Unutterably Silly Is it unethical to be unethical?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Lately, I've become overwhelmed by the many ways of defining ethics... personal ethics, professional ethics, capitalist ethics, web ethics, sexual ethics, driving ethics, pet ethics, dating ethics, buying ethics, sharing ethics, remote-control-sharing ethics, double-dipping ethics, vampire ethics, and of course, whether Twizzlers have ethics, or if their multiple strands twisting together form an amalgam of society's efforts to force ethics and nonethics to bind together into a tasty treat for Secret Service agents...

Ethics has entered a practical vacuum and has become defined by itself, and as such, is capable of becoming itself, or becoming its opposite self, or becoming unbecoming, or just coming and going without anyone hearing, and so, did the ethics exist at all? It's become a pure abstraction that has no impact on the real world.

So, what's the story? Is it unethical to be unethical? Can it be unethical to be ethical? Can it be ethical to be unethical? Is it ethical to ask whether it's unethical? Is ethical to you not unethical to me? Is there an actual ethical in there anywhere? If loving you was unethical, would I want to be ethical? Can one unethical spoil the whole barrel of ethicals? Can two ethicals collide to make an unethical? Or do they cancel each other out in a big explosion and become Twizzlers? Does ethics actually exist in nature, or is it a purely human invention? If it is, when does the patent run out? If it doesn't run out... how is that ethical? Or is the fact that it is unethical the whole point?

What? No, this is only my third cup... anyone for more coffee? Or is it unethical to have more doughnuts without coffee?

(Is it ethical for me to start a thread like this just before I go off on vacation?)

[darknessangel]

Absolutely not! That's called having an alternate set of moral values or "being evil" for short. Better for your lifestyle, your nerves and your financial and emotional life (and conscience if you have one). =P This sets as requirement that you absolutely don't give a <insert that word here> about other people's opinion. Because if you do... you're not being unethical, you just found an excuse to go to confess at your local church.

Try being evil more often! It get's easier! =D

[neilmarr]

Hey, Steve -- you ain't alone.

Try swapping 'ethics' for 'morals' and do an internet search on developments in the scientific study of the hard wiring and software development of our own human and our fellow-animals' behaviour. It's fascinating. Illuminating. It flips the switch.

Some of the more popularly described work is from that mind-changing US philospher, Daniel Dennett (I used to wish he was my big brother -- now I think he probably is); Sam Harris and Chris Hitchens are terrific horse sense commentators on the subject; Richard Dawkins is only one evolutionary biologist trying to explain it in understandable language. There's even a recent and ongoing 'Morality Project' to further research. You can join in.

There's a lifetime's food for thought already freely available on the net, Steve. And the research and discussion is excitingly ongoing.

If you don't already do so, I'd strongly suggest you check out the bloody wonderful TED collection of video lectures and discussions (constantly updated) on this very subject.

Ethics/morality will never again be a simple and unsatisfying question of what's simply perceived as 'right' and what's perceived as 'wrong'. And 'Big R' has long since been ruled out of the equation as providing superfluous and unreliable data.

Good luck, ol' chum. Do let me know how you go on. Neil

[TGS]

I think Plato's idea of incontinence is important here - and it's got nothing to do with being unable to control ones bowel or bladder functions. Simply put, Plato's version of incontinence is doing what we know we shouldn't and not doing what we know we should. It may be just me*, but I find myself, (often, sometimes, on occasion?), doing things which I cannot justify on ethical grounds. This can be anything from stealing an envelope from the office, to exceeding the speed limit, to taking an extra ten minutes for lunch, to other things to which I am not about to confess here. I do this stuff and know that, ethically, I "shouldn't" - behaving in this way is not consistent with my general ethical viewpoint and beliefs, but I do it anyway. If someone starts blathering on to me about how my behaviour is unethical I will construct an argument to show that it's not, or that it's only unethical from their point of view and who's to say that they are right, and we all have our own personal ethics...you know the sort of thing that peppers threads on Mobileread as soon as "Is it legal..." or "Is it ethical..." make an appearance. All of which argumentation don't amount to squat, but I'm dammned if I'm going to have some jumped-up no-mark tell me in a high and mighty way that something I do isn't ethical, when I would be willing to bet my savings that the behaviour in question is no worse than many of the things that the accuser does. All of this doesn't alter the fact that most of us commit minor transgressions every day.

It's not as if what we need do is work out what's ethical and we'll all do it...we often already know, and sometimes choose to act otherwise.

*This is merely a rhetorical point, I don't actually think it really is just me, I think it's most of us. I also think self-reporting is a very unreliable guide to what people actually do.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

(Had to go back and make sure I put the silliness tag up there.)

Originally Posted by darknessangel

Try being evil more often! It get's easier! =D

Maybe, but black clothing always reveals my psoriasis.

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Hey, Steve -- you ain't alone.

I knew that! My problem is figuring out if I'm ethical!

Originally Posted by TGS

I think Plato's idea of incontinence is important here - and it's got nothing to do with being unable to control ones bowel or bladder functions.

Well, thank goodness for that...

