Living Ethically through a Social Contract
Navigating Through Ethical Ambiguity
Often our first experiences with ethics involves navigation through difficult or even
dangerous situations and we attempt to make our decisions without the tools to do so.
These situations come up in daily activities, but they can also arise in occupational
settings where training events are conducted under the title of 'ethics'. Much of what
businesses call "ethics training" is delivered in a normative way, through groupwork in
case studies that imitate situations in which employees must make decisions that reflect
the values of the business or profession and further the accomplishment of the
corporate mission. Rarely do such training events address the three primary schools
and Aristotle's virtue ethics or practice the tools of decision-making beyond the
intentions of the corporation.
The result is that most people must make their choices without good skills, and we all
know people who have made weak or even tragic decisions. There is a whole lot more
to ethics than merely knowing what the corporate leadership would want you to do.
Those decisions reflect what people care about deeply, the training they have received
in other contexts, their feelings and emotions, loyalties, and their desires and lusts.
If ethics were merely applied subjectivism, everyone could just do whatever they want
and take whatever they desire from each other. They could just plunder and pillage with
no more justification than, "I want that." What kind of world would that be? Dangerous
and chaotic! And what ethics would be governing? None at all!
Reading, Listening, Speaking
Such care with language!
Tuning our ears, Tuning our minds
This is not a critical thinking course literally, but TCO 2 does call us to develop critical
thinking skills. It calls us to alertness to the language of what we read, hear, and then
say.
This is important because we all live and move within our families, communities, jobs-and even around this university--where and how things are communicated is very much
a part of what is communicated. If you have ever taken great pains to speak or write in a
very exact way so that you would be understood correctly, this is a moment to realize
that sometimes people take great care to communicate clearly to you--or perhaps to
mislead and confuse you.
So, tune your ears and stay sharp. And if there ever was a time and place where that
fine-tuning is needed, it is in this messy business of ethical decision-making.
Spotting Ethical Language in Our Course and in Our Lives
Dealing With Dilemmas
Dilemmas are a special genre of problem solving. They are perplexing and stressful.
Dilemmas are difficult partly because of their form and partly because most people lack
the ability to work within them and apply skillful analysis to them.
In a world like the one Thomas Hobbes will describe further down this Week 3 Lecture,
where we want everything and yet cannot have it, we must make tough choices. It is not
a pun that the Week 1 reading article by Kidder was titled "Tough Choices." Many of the
ethical dilemmas in this course and in our lives illustrate that there is more demand than
there is supply to meet the demand, so difficult and painful decisions must be made. In
other words, people want and must compete for what they want when there is not
enough to go around. If there were plenty for everybody and we could have everything
we want, all would be easy and there would be no need for ethics.
The nature of dilemmas is governed by three realities:
We cannot have everything we want and must make choices among imperfect or
unclear alternatives that are not completely satisfying.
In choosing one alternative, we give up the availability of the others.
We cannot turn back the clock and change our minds when we make mistakes. This
makes living difficult and even painful, and it is the arena for ethical decision making.
Ethical Language
From the presentation above, language is conducted in three forms that relate to the
verbs in sentences. Learning to listen to what is said or written and learning to
communicate yourself are among the enduring and valuable outcomes of studying
ethics.
* Descriptive language is the language of science, and the key words are forms of the
intransitive verb to be. This is why the sciences can describe the world in analytic detail
but cannot yield ethical decisions about how the world "should be."
* Imperative language is characterized by requirements and orders, and the key word
is must. What "must be" can be no other and involves no choices.
* Prescriptive language is characterized by ought and should (treated as synonyms).
There are real and viable possibilities for choice, and not all people will choose the
same possibility. The merit of each choice will not be clear. The ability to revisit the
choice may not be available. The pressure to make a choice may be severe.
Most people face ethical choices daily and lack the means to make strong and good
choices. Many people are also unable to realize that those who call on them to make
choices and speak persuasively and rhetorically will skillfully move from one form of
language to another without being found out. There is a lot of vulnerability here for those
who do not listen or read critically!
