Ethics within Human Relationships
Introduction
Our many relationships are where the applied ethics of our lives are acted out, and
conflict commonly occurs at every level of life. This week, we meet and practice using
three of the best models for resolving conflicts. Then we move on to revisit a concern
from earlier in our course in the concept of "The Whole World in Our Hands," the
concern about the boundaries of our duties and obligations. With Ayn Rand's
Objectivism comes the question of what, if any, ethical duties and obligations impact our
lives. Then we visit the professional and business relationships that will touch our lives
in days to come.
Ethical dilemma resolution models give us a "series of questions" to work through when
faced with an ethical dilemma. Some work better for select situations. We have covered
a few of these up to this point and discussed each week how some famous
philosophers solved ethical dilemmas. Many ethicists believe that a particular mindset is
the way to solve all ethical dilemmas. Others find that putting yourself in another
person's shoes is a great strategy. Other resolution models ask you to think how you will
feel if others know what you have done. The best part of using any model is that it trains
a person to think through behaviors and consider consequences before acting.
Sometimes that "breather" time alone is enough to stop a bad action in its tracks. These
models can also help you stop others who may be contemplating an unethical action by
helping them work through a dilemma in a step-by-step, thoughtful way.
Following an explanation of these three methods, you will have the opportunity to
practice the first case study situation that we will discuss this week.
Laura Nash Method
Laura Nash is an ethics and divinity professor at Harvard. She created a series of 12
questions to ask oneself when confronted with an ethical dilemma:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Have you defined the problem accurately?
How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the fence?
How did this situation occur in the first place?
To whom and to what do you give your loyalty as a person and as a member of
the corporation?
5. What is your intention in making this decision?
6. How does this intention compare with the probable results?
7. Whom could your decision or action injure?
8. Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your
decision?
9. Are you confident that your position will be as valid over a long period of time as
it seems now?
10. Could you disclose without qualm your decision or action to your boss, your
CEO, the board of directors, your family, society as a whole?
11. What is the symbolic potential of your action if understood? Misunderstood?
12. Under what conditions would you allow exceptions to your stand?"
(adapted from: Nash, L. (1981). Ethics Without the Sermon. Harvard Business
Review, (59). Found at: https://hbr.org/1981/11/ethics-without-the-sermon (Links to an
external site.)Links to an external site..)
After answering the questions, a person then chooses an action, which will hopefully be
ethical and appropriate.
See the interactive in the box below, which allows you to practice using this
model.
Blanchard and Peale Method
Management expert Kenneth Blanchard and the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale offer a
series of questions that people should ponder in resolving ethical dilemmas:
1. Is it legal?
2. Will I be violating a civil law or institutional policy?
3. Is it balanced?
4. Is it fair to all concerned?
5. Does it promote win/win situations?
6. How will it make me feel about myself?
7. Will I be proud?
8. Would I feel good if my hometown newspaper published my decision?
9. Would I feel good if my family knew about my choice?
(Blanchard, K., & Peale, N.V. (1988). The power of ethical management. New York:
William Morrow [p. 27] )
Using these questions and subsequent answers, it is the hope that the person in this
situation will think through and allow their conscience to control their behavior.
See the interactive in the blue box below, which allows you to practice using this
model.
Front Page of the Newspaper
This very simple ethical resolution model requires only that a decision-maker envision
how a reporter would describe a decision on the front page of a local or national
newspaper. An example, provided by Marianne Jennings in her Business: Its Legal,
Ethical, and Judicial Environment (6th Ed.), states:
"When Salomon Brothers illegally cornered the U.S. government's bond market, the
Business Week headline read: "How Bad Will It Get?;" nearly two years later, a followup story on Salomon's crisis strategy was headlined "The Bomb Shelter That
Salomon Built." During the aftermath of the bond market scandal, the interim
chairman of Salomon, Warren Buffett, told employees, "Contemplating any business
act, an employee should ask himself whether he would be willing to see it immediately
described by an informed and critical reporter on the front page of his local paper,
there to be read by his spouse, children, and friends. At Salomon we simply want no
part of any activities that pass legal tests but that we as citizens, would find offensive."
"
(Jennings, M. M. (2003). Business: Its legal, ethical, and judicial environment . Mason,
OH: Thomson Southwest-West [p. 60])
With this strategy comes a way forward for those suffering the effects of conflict with
both benefits and costs.
Lets practice using the three ethical dilemma resolution models in this interactive
tutorial. The tutorial below will provide you with a dilemma scenario and then let you try
out the three models. Click the button for the model you want to use to see a "sample"
analysis using that model.
You have just graduated from Devry University Online and have landed your first job as
a contract consultant for a web development company. You will work as a consultant
through a temporary service for a period of six months and then if all goes well, you will
be offered a permanent position with benefits.
Your wife of two years is very excited as she is working in a dead end position for a man
who has been harassing her for the last four months. And furthermore as soon as you
get benefits, she would like to start having a family. You are a very motivated employee.
