Ethical standards in decline

Very pertinent point, Sozobe.

To all

Your responses are excellent and they ease my pessimism about the future somewhat. My concern for the future of my grandchildren was the cause for starting this thread. I just want to throw out one more disturbing trend that I perceive. When I was growing up in eastern Washington state, during WWII and just after, I can remember that we helped our neighbors. Now neighbors try to provoke each other into lawsuits.

I think, Boss, that Sozobe's response above may be pertinent in the circumstance you just mentioned. At the time you were growing up, a neighbor's concerns were both very basic, and shared. Now, with both prosperity and idle time . . . well . . .

Setanta, I believe the Pentagon Papers dude you're referring to is Daniel Ellsberg.

Husker, do you have a url to the article you quoted?

perception, I don't know about the neighbors thing. I think that, well, depends (you can tell I have legal training; I say "it depends on the situation" or some variant of that a lot) -
* my folks have lived in their home for >30 years and their block holds a party pretty much every year. During a blizzard when I was growing up, the power went out for several days. We had the Mom and son from next door over for most of those days because she was expecting and her husband was out of town. It was cold, but we had the fireplace and did a lot of old-fashioned stuff like play word games. When the firefighter who lives down the road became partly disabled, neighbors pitched in with food, etc. to help him get back on his feet. When my folks go to the airport or train station, they always call their neighbors; they never call a cab. My parents live on Long Island.
* we know our neighbors on both sides of us and in back. They call when they're going to do major renovations work because that will disrupt traffic and might be noisy. We have a standing invitation to any of their parties. One gal next door came over when she was locked out; I made her tea as we wanted for her roommate to come home. By the way, except for one neighbor, these people are all renters. We live in Boston.
* my brother and his family pitched in with their neighbors and looked out for one another's kids during the sniper scare (they all live in Montgomery County, MD).
* my in-laws know most of their neighbors, one of whom leaves their door unlocked. My mother-in-law has sometimes watched their kids and they watch the cat when my in-laws go away on vacation. By the way, my in-laws live in a place which no one would consider to be neighborly - Manhattan.

So it's not all the same and can't all be painted with the same broad brush. I used to work in insurance claims and I also know of many, many neighborhood relationships destroyed because of lawsuits. We've got all kinds in the world.

PS I'll own up to the designated hitter rule if someone else takes responsibility for leisure suits.

Setanta

Point well taken and intended but if that's the case what does that portend for the future?

Leisure suits . . . that was used car salesmen . . . i sure hope we ain't got none of 'em here . . .

Well, Boss, "watch yer back" may be a good rule to live by, although i would say that society may well be working effectively through this problem. Keep in mind, from the days of Viking Thing (more or less democratic law-speaking meeting) to the ratification of the United States constitution was a period of over 1500 years--society's fads change quickly, it's substance does not . . .

Walter
To add to your Britannica definition of ethics and to: Setanta for substantiation of your statement that the "Substance of society does not change" I would like to add an excerpt from a study of Aristotle:

The Doctrine of the Mean: In his study of what can be determined --right from wrong---this is what he concluded and it fits in perfectly with his general empirical temperament. He works out an entire system of ethics based on the"mean" to serve as a guideline for human behavior. There is no proper definition of any moral virtue, but rather every moral virtue stands in relationship to two opposing vices. Take courage. Courage is the opposite of cowardice. But, it is also the opposite of foolhardiness. Somewhere between foolhardiness and cowardice, that's where courage lies. What constitutes this "mean" between the two terms varies from situation to situation: what is foolhardy in one situation is courageous in another and what is courageous in one situation is foolhardgy in another. Therefore every action needs to be judged according to all the relevant circumstances and situation. Aristotle call judging actions in this manner,"EQUITY" and equity is the foundation of modern law and justice, and is absolutely critical to understanding foundational Christianity and its later permutations.
end quote.

My point here is that even 2400 years ago even in a paganistic society it was considered essential that humanity must live by a code of ethics, and that code was not essentially different from today. But what is also evident is that society must not shirk from maintaining a coherent recognition of the need for the essentiality of a strong code of eithics

Jespah, the term "Situation Ethics" refers to the idea that what is ethical depends upon the situation in which we find ourselves at the time. What is right in one situation may be wrong in some other situation.

You seem to be using it in the sense that an act is okay for me even though I don't think it is okay for my neighbor, which is something else.

My opinion is that our society and culture have changed profoundly in the last 200 years and that ways of looking at ethics have changed along with it. I could easily create an enormous post listing all the things that have happened to us in that time that have tended to make us the way we are. Lets look for a moment at just one thing: the idea of a work ethic.

Some time in the twentieth century we altered the old idea of the Protestant Work Ethic. The old ethic was based on the idea that we all, being Christian, were a part of the Kingdom of God. God expected everyone to do hiser part (work) to see that the Kingdom prospered. When everyone did hiser duty and worked, there was prosperity for the individual and for the Kingdom as a whole.

The work ethic has been taken over by the corporation that regularly employs consultants to come in and teach something like self actualization, or goal orientation, or personal fulfilment. It is a kind of elevation of self esteem to the highest good. The person with high self esteem will work to attain wealth which is the fruit of high self esteem. The corporation benefits as its employees apply themselves ever more diligently in their quest for wealth.

