Most people will have an immediate, guttural reaction to this query, and their responses will fall into one of two camps. The first is to say: “Of course there’s no difference. Ethics are based on how you behave all the time. You can’t pick and choose when you want to be moral.” The opposition will argue: “Of course it’s not the same. Dealing with a real individual is not the same as dealing with a faceless company. That’s the problem with corporate personhood.” For both factions, the answer will seem clear. I find this type of question to be among the most difficult I receive.
There are many interlocked details that push this problem in polarized directions. One is the concept of value (in this case, you value one relationship more than the other — and that matters). Another is reciprocity (you don’t believe Time Warner has your best interest in mind, so it seems crazy to treat it more fairly than it would treat you). It’s equally possible to argue that you’ve fulfilled your obligations in both cases (i.e., you’ve paid the amount you were charged) and that it’s up to the landlord or the cable provider to recognize their own mistakes. Yet the angle I keep returning to is a symbolic question about virtue: How do you want to frame the machinations of your life? Do you live for yourself or for other people?
If your intent is to live life externally, your behavior need not be fixed. The contexts of the two circumstances are unique, so what seems like contradictory behavior is just the application of similar reasoning upon two disassociated situations. You can view these conflicts situationally. But if your intent is to live ethically for yourself — if your personal actions dictate how you view your own character, regardless of how that collides with practicality — your behavior should be the same (because in each case, your role remains unchanged). Now, I suppose it’s my job to tell you which one of these is the better option. But I can’t do that, because I don’t know the answer (and I’d be skeptical of anyone who claims that he does). Is living for yourself better or worse than living for other people? It seems like a central question about the experience of being alive. I could arbitrarily make up a definitive solution, but that seems like the most unethical move possible.
The dilemma discussed in this
particular Ethicist column is not
uncommon and, I believe, most of us have faced comparable situations,
oftentimes responding to them by questioning our morals and scruples (the old
principle so deeply rooted, in different words, in many religious and social
systems of “doing to others as you would wish to have done to you” that has
become part of our social paradigm might be to blame). Situations like the one
Dan from New York faces make it necessary to approach a central question about
morality and ethics: in school (and according to diffen.com) we often learn
that ethics pertain to more general groups of society, it is part of an
“external social system,” whilst morals are more “internal and individual,” if
they are so individual, then are we obliged to make our moral decisions follow
a certain code? Through his use of language, the New Yorker at hand makes it
clear that he perceives the two entities asking for money, Time Warner Cable
(TWC) and his landlord, differently. He feels an ethical nuisance when
considering not paying his landlord the amount he finds correct, but finds it
acceptable to take advantage of miscalculations made by TWC. This is made clear
by his discernment of the “errors” TWC made aggravated by the use of quotations
from the error his landlord made. So if he has already perceived a difference
between the two, why must he ask the Ethicist how to proceed? Dan seems to hold
the quintessential example of our civilized human desire to seek a “moral
code.” If he perceives both entities differently, there should be no question
whether he should treat them differently. However, that is not the case. As the
Ethicist elaborates in his own response, it is believed that you “can’t pick
and choose when you want to be moral.” Yet, wasn’t moral, by definition, an
individual concept?
The
Ethicist then raises the question of how do the two entities differ. It is
clear Dan sees them differently, but why? Those who argue that he should pay
the right amount every time would say they’re the same. However, as previously
mentioned, Dan does not agree. The ethicist bring emotion into the question as
well, claiming that perhaps his emotional bond with the landlord, a person
unlike the corporation that is TWC, channels feelings of guilt into him when he
believes he is “cheating him?” These are pertinent considerations to a certain
extent, however, they do not add to the point or answer Dan’s question: they
should have been left out, as the final paragraph of the answer is what really
addresses the situation. On the other hand, something that was left out and
should have been included was the law-related aspect of ethics. The Ethicist
almost mentions it when he talks about Dan’s “obligations,” but an explicit
explanation of how laws permeate ethics would have been important in answering
to the dilemma at hand.
The
last paragraph of the answer is where the true response lies. What Dan should
do is directly related to where he places his morals. When separating ethics
and morals we are quick to assume they are always external and internal,
respectively. However, we fail to see where their driving force is. Ethics are
external, but are you being ethical from the point of view of yourself of from
the point of view of the situations you face? That will change how you respond
to situations, even if you’re still responding to externally created ideals.
When you live for internal reasons, you seek consistency, as the center of your
actions is always the same; yourself. However, living ethically externally, the
center of your actions lies within the situation, so it changes every time,
making your actions change on a situational basis. The Ethicist takes it
further though, asking which way is better? He claims it is unethical for him
to make a solution to this answer. But as I do not lie in the public eye as a
figure of impeccable scruples, I would strongly defend the situational point of
view. Within that option, one is not forced to categorize all similar
situations into the same box. As the classification activity showed us last
year, there’s no easy way to do so. On a situation-based approach it is easier
to treat each circumstance as its separate entity.
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