In month four of your six month probation you receive a new assignment from your
boss. The assignment is to set up a website which explains how to procure various
different chemicals and substances as well as linked to another site online where
individuals may legally purchase anhydrous ammonia. You realize within minutes that
you’ve been assigned to create a website to help people product crystallize
methamphetamines, a legal and illegal black market drug.
You’ve selected to approach your boss with the assignment and hesitantly ask for an
appointment to discuss it. Your boss, a rather distant and nasty man gives you a
thumbs down and says, “Oh, I’m busy, go get the assignment done. The client pre-paid
it and it’s a rush order.” You look down at the paper and see the gold star in the corner
which means it is to be done within 24 hours.
Transcript (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
As the employee, what do you do? Check the three sample solutions below.
Ethical Dilemma Resolution Models
Select a method below to see the recommendations for each model approach.
1. Laura Nash
2. Hide Answer
3. 1. Have you defined the problem accurately?
4. In this case, if you are certain that the website is in fact designed to help people
learn to make crystal meth, then in all likelihood, you have defined it accurately.
However, you also know that if you don’t do this, someone else will.
5. 2. How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the
fence?
6. This is always one of the hardest questions. What IS on the other side of the
fence?
7. A) Your boss’s fence: he took the money and offered a service.
8. B) The fence of the client. He paid for the service.
9. C) The fence of the people using the website: you would be an accomplice to
their crime, possibly.
10. D) The fence of the law: 1st Amendment rights of freedom of speech. What
exactly does this entail? Does that extend to providing people with the method
to make illegal drugs?
11. 3. How did this situation occur in the first place?
12. In an employment situation where you want to do really well, so that your wife
can get out of her situation and the two of you can start a family. You just
wanted to do your thing for 6 months until you got put on permanently. You
don’t want to rock the boat.
13. 4. To whom and to what do you give your loyalty as a person and as a member
of the corporation?
14. As a person: your loyalty obviously is to your wife and future family, and
yourself! (Think Ayn Rand here.) Duty (Kant) to society as well.
15. Member of the corporation: On one hand, doing what the boss says is your job.
But, if you put this together and then the company is later implicated in a legal
battle about it, have you really served the company? Since you didn’t get to talk
to your boss about WHY you are concerned, what if he gets mad later that you
didn’t insist? This is a tough one.
16. 5. What is your intention in making this decision?
17. This personal question is hard. You probably want to: a) keep your job b) pass
your probation period and c) not write this website.
18. Employer issues aside, you also don’t want your company to be implicated in a
scandal like this.
19. 6. How does this intention compare with the probable results?
20. It is likely that somehow this will turn out badly either way. This dilemma is one
of those no-win dilemmas.
21. 7. Whom could your decision or action injure?
22. Deciding to go forward with the page could injure someone who uses the site to
make meth, someone who ends up buying the meth, your personal integrity,
and also the company in the long term if it gets caught.
23. Deciding not to go forward with the page could get you fired and then your wife
will be stuck in her bad job and you have to delay having a family even longer.
24. 8. Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your
decision?
25. You tried and your boss said no. You need to either go up the chain of
command (over his head) or do the page.
26. 9. Are you confident that your position will be as valid over a long period of time
as it seem now?
27. Yes, very confident.
28. 10. Could you disclose without qualm your decision or action to your boss, your
CEO, the board of directors, your family, society as a whole?
29. You could only discuss this without qualms if you didn’t go forward with the
page.
30. 11. What is the symbolic potential of your action if understood? Misunderstood?
31. Symbolically, you will have made a statement that your personal ethics are
more important than making money for your company if you don’t do it. If you do
it, you have made the statement that you believe you have the right to write
anything you want, and only the people who take the information are at fault.
Kind of like the “guns don’t kill people-people kill people” analogy. That way you
get to keep your job.
32. 12. Under what conditions would you allow exceptions to your stand?
33. This will be personal to each person. Possibly, you would make an exception if
you knew that this site was actually going to be used by law enforcement
personnel to track the people who use the site to try to create a sting operation
to catch the abusers.
34. Thus, this method helps you think deeply about the situation…but doesn’t make
the decision for you.
35. What is your decision?
36.
37. Blanchard and Peale
38.
39. Hide Answer
40. 1.Is it legal?
41. No, crystal meth is illegal. Not sure if writing the website is illegal.
42. 2.Will I be violating a civil law or institutional policy?
43. It is likely that some would say the 1st Amendment would protect me but not
sure on that.
44. 3.Is it balanced?
45. It is not balanced. This is weighed entirely on the side of
bad/criminal/dangerous. The only thing on the side of not rocking the boat is
that I might lose my job. I want my wife away from that boss and we want a
family. If I am out of work, we will never be able to get ahead.
46. 4.Is it fair to all concerned?
47. It is not fair.
48. 5.Does it promote win/win situations?
