Are People Becoming More Unethical? Brian Orend

Transcription

1 Are People Becoming More Unethical? Brian Orend

2 Quick Reminder of Key Terms Ethics: how you should live your life; how you should conduct yourself throughout life. Morality: how you should treat other people. Justice: how all of us should shape the basic social institutions which have the widest and deepest impact upon our lives (e.g. government, the law, the economy, health care, education, etc.)

3 Target Diagram Justice Morality Ethics

4 A Common Belief There s evidence from many public opinion surveys (e.g. PEW) that most people in North America believe two things: 1) they themselves, as individuals, are ethically above-average. 2) the majority of people are not ethical, and this is getting worse

5 Belief #1 Many researchers have pointed out how, mathematically, it s impossible for the majority (much less the vast majority) to be above-average, ethically. Lots of evidence that we all, some to a greater degree than others, engage in self-flattering self-deception on this point. We want to think well of ourselves, after all.

6 Ethical Bell-Curve

7 Belief #2 So, Common Belief #1 seems rather mistaken, and we re not all quite as ethically good as how we like to think of ourselves. But what of Belief #2, that while we ourselves are good and getting better, other people are bad and getting worse? This is our subject today...

8 What Does it Mean to Behave Unethically? Remember our Foundational Five Moral Theories? They each have something important to say about this:

9 Virtue on Vice... 1) Virtue Ethics. Ethical Behaviour is about behaving as would a virtuous person. For every virtue, there s a corresponding vice (its negative), and behaving badly means displaying the vices. Aristotle s Four Cardinal Virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Moderation, and Justice would have, as opposites: Ignorance, Cowardice, Immoderation and Injustice (Others: Lying, Cruelty, Greed, etc.)

10 Deontology 2) Deontology says that the ethical thing to do is to perform your duty in the situation, and do so with the proper intention. Kant instructive here. He says unethical behaviour comes whenever one of two things happen: A) we selfishly exempt ourselves from the universal laws of ethics (e.g. Lying) B) we disregard the humanity of others by using them as mere props in our own private projects

11 Utilitarianism -sets the bar for ethical behaviour quite high: the key thing is to do what we can, as individuals, to make the world a happier place. (Apply the hedonistic calculus to every choice situation, and select the option with highest expected net utility score.) Unethical behaviour would be whatever fails to achieve that. (Example of Peter Singer).

12 Rights-Based Theory Lower standard for ethics: respect everyone s most basic entitlements to life, liberty, and non-discrimination. Thus, unethical behaviour is violating those rights.

13 Feminism E.g., following Carol Gilligan, unethical behaviour would be failing to act as a good mother would in a given situation. In particular, failing to display the kind of loving, empowering support and empathy we expect of the best kind of mother.

14 Alright So, that gives us a wider and deeper perspective of WHAT we should view as unethical behaviour. But, WHY do people behave unethically? Recent researchers in ethics, law, psychology, and sociology have offered the following, based on quite exhaustive experiments, as well as interviews with criminals, etc:

15 Why Are We Bad? 1) Self-Exception from Universal Standards (Kant #1) (e.g., lying, theft) 2) Group-Exception from Universal Standards ( in-group bias, leading to discrimination) 3) Genuine Sociopathy (Kant#2) (crooks & CEOs?) 4) Ignorance (quite rare, though...)

16 Cont d... 5) Weakness of Will (e.g. addiction, adultery) 6) Extreme Risk-Prone Tendencies (e.g., ENRON) 7) Situational Pressures (e.g. Yale heart study) 8) Mimicking Leadership (e.g., Milgram)

17 OK......those are prime causes of being unethical. BUT...are we becoming MORE unethical???

18 Putnam s Case In Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam argues for a systematic, long-term, downward trend AWAY FROM ethical values and social engagement. (His argument applies to USA in first instance, but presumably we can at least generalize to CDA, or English-speaking CDA, as we share a common cultural space...)

