How do YOU make decisions?
Right now, the United States economy is moving in directions that force people to make unpleasant choices about money, many of them choices with ethical implications. We at Ethical Finance are going to look at the choices many people are facing, and at methods for coming to ethically-grounded decisions.
“Ethics” is the study of standards of behavior for making choices. What your ethics are will depend on two things: (1) where you ground your standards and (2) how you choose to apply those standards. Ethics is not “your guts,” it isn’t the law (a law can be unethical – for example, apartheid was enshrined in law), and it isn’t simply provided by cultural norms (in Nazi Germany, dispossessing and killing Jews was deemed a cultural value.) Ethics can be informed by religion, but two adherents of the same religion can have very different ethical standards, depending on their interpretation of the religion.
There are several different approaches for ethics, but all of them boil down to “what’s important?” and they divide into three basic groups:
*** The most important thing is the OUTCOME:
– What will do the greatest good or the least harm to the greatest number of people? [Utilitarianism]
– What will do the greatest good and/or the least harm to me? [Egoism]
– The only ultimate law is Love. What is “right” and “wrong” depends on the situation. [Situation Ethics]
*** The most important things are the RIGHTS of beings and our DUTIES towards them:
– Some rules are constants: it is always right to take certain actions, and always wrong to take other actions. This includes the idea of natural law. [Deontological ethics, or Kantian ethics]
– Every individual has certain basic rights that must be honored [Natural Rights]
*** The most important thing is CHARACTER:
– Certain qualities (Kindness, Justice) are recognized as representing the best of humanity. What choice will I make as my “best self”? [Virtue Ethics]
If you are reading this, and feeling confused, that’s a normal response. Outcomes, rights, duties, and character are all important. How we balance them, and which one is paramount to us is a highly personal matter. Our goal here at Ethical Finance is not to tell you what to think, or how to decide, but to offer some tools and information for decision making.
More to come!
1 Comment
August 15, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I just read about this question in Kiplinger’s magazine this month: one questioner likes to give all her charitable giving to countries that are poorer than the U.S.; the argument is that America’s poor are much better off materially than the poor of other nations. And her best friend likes to give all his money to his community and his country, especially with the growing inequality of wealth in the U.S. Which is the more ethical position — what do you think?