‘THE ETHICAL CHALLENGE OF BEING HUMAN’
CAERS SUBSTACK #10
In Article #1 we spoke about compasses. If we are travelling and get lost, we can use a magnetic compass to guide us back to where we want to go. If it is true that each of us is born with a moral compass, does that imply that we can get morally lost and need our internal compass to get us back on track? But if we carry our moral compass with us at all times, how could we ever fall off track to begin with?
It may seem like a silly question, but it is fair to ask: what stops us from doing the right thing all of the time? Are we all prone to moral transgressions, or are any among us immune? Aren’t humans fundamentally good?
Without discounting the possibility of evil in the world, might it be that one of the greatest challenges to always doing the right thing is the fact that we live inside of our own heads all of the time? It is so easy to forget that other people exist when we are so preoccupied with ourselves, and even more difficult to see the world from inside someone else’s head. In order to go through life with confidence and make sound decisions, we often convince ourselves that we have all of the answers to life’s challenges. The future is hard to predict, which is both unsettling and even scary, so it is tempting to cling to our beliefs and plans no matter what. Change usually involves losing something known to gain something less well known but hopefully better, which engenders risk and the potential for danger. Being programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain, we are understandably anxious about change.
John Kenneth Galbraith stated: ‘Faced with either changing one’s mind or proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof’. There may be no more unsettling change in our lives than having to change ourselves, especially our beliefs and worldviews which we often develop to serve our own best interests primarily. It has been said that the most dangerous thing in the universe is a closed mind, and yet it is scary for us to be so truly open-minded that we are prepared to ‘change our mind’, particularly if doing so does not serve our interests first and foremost. One of the most unnerving aspects of ethics, and perhaps one of the commonest reasons for people avoiding ethical discussions and reflections, is that ethics encourages us not only to be open-minded and see the world from other vantage points, but also to be willing to change even if we do not profit directly.
Fundamental changes in our beliefs and worldviews can feel very threatening. We perceive that we have a good handle on how the world works, or at least should work, and all of a sudden ethics throws a wrench into that secure confidence that guides us daily. Although we often lament that we want the world to change and be a better place in which to live, we seldom factor in the need for us to change as part of that calculus. As much as external change can be
stressful, internal change reaches right into our core and shakes us, sometimes even violently. And sometimes we can react violently in response.
Which means that ethics demands more than just open-mindedness and willingness to change; it requires that we ask of ourselves as much as we ask of others. Not infrequently we complain that other people are ‘just not thinking properly’ when in fact we are really expressing our frustration that they are not thinking ‘like us’. Or we hold them to standards that we ourselves are not prepared to be held to as well. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that those in positions of authority, including those who have taken oaths of service such as politicians and doctors, are not prone to selfish tendencies like the rest of us. But in truth, as mere mortals they are driven by the same desires to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Are we prepared to ‘cut them slack’ the same way we would do for ourselves, or want to have done for us, in similar circumstances?
Compassion and forgiveness are difficult, but they constitute an important part of the moral landscape we refer to as ‘fairness’. Almost without exception, every major spiritual and cultural perspective includes within its fundamental tenets some close approximation to the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.
Part of the ethical challenge of being human involves having the wisdom and courage to take the log out of our own eyes before harping on the speck in the eyes of the ones with whom we may disagree, for example. Together we might find a clearer and more united path out of the pandemic if we acknowledged our universal reluctance to change, especially changing ourselves.
J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)
CAERS Health Intake Facilitator