49. Not really applicable. The boss’s refusal to talk to me was not win/win. Me
getting fired is lose/lose.
50. 6.How will it make me feel about myself?
51. If I do this page, I will feel awful and guilty and scared. If I don’t, I may lose my
job and feel awful.
52. 7.Will I be proud?
53. Not if I write the website.
54. 8.Would I feel good if my hometown newspaper published my decision?
55. I would feel good if they published that I stood my ground and refused to write
the page.
56. 9.Would I feel good if my family know about my choice?
57. Only if I chose NOT to write the page.
58. In this case, I am clearly determined NOT to do this job. I will just have to get
my boss to talk to me. If he says I must do it, I’m taking it up the chain. I will call
the local authorities if I must, and try to get Whistleblower protections.
59.
60.
61. Front Page of the Newspaper
62. Hide Answer
63. Envisioning this on the front page of the paper:
64. “Web designer provides method to produce Crystal Meth—caught in Police
Sting operation.”
65. “12 youths killed when crystal meth lab explodes in apt building. ‘I learned it
from a website’ said one.”
66. “Crystal Meth responsible for school bus crash.”
67. Sensationalizing the way this could be depicted is one hard and fast way to
decide your actions.
68. What are some other headlines you can think of?
Do you agree with the sample solutions or do you disagree? Feel free to discuss the
differences and similarities or any questions you have about this in the discussions this
week.
Talking Points about Ethical Resolution Models
The most difficult part about using ethical dilemma resolution models is knowing which
one to use in what situation. The ones listed in this lecture are mostly used in business
ethic situations. Oftentimes, one must stop and think, "Is this the kind of situation where
anyone would care enough to put my behavior on the front page?" If not, that doesn't
necessarily mean the action is ethical, just not "newsworthy." The fact that newspapers
focus on the strange and unusual is not a basis for declaring an unethical action to be
ethical. It just may mean that the front page of the newspaper test isn't the best one for
that dilemma.
Likewise, because a newspaper may report something as being unethical even when it
is not, a person needs to really think through his or her behavior. What if the news
reporter is unethical? What if his or her ethics are different from yours? What if you
know in your heart that an action is the right thing to do, but the newspapers will jump
on it with two feet and make you look bad? For example, Dr. Kevorkian, mentioned last
week, still feels he did the right thing in assisting sick people with dying. He was willing
to go to jail (suffer the consequences) for his behavior.
The easiest and most personally enlightening ethical resolution method is just that one:
1. What will be the consequences of this action if others learn of my action?
2. Are the consequences worth carrying through with the action?
If the answer to #2 is yes, then for that person, the action is the "right" one. Whether it is
the "ethical" action, however, is another story. Ethics really is a question of "right" and
"wrong." Consequentialism is definitely an ethical theory, and one which many people
say is just like Utilitarianism. The ironic thing about this method, however, is that it only
works for people who have a base system of ethics or principles. Moral relativists, who
are inherently unethical, are able to use this 2-step method to justify to themselves
(quite often) their dangerous or unethical behavior. Thus, people with difficulty
understanding the difference between right and wrong should use a more detailed
method, such as Laura Nash's, until a habit of ethical behavior becomes established.
If you still have questions about this, do not feel alone. Many of us do; truly ethical
people continue to question, grow, learn, and sometimes even change their mind about
right and wrong as a result of experiences, results, and learning throughout their lives.
As we also discussed last week, Norma McCorvey, the woman who was the Plaintiff in
Roe v. Wade, has changed her mind as an older adult, and regrets very much her role
in legalizing abortion.
If you want the best advice on ethical behavior, it would make sense to ask a wellrespected person in their 70s or 80s--by that age, these seniors have seen years of life,
made millions of decisions, and realized and lived with the results of those decisions.
Truly, humans have a unique ability to learn from older generations and should take
advantage of this whenever possible.
Ayn Rand's Objectivism
Our ethicists to this point have come from long before we could ever sit at their feet for
direct teaching--some, such as Aristotle, from very long ago. In the case of Ayn Rand,
we have a teacher from the early age of television and can learn from her directly.
Ayn Rand in Person...
This is a television interview segment from 1959 of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace. It was a
half-hour interview program, and here we meet her for just over nine minutes to get the
essence of what she was teaching. The whole interview in three segments is available
online for those who wish to hear it.