19 Cont d... Putnam argues that common, public groupings within civil society have collapsed in membership post-wwii, and emphatically since the end of the Cold War (1990-ish) and the rise of the Internet. He focusses especially on groupings/institutions which involve regular, direct, personal contact with others in service of a common cause (e.g. churches, political parties, neighbourhood associations, and sports leagues)

20 Bowling Alone because While bowling as an activity is only slightly down over the time period in question (at least in USA), bowling as part of team within a league is WAY down. Thus, more people are bowling alone...

21 And this is sad & bad because......the collapse of this kind of group participation, social engagement, and individual action in service of a common cause benefitting everyone reduces what experts call social capital and social trust. The result, Putnam fears, is a cocooning of individuals within their own work/homes, and spending all their time catering to their own careers, pet hobbies, and purchases.

22 Cont d... Cocooned Individuals & Less Social Trust/Capital is bad because: 1) -for moral reasons related to selfishness and in-group bias 2) -for political reasons related to hampering democracy & consensual moderation

23 Cont d... 3) for further political reasons, as providing incentives in favour of greater corruption by public officials, and greater control by elites of all kinds, as isolated individuals care less, and are able to do less, about group welfare 4) for economic reasons, as recently economists have shown how important wide-spread trust is, e.g., to deals and to taking risks on making investments and hiring.

24 Statistics show that... Where there are high-levels of social trust, there is a high level of economic and social development (e.g. throughout Scandinavia, Canada), low levels of corruption, and generally quite high levels of self-reported happiness and satisfaction in life. (The converse is also true.)

25 From PEW Global Over a decade, PEW has surveyed across the world re: Most people in my society can be trusted. Results? CDA: on avg., 70%+ agree; USA, only 60% agree. Sweden highest at avg. of 80%+ Rest of the West, the majority is positive

26 But......everywhere else, the clear majority disagrees with that statement: Eastern Europe; Middle East; Latin America. in East Asia and Africa, its almost split 50/50 consistently over time. Economists/PSCI have recently been stressing soft, cultural factors, such as moral values, in promoting hard economic development

27 Putnam blames... Rise of secularism Prominent scandals, esp. political ones (e.g. Watergate) Triumph of globalized capitalism ( Consumer is King ) Rise of Internet (as exacerbating cocooning). **What reason do we have to talk to each other anymore, much less collectively engage in progressive action?**

28 ...Others add Picketty...Thomas Picketty, and his recent, high-profile work on growing income inequality. There s recent evidence that social trust is higher in countries (and individual US states) where income inequality is less. Thus, the substantial evidence of clear growth in income inequality since 1980 (rich getting richer, poor getting poorer) bodes ill for social trust and the endurance of the good things it s associated with

29 On the Other Hand -rates of crime, especially for the worst crimes, are measurably down throughout North America, as part of long-term trend (e.g. Homicide rate in CDA peaked in 1975; in USA, 1980)

30 Cont d... In surveys of self-reported attitudes, there s a clear downward trend in people s selfreported willingness to do things which could land them in legal trouble (violent crime, theft, harassment, falsify documents). (But, same surveys show a slight upward trend in willingness to do things which might be ethically wrong, but which aren t legally punishable, e.g. infidelity)

31 Cont d... -information-sharing, and vigilance, about most of the worst ethical/legal offenses is now better than it has ever been, thanks in part to better education & things like the Internet. The Internet, while maybe cocooning for some, also allows others to connect to other people of shared identity/interest which, in the past, it would have been impossible for them to do. Thus, can be a tool of connection.

32 Cont d... It s easy to over-romanticize the past. Yes, bowling leagues and church attendance and voter turn-out are down. But the past was also a land of (comparative) ignorance, discrimination, violence, and lack of effective over-sight, vigilance, and regulation.

33 Conclusion? I don t know whether we are becoming more unethical in general. There are these pros and cons. (Maybe ethics trend up and down throughout history, depending on complex factors.) I think we have more tools than ever before to be more ethical but maybe Aristotle was right that, in the end, much depends on our strength of will to actually use such tools

34 THANKS!!! Brian Orend University of Waterloo