Ethics is also conducted in other forms of language. Among the most common are
these: "Is it right/wrong…?" "Is it best/worst…?" "Is it justified…?" "Is it okay…?"
Universal Moral Sentiments
Aristotle taught that all objects have a purpose. The idea continued in language from
what the purpose "is" to what the purposeful action "should be."
St. Thomas Aquinas taught how reason discloses natural law and ethics in such a way
that people should make their ethical decisions in accordance with what is true in the
natural law, which then discloses the God who created the natural systems. Good
decisions coincide with the natural law.
The Scientific Age generally affirms that ethical claims of right and wrong cannot be
determined by reason or by the nature of the world. That is why the empirical sciences
are written in descriptive language and cannot by their own standards move into
prescriptive language of what should/ought be in the world. The sciences generally
claim their analytic nature to arise from their agenda of being free of values. What
proceeds from such a value-free claim is a restriction from speaking in the realm of
values--the realm of ethics. Connecting to what is said about language above: Science
is conducted in descriptive language of "is" but cannot move beyond to prescriptive
language without compromising its status of being value-free, or what is sometimes
called being dispassionate.
David Hume, in the 18th century, looked at the constitution of nature and observed that
people really do care about themselves and what they value; then, beyond themselves,
they connect with other people. This caring is emotive; it is active in the heart and bodily
reactions. For Hume, it is in our reactions, reflexes, sentiments, and affections that
moral thoughts arise.
Moreover, these morals arise at a universal level; they involve everybody. Hume spoke
of "universal moral sentiments" as precisely what he describes. They are universal in
the sense of appearing and acting in all persons of sound mind. They are moral in that
they prescribe ethical action and in the language of should/ought. They
are sentiments in that they arise in emotions and feelings rather than through rational
thinking.
Hume's morals impact human actions by the affections of the people who accomplish
them. Moral sentiments excite passions, which drive choices and actions. Humans are
too close to their sentiments to act through reason, so rationality is not dependable for
making ethical choices and taking action on them. Within the Ethical Subjectivism that
Hume described, those who affirm rationality and use reason to make their choices are
wrong.
Is/Ought Dichotomy
Hume's observation about authors is that they write with an almost imperceptible shift
from the rational language of description to the moral language of prescription. The shift
may be so subtle that even the authors do not realize what they do. It could also be an
intentional rhetorical shift to persuade readers.
Called the Is/Ought Dichotomy , David Hume identified an issue that reaches through
all ages and cultures. Authors, like anybody else, respond reflexively to their own
feelings and affections. Without even realizing it, affections drive the morality of authors
so that their language shifts from the descriptive "is" to the prescriptive "ought/should" in
a disingenuous way. Hume catches even the most rational writers slipping into this
mistake. This is worthy of attention even in daily living through what we read and hear in
our activities and through news outlets.
If morality arises and consists of emotions and feelings, and if the emotions and feelings
of competent minds will generally be the same beyond individualized personal
considerations, then there is a universal morality that is not discovered by reason. It will
be found in universal moral sentiments--universal in applying to everybody everywhere,
moral in that it is prescriptive in language, and sentimental in that it arises from feelings
and emotions and sentiments. The most powerful sentiment will be that of approbation,
the feeling of approval and satisfaction.
The Social Contract
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are the seminal figures for Social Contract Theory and
the ethics that proceed from it. They, like any of us, deal with our view of the world and
how we will live within it.
Social Contract theory is detached from religious teachings and religious obligations to
know or obey God. Beginning with analysis of the State of Nature, the ethics of a Social
Contract are driven by a quest to live in safe and productive harmony with neighbors.
Let's visit with Hobbes and Locke to see what they have to say about that.