Transcript
Interview video 1
Interviewee: Sense of the word. I’m not _________ emotional impression. Is that
your impression? Announcer: Mike Wallace Ayn Rand, 225-1 take two. Interviewer: I
have not. I’m curious. Better not talk ________. This is Mike Wallace with another
television portrait from our gallery of colorful people. Throughout the United States,
small pockets of intellectuals have been become involved in a new and unusual
philosophy which would seem to strike at the very roots of our society. The
fountainhead of this philosophy is a novelist, Ayn Rand whose two major works, The
Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have been bestsellers. We’ll try to find out more
about her revolutionary creed and about Miss Rand herself in just a moment. And
now to our story. Down through history various political and philosophical
movements have sprung up but most of them died. Some of them however, like
democracy or communism take hold and affect the entire world. Here in the United
States perhaps the most challenging and unusual new philosophy has been forged
by a novelist, Ayn Rand. Miss Rand’s point of view is still comparatively unknown in
America but if it ever did take hold it would revolutionize our lives. Ayn, to begin with,
I wonder if I can ask you to capsulize; I know this is difficult. Can I ask you to
capsulize your philosophy? What is Randism? Interviewee: First of all I do not call it
Randism and I don’t like that name. Interviewer: All right. Interviewee: I call it
objectivism. Interviewer: All right. Interviewee: Meaning a philosophy based on
objective reality. Now let be explain it as briefly as I can. First, my philosophy is
based on the concept that reality exists as an objective absolute that man’s mind,
reason is his means of ________ and that man needs a rational morality. I am
primarily the creator of a new cult of morality which has so far been believed
impossible, namely a morality not based on faith – Interviewer: On faith.
Interviewee: Not on faith, not on arbitrarily whim, not on emotion, not on arbitrary
_____ mystical or social but on reason. A morality which can be proved by means of
logic which can be demonstrated to be true and necessary. Interviewer: All right, all
right. Interviewee: Now, may I define what my reality is? Interviewer: All right.
Interviewee: Because this is merely an introduction. My morality is based on man’s
life as a standard of value and since man’s mind is his basic means of survival, I
hope that if man wants to live on earth and to live as a human being, he has to hold
reason as an absolute by which I mean that he has to hold reason as his only guide
to action and that he must lead by the independent judgment of his own mind, that
his highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness and that he must
not force other people nor accept their right to force him, that each man must life as
an end in himself and follow his own rational self interest. Interviewer: May I interrupt
now? Interviewee: You may. Interviewer: Because you bring, you put this philosophy
to work in your novel Atlas Shrugged. You demonstrate it in human terms in your
novel Atlas Shrugged. Now let me start by quoting from a review of this novel Atlas
Shrugged that appeared in Newsweek. It said that, you are out to destroy almost
every edifice in the contemporary American way of life, our Judea Christian religion,
a modified government regulated capitalism, a rule by the majority will. Other reviews
have said that you scorned churches and the concept of God. Are these accurate
criticisms? Interviewee: Yes. I agree with the facts but not the estimates of these
criticisms, namely if I am challenging the base of all these institutions. I’m
challenging the moral cult of altruism, the precept that man’s moral duty is to live for
others, that men must sacrifice himself to others which is the present day morality.
Interviewer: What do you mean by “sacrifice himself for others”? Now we’re getting to
the point.
Interviewee: One moment, since I’m challenging the base I necessarily would
challenge the institutions you're naming which are a result of that morality.
Interviewer: All right. Interviewee: And now what is self sacrifice? Interviewer: Yes,
what is self sacrifice? You say that you do not like the altruism by which we live. You
like a certain kind of Ayn Randist selfishness. Interviewee: Well see but I don’t like is
to wick a word. I consider it evil and self sacrifice is the precept that man needs to
serve others in order to justify his existence, that his moral duty is to serve others.
That is what most people believe today. Interviewer: Well yes we’re taught to feel
concern for our fellow man, to feel responsible for his welfare, to feel that we are as
religious people might put it, children under God and responsible one for the other.
Now why do you rebel? What’s wrong with this philosophy? Interviewee: But that is
what in fact makes man a sacrificial animal. That man must work for others, concern
himself with others or be responsible for them. That is the role of a sacrificial object. I
say that man is entitled to his own happiness and that he must achieve it himself but
that he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy and nor
should he wish to sacrifice himself for the happiness of others. I hold that man should
have self esteem. Interviewer: And cannot man have self esteem if he loves his
fellow man? What’s wrong with loving your fellow man? Christ, every important moral
leader in man’s history has taught us that we should love one another. Why then is
this kind of love in your mind immoral? Interviewee: It is immoral if it is a love placed
above one’s self. It is more than immoral, it’s impossible. Because when you are
asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard,
to love them regardless of the fact whether they have any value or virtue, you are
asked to love nobody. Interviewer: But in a sense in your book you talk about love as
if it were a business deal of some kind. Isn't the essence of love that it is above self
interest?
Interviewee: Well let me make it complete for you. What would it mean to have love
above self interest? It would mean for instance that a husband would fail his wife if
he were moral according to the conventional morality that I am marrying you just for
your own sake. I have no personal interest in it but I’m selfish that I’m marrying you
only for your own good. Interviewer: Should husbands and wives telling –
Interviewee: Would any woman like that? Interviewer: Should husbands and wife’s
tally up at the end of the day and say well now wait a minute, I love her if she’s done
enough for me today or she loves me if I have properly performed my functions as?
