The Interaction Between Ethics and Moral Behavior
By Allyson Brown,
Note: In an effort to encourage ethical thinking and writing by seminary students, when the editor visits campuses he invites students to submit articles. This is one such response.
The moral standards of a culture influence the way individuals respond to moral dilemmas and treat others. Ann Vernon defines culture as “a way of life or the totality of the individual artifacts, behaviors, and mental concepts transmitted from one generation to the next in a society; it is visible and invisible, cognitive and affective, conscious and unconscious, internal and external, rational and irrational, and coercive and permissive at the same time. The lifestyle of individuals is dictated by the beliefs and principles established by their culture.”1 Each individual lives in a community; that culture shapes the decision maker with ethical boundaries and moral standards.
Culture is what binds and divides a society simultaneously. Humans are called to be partners with other humans in their community, even as they are called to be partners with God in the Christian community. Each child of God has a duty to fulfill his or her moral obligations, to do God’s will, and to influence their society.
According to the director at Camp Cheley, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” These ten two letter words combine to form an ethical code by which to live. It is up to each individual in the community to fulfill his or her ethical and moral duties and to instill values to prevent moral decline.
Individuals learn moral standards/ethics in the same way that they learn developmental skills. Values and morals are upheld, shared, communicated and passed on to each generation within a culture; in that respect, culture reflects moral inheritance. An individual’s value system determines how he tends to behave in situations. According to Michael Josephson, consistency between what one says he or she values and what his or her actions say he or she values is a matter of integrity.2 Thus, congruence is a crucial factor in ethics and morality. Accordingly, Carl Rogers postulated that congruent individuals are genuine, authentic, and comfortable in their interactions with others. He emphasized that congruent expression is important even if it consists of attitudes, thoughts, and feelings that do not, appear conducive to a good relationship.3 As such, an individual is “ethical” when his or her words and actions convey and communicate the same message.
The responsibility lies within each individual to teach and communicate moral standards. It is each individual’s responsibility within a community to uphold moral standards that form the value system of that society. Matthew 12: 25 notes, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”
Jack Anderson believes the greatest danger facing this nation is moral decay. He suggested three rules in response to moral decline in the nation: (i) “If it isn’t right, don’t do it? (ii) If it isn’t true, don’t say it? And (iii) If it isn’t yours, don’t take it.”4 The priorities of life are more precisely dileneated as a set of guidelines that direct individuals, or make individuals who they are. How individuals define these priorities is contingent upon their moral standards, or their personal code of ethics. Accountability is one way to instill moral principle, as well as responsibility, care, civility, respect, and fairness.5 You may ask yourself “what would a person of ethical prudence do in a similar situation?” The connection between the choice an individual makes and the ethics behind the decision is of significance.
Culture is hindered by a “closed mind.” When individuals refuse to learn and cooperate with one another, it indicates disrespect and a decline in morality. This same mentality in the first century nailed Jesus to a cross because he challenged traditional viewpoints. Their narrow, rigid world could not be disturbed.6
Charles Schultz wrote a Peanuts cartoon about the danger and sin of the closed mind. The scenario starts as Charlie Brown is running for his life and Lucy is chasing him with clenched fists. She shouts, “I’ll catch you, Charlie Brown! And when I catch you I am going to knock your block off!” Suddenly Charlie Brown screeches to a halt and says, “Wait a minute, Lucy. If you and I as relatively small children with relatively small problems can’t sit down and talk through our problems, how can we expect the nations of the world to…” Pow! Lucy slugs him and says, “I had to hit him quick; he was beginning to make sense!”7 Culture can be destroyed and demoralized by disrespect an unwillingness to consider other points of view.
It is the responsibility of individuals in the community to keep Christ at the center of their culture and to live by His example, so as to illustrate what constitutes ethical, moral behavior. An individual’s words, actions, and attitudes should be morally consistent. A congruent ethical lifestyle strengthens a culture. Moral dilemmas are inevitable in life. It is how individuals respond to these dilemmas that positively or negatively affects culture.
Clinton McLemore illustrates this dilemma in Street Smart Ethics.A woman is informed by her supervisor that a division of the company is going to be outsourced in the near future, which meant her position would be eliminated and the positions of the division would be outsourced as well. One of the members of the team to be outsourced approaches another employee of a different division of the company and asks that employee if she should accept a job somewhere else, specifically asking whether her division is one to soon be outsourced. The quizzed employee’s position is secure. But how does the secure employee respond? On the one hand, she has a responsibility to the supervisor to keep such “outsourcing” information confidential, but on the other hand, she also has a moral obligation to her fellow employee not to withhold harmful information. Ethicists assert that in any action with ethical implications, there is always a duty owed to all of humanity. Another example asks, “Would you tell your boss or a friend the truth or would you tell your boss or a friend what he or she wants to hear?” According to Immanuel Kant, when confronting any ethical choice, one should choose as if one’s decision were to become a universal standard.8 In addition, an ethical person will do his or her best to consider all possible consequences of one’s actions.