Originally Posted by TGS

Simply put, Plato's version of incontinence is doing what we know we shouldn't and not doing what we know we should. It may be just me*, but I find myself, (often, sometimes, on occasion?), doing things which I cannot justify on ethical grounds. This can be anything from stealing an envelope from the office, to exceeding the speed limit, to taking an extra ten minutes for lunch, to other things to which I am not about to confess here.

Probably smart. Probably not ethical, though. Funny how that works.

I need more. How can we have society without ethics? How can there be ethics without agreement? If Twizzlers are representative of ethics, is there a significance to the fact that every strand is the same color?

[neilmarr]

Dear Plato (via TGS): Yup, you have a point, old chap. But the question ain't that we do it, it's why we do it. And ultimately it's about whether our actions can be justified in a fair and honest human context. I guess now, we'll have to go back and define 'fair and honest'. Even 'human'. All good fun to try, but most of us will still be a-ditherin', I guess. Thanks for bringing this up, Steve. Interesting responses. Here's karma to ya. Cheers. Neil

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Dear Plato (via TGS): Yup, you have a point, old chap. But the question ain't that we do it, it's why we do it... Interesting responses.

I think it's both, actually... both questions are hopelessly intertwined. You can't have one without the other. They are yin and yang. Kinda like a Twizzler. Except you can't tell the yin and yang apart, they both look like identical red strands of candy.

Ethics are like our identities: There is the one that we show the public; and there's the one we only let ourselves see (and occasionally someone else, when you've had too much to drink, or when you're that close to orgasm and just don't care anymore, or when you're online and you think no one knows you). But how valid can they be, if they are different in yourself, and in everyone else, and not the same publicly as privately? Is my public ethic just a cheap toupee to cover my unethically bald head? Or is it covering my ethically bald head, but I just don't want people to know what my real ethics look like? Are the toupee and the bald head two strands of the same Twizzler?

(By the way, I'm not bald.) (No, really.)

I'm afraid my ethics are showing. On the other hand, I think I'm exposing my ethics just to get shocked responses from the ladies. On the other hand, I don't expect the ladies to respond, because then their ethics would be exposed. On the other hand... that might not be so bad...

[GeoffC]

Ouch.

I knew my brain would be hurting after dropping in on this thread .....

[darknessangel]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

(Had to go back and make sure I put the silliness tag up there.)
Maybe, but black clothing always reveals my psoriasis.
...

Never told you to dress bad.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

No, but how evil can you be, dressed in khakis?

(Unless you're in the jungle. But then the Phantom will get you, so I'm not doing that.)

[montsnmags]

I've watched a few Bond movies and white suits get their fair run at evil, so don't let stereotypical expectations constrain your fashion choices, Steven. Boardshorts, a tan, a beach, and a drink with a little umbrella in it are the new black, darlink!

Cheers,
Number 2 (he he he..."number 2" <giggle>)

[nyrath]

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

[neilmarr]

Yup, Steve. There is no doubt that evolution and personal experience and development hardwire us to make 'ethical' and 'moral' impulse decisions. Thing is that we also are equipped with the software to instantly override these automotic settings.

Think of a modern digital camera with wee buttons to produce the best results in specific lighting conditions: dawn, sunny, overcast, evening, darkness. Even automatic focus. Then there's the manual override for special situations when you may need an in-between light setting and want to, say, focus on background rather than foreground.

We have the manual overdrive. And that allows us to quickly adjust to a special situation that wasn't anticipated by the manufacturer.

A becoming-famous example is that of the man on the railway track.

Is it moral to deliberately change the points so that you divert the midnight special to knock him down and kill him? Of course not. That's cold-blooded murder. Our hard wiring tells us so. A no brainer, eh?

But ... is it ethical and moral to sacrifice that stranger's life if it saves the train from a line blockage and potentially saves a half-dozen other lives? Hmmm ...

Hard-wired morality and ethics won't help you. Manual override must be instantly brought into play. Your hand is on the lever. You have a split second in which to use it or let it fall to your side. One life or six?

The very last post in this thread from Nyrath is poignant: "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

My question is simply; can it?

This is all a very complex study with answers and puzzles a-million and, perhaps, better discussed on a more specialised board. The kind of place where, again, I always seem to leave scratching my head and wondering, enriched with questions rather than overwhelmed by answers.

Hoots toots. Neil

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

A becoming-famous example is that of the man on the railway track.

Is it moral to deliberately change the points so that you divert the midnight special to knock him down and kill him? Of course not. That's cold-blooded murder. Our hard wiring tells us so. A no brainer, eh?

But ... is it ethical and moral to sacrifice that stranger's life if it saves the train from a line blockage and potentially saves a half-dozen other lives? Hmmm ...

Pfft... that's an easy one!

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one."

Or, to put it another way, at least the one guy has a chance of stepping off the track in time, whereas those on the train are helpless to protect themselves.

Come on! Give me a hard one! A real brain-Twizzler!

(Funny as it sounds, now we're getting closer to answering my original question!)

[v1k1ng1001]

Actually I think this is one of the outstanding meta-ethical questions.

Why or how is one morally obligated to observe moral obligation in the first place?