Interviewee: Oh no, you misunderstood me. That is not how love should be treated. I
agree with you that it should be treated like a business deal but every business has
to have its own terms and its own kind of currency and in love the currency is virtue.
You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them
for their values, their virtues which they have achieved in their own character. You
don’t love _________. You don’t love everybody indiscriminately. You love only
those who deserve it. Interviewer: And then if a man is weak or a woman is weak
then she is beyond, he is beyond love? Interviewee: He certainly does not deserve it.
He certainly is beyond – he can always correct it. Man has free will. If a man wants
love he should correct his weaknesses or his flaws and he may deserve it, but he
cannot expect the unearned either in love nor in money, neither matter nor spiritual.
Interviewer: You have lived in our world and you realize, recognize the fallibility of
human beings. There are very few of us then in this world by your standards who are
worthy of love. Interviewee: Unfortunately yes, very few but because open to
everybody to make themselves more deserved and that is all that man morality offers
them, a way to make themselves worthy of love although that’s not the primary
motive. Interviewer: Let’s move ahead.
Interview video 2
Interviewer: Let’s move ahead. How does your philosophy translate itself into the
world of politics? Now one of the principal achievements of this country in the past 20
years particularly, I think most people agree is the gradual growth of social,
protective legislation based on the principal that we are our brother’s keepers. How
do you feel about the political trends of the United States, the western world?
Interviewee: The way everybody feels except more consciously. I feel that it is
terrible that you see destruction all around you and that you are moving toward
disaster until and unless all of those welfare state conceptions have been reversed
and rejected. It is precisely these trends which are bringing the world to disaster
because we are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system
under which everybody is enslaved to everybody and we are moving that way only
because our altruism morality. Interviewer: Ah yes but you say everybody is
enslaved to everybody. If this came about democratically, a free people in a free
country voted for this kind of government, wanted this kind of legislation, do you
object to the Democratic process? Interviewee: I object to the idea that people have
the right to vote on everything. The traditional American system was a system based
on the idea that majority will prevail only in public or political affairs and that it was
limited by _______________ individual rights. Therefore I do not believe that the
majority can vote a man’s life or property or freedom away from him. Therefore I do
not believe that if a majority votes on any issue, that this makes the issue right. It
doesn’t. Interviewer: All right, then how do we arrive at action? How should we arrive
at action? Interviewee: By voluntary consent, voluntary cooperation of free men,
unforced. Interviewer: And how do our leaders arrive – how do we arrive at our
leadership? Who elects? Who appoints? Interviewee: The whole people elects.
There is nothing wrong with Democratic process in politics. We arrive at it the way
we arrived by American constitution as it used to be. By the constitutional ______ as
we had it, people elect officials but the powers of those officials. The powers of
government are strictly limited. They Ayn Rand Interview: part will have no right to
initiate force or compulsion against any citizen except a criminal. Those who have
initiated force will be punished by force and that is the only proper function of
government. What we would not permit is the government to initiate force against
people who have hurt no one, who have not forced anyone. We would not give the
government or the majority or any minority the right to take the life or the property of
others. That was the original American system. Interviewer: When you say ‘take the
property of others’ I imagine that you're talking now about taxes. Interviewee: Yes I
am. Interviewer: And you believe that there should be no right by the government to
tax? You believe that there should be no such thing as welfare legislation,
unemployment compensation, regulation during times of stress, certain kinds of rent
controls and things like that? Interviewee: That’s right. I’m opposed to all forms of
control. I am for an absolute less affair, free, unregulated economy. Let me put it
briefly. I’m for the separation of state and economics just as we had separation of
state and church which led to peaceful coexistence among different religions after a
period of religious wars. So the same applies to economics. If you separate the
government from economics, if you do not regulation production and trade, you will
have peaceful cooperation and harmony and justice among men. Interviewer: You
are certainly enough of a political scientist to know that certain movements spring up
in reaction to other movements, the labor movement for instance, certain social
welfare legislation. This did not spring full blown from somebody’s head. I mean out
of a vacuum. This was a reaction to certain abuses that were going on. Isn't that true
Ayn? Interviewee: Not always. It actually sprang up from the same source as the
abuses. If by abuses you mean the legislation which originally had been established
to help industrialists which was already a breach of complete free enterprise, even in
reaction labor leaders get together to initiate legislation to help labor. That is only
acting on the same principle namely all parties agree that it is proper for the state to
legislate in favor of one economic group or another. What I’m saying is that nobody
should have the right, neither employers or employees to use state compulsion and
force for their own _____. [Crosstalk] Interviewer: But when you advocate, when you
advocate completely unregulated economic life in which every man works for his own
profit, you are asking in a sense for a devil take the hind most dog eat dog society
and one of the main reasons for the growth of government controls was to fight the
robber barons, to fight less affair in which the very people whom you admire the most
Ayn, the hard headed industrialists, the successful men perverted the use of their
power. Is that not true? Interviewee: No it isn't. This country was made not by robber
barons but by independent men, by industrious who succeeded on sheer ability –
[Crosstalk] Interviewer: Of course they succeed. Interviewee: By ability I mean
without political force, help or compulsion but at the same time there were men,
industrious who did use government power as a club to help them against
competitors. They were the original collectivists. Today the liberals believe that that
same compulsion should be used against the industrious for the sake of workers,
that the basic principle there is should there be any compulsion and the regulations
are creating robber barons. They are creating capitalists with government help which
is the worst of all economic phenomenon. Interviewer: I think that you will agree with
me when I say that you do not have a good deal of respect for the society in which
you and I currently live. You think that we’re going downhill fairly fast. Now I would
like you to think about this question and you’ll have a minute intermission to ponder it
and then come back and answer it. Do you predict dictatorship and economic
disaster for the United States if we continue on our present course? Do you? And
we’ll get Ayn Rand’s answer in just a moment. [Pause] And now back to our story. All
right Ayn Rand, what I’d like to know is this, since you describe it as happening in
your novel Atlas Shrugged, do you actually predict dictatorship and economic
disaster for the United States?
