Ethics

There are two basic ethical frameworks: Teleological and Deontological. The former concerns itself with the context and results (intended or actual) of ethical decisions. Deontological ethics, however, assumes that decisions can be understood in terms of rightness or wrongness. Consider this example:

Driving at night in the country, you encounter a red stop light. There are no other cars around. You wait several minutes but the light doesn't seem to change. You wonder whether it is broken. A Deontologist would turn right at the light, then perform a legal U-turn in the next available driveway. A Teleological Ethicist would simply turn left through the red light.

This is on my mind because I have encountered a situation where I can do great good by violating a rule I disagree with. I'm enough of a utilitarian to ask, "What's the harm and what's the benefit?" If I do the thing I'm contemplating, I can see no harm except possibly to myself if I'm "caught." Yet even then I think reasonable people would agree that I'm justified and that my actions were honorable and made in good faith. And so the remote risk of self harm is present and balanced against the relatively certain benefit to a person in serious need. I imagine a scale in which the two sides of the swing arm terminate at very different distances from the fulcrum. Two pounds benefit versus an ounce of risk--but how long each side?

A skeptic might ask, "How can you trust your own judgment about these risks and benefits? Shouldn't you submit your cause to the community's wisdom as recorded in law and policy?" Yet law and institutional policies are such blunt expressions of community will. That's the problem, IMHO, with Kantian ethics: you end up with impossibly generalized principles. Such propositions as "Lying is wrong" are problematic as soon as you start thinking of actual cases. This priority granted to local phenomenon is not a flaw (Kant thought that every ethical principle was worthwhile insomuch as it is universal) as it is evidence of a different understanding of the relationship of the part to the whole.

You see, some people believe that everybody should be treated the same, and they assume that it is possible to treat everyone the same with the technologies of law or policy or (in the medical profession) the "Standard of Care." Yet I would argue that no human-built system this side of heaven could possibly be impartial--nor should the quest for impartiality be the ultimate goal of law/policy/SOP. The goal is the alleviation of suffering, not avoiding "being unfair"! I think Foucault would point out that laws/policies/SOP's in all cases serve the institution, and not the individual. The individuals resist this to a greater or lesser degree, and an equilibrium is established.

I know, this sounds really abstract. But as Aristotle pointed out, the study of ethics is no small thing, but rather answers the question "how ought we live?" And these days I could take a remote risk to bring great relief. So my decision affects more lives than my own.

Does it matter that I'm a priest? Well, yes, I think it does. I'm not only constrained by the ethical obligations of baptism (think "WWJD" or the more classical formulation "Imitatio Christi"), but also by the fact that I must avoid being a "scandal" to my congregation (cf. St. Paul discussing eating meat sacrificed to idols). I think that priests that deny the fact that their role as leader and example constrains them somewhat are fooling themselves. If Jesus were alive today, he'd be arrested. But it's hard to lead a congregation from jail. This is obvious, more subtle truth is available by thinking about what Jesus might say from jail. Sure, there's MLK's letter. But check out "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter of Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov.

Above is scan of a page of Dostoevsky's notes from chapter five. My point is just that as a priest I do have a different ethical obligation than a non-priest, just as doctors and lawyers have ethical obligations peculiar to their professions.

Anway, the main thing I learned from sitting at the feet of ethicists like Margaret Farley and Thomas Ogletree is that there are always more questions to ask. In fact, you can easily stall ethical pronouncement by multiplying mitigating factors. The result is a certain humility about ethics which brings us, I think, back to where we started: I know a person I could greatly help by assuming a small risk. Jesus would do it--shall I?

-t