Download a Transcript of the Hobbes-Locke discussion of the Social Contract.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first to write out a detailed account of a combined
social contract anthropology and ethical system. His concern was very much driven by
his youthful experience of living in a time of social and political chaos and in a troubled
household, which taught him that the world was a wild and dangerous place.
Driven by self-interest, social contract morality requires an agreement on how to get
along--not a formal contract negotiated at a conference but an operative morality that
allows personal self-interest in exchange for the protected self-interest of others. The
goal is to establish and maintain the conditions for a peaceful society and all the
aspects of it.
Looking at the right of people to use their power to preserve their own lives and
possessions (jus naturale), plus the responsibility to not do what is forbidden and
destructive to life (lex naturalis), Hobbes arrived at the contractual ideal that people
would lay down some of their rights to all things in exchange for others' laying down
claims to what they own. There is reciprocity here; a peaceful coexistence can be
achieved among self-interested people by their relinquishing of claims upon each other.
The Doc Sharing tab contains an excerpt from chapter 13 of Hobbes' book, The
Leviathan.
Our Natural Rights
The Social Contract theory was developed through the work of John Locke, JeanJacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson. Doc Sharing also includes an excerpt from
John Locke's Two Treatises on Government, Book II.
John Locke's contribution was to move Social Contract theory toward application, and
his work was foundational to the establishment of the American Government, though he
did not play a personal role in creating it. Locke's concept of a State of Nature was that
of perfect freedom in which people naturally cooperated for the common good, enjoyed
personal rights, and honored the rights of each other living together as a
commonwealth. What the State of Nature did not grant was a state of unlimited license
against other persons or their possessions.
The ethics of a commonwealth were that equally free and independent people ought not
to harm others or their possessions; therefore, there would be no subordination of
people and that rights of self-preservations were to be protected.
Summary Points
Ethics is conducted in language, and language carries issues of ambiguous meaning
and intention.
Most people never study ethics directly but instead receive training in normative applied
ethics through other elements of their education or occupational training.
Dilemmas are difficult and painful because they involve imperfect choices in which all
that is desired cannot be realized and in which the participants lack the ethical theories
and tools to help their deciding processes.
Ethics is most commonly conducted in the prescriptive verbal forms of "should" and
"ought" and in a few other formats. Knowing these formats and how to use them is a
powerful outcome of studying ethics.
Not all ethicists have agreed on the use of rational thought for conducting ethical
discussions. Hume is a notable exception who determined that ethics arises in the
emotions and affective feelings and that this phenomenon operates in all people.
Great care is needed in study, reading, speaking because authors and speakers will
shift imperceptibly from descriptive language to prescriptive language--sometimes
through inattentiveness and sometimes for their own rhetorical and manipulative
purposes.
The Social Contract schools of ethics and politics developed from the need to support
forms of government in Europe and America. The ethics of the Social Contract call for
decisions that support the stability and safety of the commonwealth for the selfinterested benefit of all people.
Consider these three problems. In writing a paper about all three of them individually,
identify the consequences of the actions taken, and then determine whether the actions
taken represented a greater good, who would benefit from the good, and whether the
consequences ethically justify the decisions and actions.
The Mayor of a large city was given a free membership in an exclusive golf club by
people who have received several city contracts. He also accepted gifts from
organizations that have not done business with the City but might in the future. The
gifts ranged from $200 tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and
jewelry.
A college instructor is pursuing her doctorate in night school. To gain extra time for
her own studies, she gives her students the same lectures, the same assignments,
and the same examinations semester after semester without the slightest effort to
improve them.
Todd and Edna have been married for three years. They have had serious personal
problems. Edna is a heavy drinker, and Todd cannot keep a job. Also, they have
bickered and fought constantly since their marriage. Deciding that the way to
overcome their problems is to have a child, they stop practicing birth control, and
Edna becomes pregnant.
Using this week lesson, write an answer to all three parts. How would Locke have
addressed or solved the problem? Explain how his ethics and the answer he may have
given are different or the same as yours.
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