Interviewee: If the present collectivist trend continues, if the present ulterior reason
philosophy continues, yes. That is the way the country is going but I do not believe in
historical terminism and I do not believe that people have to go that way. Men have
the free will to choose and to think. If they change their thinking, we do not have to
go into dictatorship. Interviewer: Yes, but how can you expect to reverse this trend
when as we’ve said, the country is run by majority rules through ballot and that
majority seems to prefer to vote for this modified welfare state. Interviewee: Oh I
don’t believe that. You know as well as I do that the majority today has no choice.
Interviewer: What do you mean? Interviewee: The majority has never been offered a
choice between controls and freedom. Interviewer: How do you account for the fact
that an almost overwhelming majority of the people who are regarded as our leading
intellectuals and our leading industrialists, the men whom you seem to admire the
most, the men with the muscle and the money favor the modified capitalism that we
have today? Interviewee: Because it is an intellectual issue since they all believe in
collectivism, they do favor it. But the majority of the people has never been given a
choice. You know that both parties today are for socialism in effect, for controls and
there is no party. There are no voices to offer an actual pro-capitalist less affair
economic, freedom and individualism. That is what this country needs today.
Interviewer: Isn't it possible that they all, we all believe in it because we are all
basically lonely people and we all understand that we are basically our brother’s
keepers? Interviewee: You couldn’t say that you really understand it because there is
no way which you could justify. Nobody has ever given a reason why men should be
their brother’s keepers and you have every example. And you see the examples
around you of men perishing by the attempt to be their brother’s keepers.
Interviewer: You have no faith in anything. Interviewee: Faith? No. Interviewer: Only
in your mind. Interviewee: That is not faith. That is a conviction.
Interview video 3
Interviewee: That is not faith; that is a conviction. I have no faith at all, I only hold
convictions. Interviewer: Who are you Ayn Rand? When I say that I would like to
know just a little bit of your vital statistics. You have an accent which is –?
Interviewee: Russian. Interviewer: Russian? You were born in Russia? Interviewee:
Yes. Interviewer: Came here – Interviewee: Oh, about 30 years ago. Interviewer:
And whence did this philosophy of yours come? Interviewee: Of my own mind with
the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle who is the only philosopher that ever
influenced me. I devised the rest of my philosophy myself. Interviewer: Your parents,
did they die in Russia or did they come here to the United States? Interviewee: No, I
came here alone and I don't know, I have no way of finding out whether they died or
not? Interviewer: You are married? Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: Your husband, is
he an industrialist? Interviewee: No, he’s an artist. His name is Frank O’Connor.
Interviewer: And he – Interviewee: Paints – Interviewer: Not the writer? He paints.
Interviewee: No, not the writer. Interviewer: And does he live from his painting?
Interviewee: He’s just beginning to study painting. I was designer before. Interviewer:
Is he supported in his efforts by the state? Interviewee: Most certainly not.
Interviewer: He’s supported by you for the time being? Interviewee: No, by his own
work actually in the past. Interviewer: Well I know – Interviewee: By me if necessary
but it isn't quite necessary. Interviewer: And there is no, there is no contradiction here
in that you help him? Interviewee: No because you see I am in love with him
selfishly. It is in my own interest to help him if he ever needed it. I would not call that
a sacrifice because I take selfish pleasure in it. Interviewer: Let me put one specific
case to you. suppose under your system of self sufficiency, one single corporation
were to get a stranglehold on a vital product or a raw material, uranium for instance
which might be vital for the national defense and then would refuse to sell it to the
government. Then what? Interviewee: Under a free system no one could acquire a
monopoly on anything. If you look at the economics and the economic history will
discover that all monopolies have been established with government help, with the
help of franchises, subsidies or any kind of government privileges. In free
competition no one could corner the market on a needed product. Interviewer: Ayn,
let’s say there is a deposit – Interviewee: History will support me. Interviewer: There
is a deposit of uranium in Nevada. It’s the only one in the United States and that’s
our only access to that and for self defense we need this. Whereas let’s say in the
Soviet Union the state is able to command that. And kind of a strange man of strange
beliefs got hold of this uranium and said, “I will not sell this uranium to my
government.” You should not be able to be forced by the government according to
your philosophy to sell that uranium. Interviewee: But you realize you are setting up
an impossible fantasy. If you are talking of any natural resource that is vitally needed,
it would not become vitally needed if it were that scarce, not scarce to the point
where one man could control all of it so long as I’m using your example –
Interviewer: Yeah. Interviewee: If a natural resource exists in more than one place in
the world, no one man is going to control it. Interviewer: All right, let’s take another.
