should always try and make the best ethical choice that I can. The choice that is the closest to my ethical principle, if it is not possible to be completely in accord with that principle would seem to be the one to go for.

I have the confidence to believe that the fault is not with my principles but with the system I live in. Therefore it is not my principles that have to alter, but the system. How can I alter the system? Maybe I can’t. But even if I can’t, it doesn’t make my principles wrong and so doesn’t mean I should abandon them.

Principles, you might say, are ideals to live up to. Choices are the practical decisions that we make every day. If you choices are in conflict with your principles then, my friend, you need to overhaul your principles.

How to choose your principles?

I’ll give you an illustration. Imagine if it were possible that at any minute a horn would blast with the instruction “all change” or if you like that someone could click their fingers and with the click ALL THE PEOPLE on the world got life-swaps. You never know WHO you might be when the swap is complete. I could be myself one minute, the next swap I could be a Guatemalan peasant or a New York trader. I have NO control over this. My question is – IF THIS SITUATION WAS REAL and you knew this not only could but would happen during your lifetime – would you live by different principles? I think that in this situation the stakes are so high that EVERYONE would be encouraged to embrace principles of equality. On a simple level – NO ONE wants to be starving to death or in fear of their life or a victim of torture, abuse, racism or oppression. Not one of us WANTS to live like this. So how can we accept that other people live like this? Because of what we do, or because of what we don’t do, or because of what we choose to ignore. It’s just not RIGHT.

So I choose my principles: I want to live a free, peaceful life, not being harmed and not harming others. I believe in the fundamental equality of human beings.

I cannot, in my everyday life, change the whole world round to this way of thinking and I have to accept that by my very position in the world I am complicit in others NOT being equal. What I CAN do is
a) make the best choices I can NOT to oppress others and
b) when my choices DO oppress others or I cannot choose to prevent this, I should stand up and admit that I am falling short of my ethical principles (whether or not this is my “fault”)

Each one of us cannot change the world. We can change ourselves. We can each try to make ourselves better, more holistically principled people who think about their ethical choices and try always to make the best ones they can (this is NOT the same as the end justifying the means)

And if enough people change themselves, the world will start changing.


It's early in the morning here and maybe I'm not at my philososphical best, but this blog is not meant to be an academic philosophical post, more an insight into how one can attempt to make choices, and live by ethical principles, so I'm trying to explain as clearly as I can at any time, what I think and what my position is. Not polished, but perhaps thought provoking. The key point is EVERYONE has to work out their own principles and make their own choices - I'm not making choices for others, simply trying to give an insight into a process which is the one I use. Of course it's largely a thought process and so writing it down can make it lose something in the translation. But I'm just doing the best I can to explain myself.