Ethical consequences, a major category in decision making, are always factors that must be considered when moral dilemmas are confronted. Decisions should be made after balancing the consequences of the actions against the potential of violating a basic moral principle, such as telling the truth. Complex ethical dilemmas can be viewed in terms of what duties we owe to others and the consequences of failing to perform such duties.9 According to Donald MacLachlan of the SilverQuest Consulting Group, business ethics can be defined as a moral conflict(s) requiring an individual, team, or organization to make a choice among two or more options, the evaluation of which must be either right or wrong. Moral conflicts occur within a person’s conscience, as well as those involving colleagues, consensus of team, company policy, customary practice, community desires, or civil or criminal law.10 Normative ethics aid individuals in making positive decisions. Normative ethical systems can be seen as a set of rules or procedures for evaluating the relative merits of alternative options.
Thus, there are two theoretical categories in ethical decision making: deontological theories, otherwise known as theories of intention, and teleological theories, or consequenceoriented theories. Two questions to be answered when making decisions include: (i) identifying the nature of the duty owed and (ii) the likely consequences of making a particular decision.11 An ethical individual minimizes the likelihood of compromising moral standards when making decisions.
Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions, motivations, and actions. Morality is learned, engendered, and developed within each individual. Such moral standards influence our culture. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, people progress in their moral reasoning through a series of stages. He asserts that individuals can only come to a comprehension of moral rationale one stage at a time sequentially. Kohlberg believed that most moral development occurs through social interaction; individuals develop insight based on a result of cognitive conflicts at their current stage.12
Kohlberg’s levels of moral development include the pre-conventional level, the conventional level, and the post-conventional level. The pre-conventional level is the level at which an individual bases right and wrong according to whether or not he or she will be punished or rewarded. The conventional is the level of moral thinking that is generally found in society and is characterized by an attitude that seeks to do what will gain the approval of others. The post-conventional level is a level that most adults never reach, a social contract orientation that is characterized by an understanding of social mutuality and a genuine interest in the welfare of others. The final stage, the morality of individual principles, is characterized by a respect for universal principle and the demands of individual conscience.
According to Kohlberg, moral development occurs when a person notices inadequacies in his or her present way of dealing with a moral dilemma—the person than moves to the next stage of moral reasoning.13
To prevent moral decay and human destruction, it is crucial that the people of any community instill values and moral standards in their citizens. The ethical individual often bases his or her decisions on these six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.14 According to the Honorary Calvin Botley, “an honest person cannot be corrupted and a corrupt person cannot be honest.” The most beneficial way to communicate a behavior and a value is by example. An individual must be congruent; his or her actions and words must convey and communicate the same message. Boundaries must be upheld. There are invisible boundaries within culture, or invisible lines, which set the moral principles from which ethical individuals of a particular culture makes decisions
Priorities are also a major factor in decision making. If individuals don’t focus on moral priorities, their key ethical obligations, they will most likely leave out other less important ones.15 Individual decisions make up cultural mores. When a culture allows moral standards to be compromised, the character and the integrity of the culture are compromised and the society decays from within.
1. Ann Vernon, Counseling Children and Adolescents, 3rd ed. (Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company, 2004), 228
2. Michael Josephson, Making Ethical Decisions (Los Angeles, CA: Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2002), 9.
3. J. Sommers-Flannagan and R. SommersFlannagan, Clinical Interviewing, 3rd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003), 103-106.
4. James W. Moore, God Was Here and I Was Out To Lunch (Nashville, TN: Dimensions for Living, 2001), 146-147.
5. Josephson, 11-12.
6. Moore, 145.
7. Moore, 145.
8. C. W. McLemore, Street-Smart Ethics: Succeeding in Business Without Selling Your Soul (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 49-54.
9. Ibid., 49-54.
10. D. MacLachlan, What Is Business Ethics? www.texasbarcle.com/Materials/Events/6261/67539.htm, 2006).
11. Ibid.
12. Ronald Duska and Mariellen Whelen, Moral Development: A Guide To Piaget and Kohlberg (New York: Paulist, 1975).
13. Robert N. Barger, A Summary of Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development(www.nd.edu/~barger.kohlberg.html, 2000); Ronald Duska and Mariella Whelen, Moral Development: A Guide To Piaget and Kohlberg.
14. Josephson, 7.
15. Moore, God Was Here and I Was Out To Lunch, 112.