How do we build roads, sanitation facilities, hospitals, schools? If you are not – if the
government is not permitted to force if you will by vote, taxation, use your word, we
have to depend upon the trickledown theory upon the no blessel blige, the largess?
Interviewee: I will answer you by asking you a question. Who pays for all those
things? Interviewer: All of us pay for these things. Interviewee: When you admit that
you want to take money by force from someone and ask me how are we going to
build hospitals or roads, you admit that someone is producing the money, the wealth
that will make those roads possible. You have no right to tell the men who produce
the wealth in what way you want him to spend it. If you need his money you can
obtain it only by his voluntary consent. Interviewer: And you believe in the eventual
good will of all human beings, or at least that top echelon of human beings whom
you believe will give willingly – Interviewee: No good will is necessary, only self
interest. Interviewer: Only self interest. Interviewee: I believe in private roads, private
post offices, private schools. Interviewer: When industry breaks down momentarily
and there is employment, mass unemployment, we should not be permitted to get
unemployment insurance, Social Security we do not need. We’ll Ayn Rand Interview:
depend upon the self interest of these enlightened industrialists whom you so admire
to take care of things when the economy needs a little lubrication and there are
millions of people out of work. Interviewee: Study economics. A free economy will not
break down. All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is
always offered so far to take more of the poisons that caused the disaster.
Depressions are not a result of a free economy. Interviewer: Ayn, one last question.
We only have about a half a minute. How many Randists – you don’t like the word. I
beg your pardon – Interviewee: Objectivists. Interviewer: How many objectivists
would you say there are in the United States? Interviewee: It’s hard to estimate but I
can tell you some figures. My best intellectual Nathaniel Brandon, a young
psychologist is giving a series of lectures on my philosophy in New York. He has
received 600 letters of inquiry within the month of January. He’s giving these lectures
and attendance is growing in geometrical proportion. Interviewer: Ayn, I’m sure that
you have stimulated a good many people, more people than already have to read
your book, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. And I’m equally sure they will be
stimulated for the reading, indeed if they do not agree. Interviewee: Thank you.
Interviewer: Thank you very much. I’ll be back in a moment with my personal
footnote to the story or Ayn Rand. As we said at the outset, if Ayn Rand’s ideas were
ever to take hold they would revolutionize the world. And to those who would reject
her philosophy, Miss Rand hurls this challenge. She has said, “For the past 2,000
years the world has been dominated by other philosophies. Look around you.
Consider the results.” We thank Ayn Rand for adding her portrait to our gallery, one
of the people other people are interested in. Mike Wallace, good bye.
Rand gives us an opportunity to connect ethics with other disciplines to see the
continuity of thinking by our first CO.
Rand begins by asserting that all human behavior is self-interested. This is an objective
and empirical claim based on observation of people; a claim of behavioral science.
Notice her use of the descriptive word is.
To bring that claim to ethics involves a shift of language into prescriptive form. Rand is
claiming that all honest and ethical behavior should be self-interested and only selfinterested. Again, notice the shift to the prescriptive words should be.
Rand & Relationships
Moving forward from that position approaches the whole problem of human
relationships. If every action is motivated solely by self-interest so that people are not
capable of unselfishness and seek only their own interests, what about that special yet
common phenomenon of altruism? Is it unrealistic--or even impossible--that people
behave altruistically toward each other?
If that is true, it suggests that ethics and morality are impossible. The idea continues
that acting unselfishly has a benefit to the actor in a feel-good payoff of personal
satisfaction; therefore, all altruistic acts are sabotaged in their moral value by the
satisfaction that the actor enjoys. Especially for heroic acts, the public acclaim
undermines the value of the true altruism which would be an act benefiting others
without pay-off as an actor. The objectivist position claims that people do altruistic,
noble, and even heroic acts for what is in their own interest, and acting in self-interest
undermines all value attached to those altruistic actions.
Having shifted from "is self-interested" to "should be only self-interested," Rand's
position also denies that people have any duty or obligation to others. If each person
should pursue his or her self-interest exclusively, it follows that one's only duty is to their
own self-interest and not to other people or the community at all. Even where people
share the same self-interest and may align their efforts toward a common purpose, it
remains true that each aligned person seeks their own benefit--that there is no duty to
the other persons or to remain aligned with them beyond the current situation.
Summarizing Self-interested Behavior
Very precisely:
* Rand does NOT say that one should promote their own self-interest as well as
that of others in a cooperative way.
* Rand does NOT say that one should avoid actions that help others.
* Rand does NOT say that one should balance his or her interest with the interest
of others, although they may well align or coincide.
Rand's conclusion is that any decision becomes right by virtue of one's own
advantage--and nothing else.
We might then ask whether Rand's position is within the field of ethics or not. Writing a
half century ago, nobody within the professional or academic community of ethics came
to her support, and yet almost everyone felt the need to respond to her at some level.
Her impact was enormous, but does her work qualify as studying ethics?
Codes of Ethics
Professional communities, formed as professional societies, serve several functions.
Among the functions is to define the boundaries of the profession both as work to be
accomplished and membership within the profession, to educate potential members of
the professions through graduate education and accreditation of the graduate schools,
to examine and certify graduates in order to determine whether they meet standards for
practicing the profession, and to credential them for practicing the profession. Within
that system is the need to guarantee that accredited members practice according to
defined ethical standards. These societies--examples including the American Bar
Association and the American Medical Association, among many others--all publish,
educate for, and examine codes of ethics. When it becomes necessary to discipline a
member, it is the Code of Ethics that provides the professional standard for behavior
and quality of practice.
Professional education aimed toward entrance into the professions will endeavor to
instill the values and ethos of the profession--ethos being a word with a common root as
ethics. An ethics course within the professional curriculum will teach to instill the values
of the professional community with a larger goal of protecting the integrity of the
professional community's status and acknowledged role in the whole community into the
future as it has honorably developed in the past. Within such a curriculum is an intention
that new members of the profession will make their decisions and practical applications
in continuity with the community's history and vision of the future.
Summary Points
Ethics meets our lives both individually and professionally through relationships. To
speak of relationships implies a level of contact and investment among those who are
related and who share values and also share in the outcomes and consequences of the
relationship that binds them. Defining relationships also necessitates a secondary
definition of who is outside of the relationship. Such a relationship can be as narrow as
two individuals or as wide as the whole world's population and every level in between. If
we ask, "Who are we?" we are inquiring about who is in this relationship and who is
outside of it. A subsequent question is that of what duties and responsibilities ensue that
are different within and without the relationship.
Conflict exists within relationships, and people become deeply invested in conflict,
which is why conflict is so common and so important. Participants in conflict can
become so deeply invested that they cannot think or act beyond their deeply held
convictions. Models of resolution exist and are available for use. They model careful
and sequential questions and steps to move beyond investment toward resolution of
conflict. This lecture presents three of the best examples. There are others.
If everyone is self-interested in their actions and behavior, should they always and only
be self-interested in their ethics and decisions? If what Rand teaches is true, what is the
role of relationships and acts of noble altruism in society?
Students studying here in preparation for entry into professions and occupations are
also preparing themselves to value what those professions value and to live within the
pattern of ethical practices that are defined in some Code of Professional Ethics.
Professional societies define the values of their professional community, prepare and
examine candidates for membership, define the practice of the profession, and
discipline members for violation of their Code.
Topic 1 ( 1 page)
Applying Rand's Objectivism
Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy has been touted by her detractors as the
philosophy of self-interested selfishness.
Her four epistemological principles are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Metaphysics: Objective reality of the world and the objects in it.
Epistemology: Reason as the one and only key to understanding.
Ethics: Self-interest in what behavior is but also what it should be.
Politics: Capitalism through the performance of deeds by individuals who are
self-interested.
In the early 1960's, a student asked a spokesman for Objectivism what would happen to
the poor in an Objectivist's free society.
The spokesman answered, "If you want to help them, you will not be stopped."
If one reads Rand's works, Atlas Shrugged, or The Fountainhead, one will conclude that
this would be the answer Ayn would have given to that student as well.
● What do you conclude from the answer given by the Objectivist spokesperson?
● Is Objectivism, like Moral Relativism, the opposite of ethics?
● And what clue in what she taught leads to your conclusion?
Topic 2 ( 1 page )
Working Conflict Resolution Methods
1. Review the sample solution to the Laura Nash method. Do you agree with that
analysis? If so, what parts do you think really helped you work through the
dilemma? If not, which parts do you not agree with?
2. Review the sample solution to the Front Page of the Newspaper method. Do
you think this is one of those types of dilemmas for which this model works? If
not, why not? If so, why? How did using this method help you work through the
dilemma?
3. Review the sample solution to the Blanchard and Peale method. Do you agree
with the analysis? If not, why not? If so, in what way did this help you analyze
this dilemma?
Pick ONE of the above 3 questions and let's get started. PLease please refer to the
attached lesson before answering.
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