Note that the shift in the basis for the ethic is away from God and and Kingdom and toward the aggrandizement of the individual and the corporation. It is basically a narcissistic ethic. We must expect that people who grow up under this new ethic will behave differently than those who grew up under the old Protestant Work Ethic. The person who has been taught that fulfilment through self esteem is the highest good may find hiserself trying to strike that Aristotelian mean between self hatred, honesty, and self esteem.

The old ethic is swept away by social and intellectual changes over the years. It can never return. This is but one example of a change that underlies the concerns that prompted Perception to start this thread.

I think that we as a society are struggeling with the necessity of learning new ways to look at ethics.

First, as Walter notes, 'ethics' is the word used in philosophy for the study of questions of right and wrong. In normal parlance however, the terms 'ethics' and 'morals' are commonly used interchangeably, though there is also a traditional differentiation between professional codes of conduct (ethics) and public codes of behavior (morals).

There is something to Russel's notion that (paraphrased) ethics is 'the art of convincing others that they ought to behave the way you want them to'.

Broad calls for moral uplift in society don't necessarily follow some objectively measureable period of 'moral decline' (it's an open question whether such is measurable). They can follow periods of abrupt social change where folks (some of them) get terribly anxious that the ship is adrift with shoals looming and cry out the alarum "God help us all!" - some folks, eg Bill Bennet, are conservative by nature of personality, and can be counted on to voice this chorus as he does with his ahistorical pronouncements on the evil 60s. It's not terribly surprising that such voices tend arise from the older generations in a culture. If any of you are familiar with the on-going study of the snow macaques of Japan, you'll know of the one juvenile female who took to swimming (previously unknown behavior) and gradually the rest of the troop began to join her in this pleasureable activity - but it was the young ones who were first, the older ones much more slowly.

Also, such assessments of impending doom brought about by some 'new' lack of rectitude in the community can also arise where a particular group whose codes are more stringent (read 'illiberal' or even 'pathological') than the norm rise to prominence, eg Al Quaeda in the present Muslim community or the fundamentalist Christian Right. The claim is essentially the same here - that the community has mistakenly and dangerously moved too far from 'original' values and arrangements. (Religious splinter groups commonly, if not universally, make this claim too, eg, Luther or the New Light Movement in early US history - "Jesus wouldn't recognize THAT as His church!")

So I don't find many calls for moral uplift in society to be very compelling.

Non-adherence to professional codes seems a different matter.

"Moral decay" is a very old hurdy-gurdy on which so many, often self-interested, parties have pounded, it's a wonder you can still get a weeze out the jaded old bellows . . .

Blatham, I find your argument persuasive. I am of the older generation that you mention. I have witnessed much of the social change and general acceptance of new norms of behavior that would have been looked upon very differently when I was growing up in the 30s and 40s. I do not refer to most of this as decline, but as an evolving culture, which, BTW, is not the same as saying that it is all good. I do look on much of it with alarm.

Particularly pernicious, IMO, is the invasion of the home by corporations eager to turn us all into purchasing units. They have done this via the TV and a bizillion other images and messages. Children now grow up in front of the tube being trained to buy. Mothers are taken out of the home to earn money so they can help buy all the things the family imagines that it needs.

At the same time we have to realize that we are no longer in an 19th century farm economy. Women are not a part of a farm crew where they were an important part of an economic unit. In the thirties my mother was a stay at home mom. As things turned out that was not a good life for her. She had a lot of trouble finding meaningful things to do. This was true of several of the women on my block in a medium sized mid-western town (A town much like those idealized in TV sit-coms). So without question women need a life of their own outside the home. Even mothers need this. Society has changed making these things necessary and desirable.

Perceptions question, which is a good one, deals with how do we adjust to the changes in moral and ethical norms that are necessarily the fall out from all this rapid change.

I say rapid because we are moving at a great pace. There has been revolution on top of revolution in any area of life that we can name. The existance of the mass electronic media makes it all happen at an ever increasing rate of speed.

As you mention, there is little wonder that groups like the religious fundamentalists rise up to resist all that is going on. Although, it is also interesting what they accept from the flow of culture.

I think that what I have said here is not incompatible with your remarks above.

Hazlitt
Thanks for taking my concerns to a higher level. If I may, I want to make a distinction (as does Blatham in the last sentence of his post) between Societies Moral code and Ethical code. I think of a moral code in the context that murder, thievery, and brutality are not acceptable to Society. I see a code of ethics as applying to a professional standard when dealing with clients, and individuals in their daily interactions with one another. Society as a collective will determine what is acceptable and their is little that anyone can do about what those standards are on a short term basis. What we witnessed with the disgusting disclosure of the pure greed and total lack of regard for their fellow man, during the Enron, and World Com collapse, was the culmination of the activities of two generations toward the greedy accumulation of materialistic wealth.
In other words the pendulum had swung as far as it could and crashed against the wall with the enormous cry of outrage of society. Society will force the pendulum to swing back the other way and my conclusion is that there is little that can be done .

Does anyone disagree with me?

Since you folks are discussing ethical standards, I'd like to direct you to a thread of mine, that is related to your discussion. When I first read the story, my hair stood on end!


Link to Story About Dying and Newly Deceased Patients Used for Medical Training

Hazlitt

No, what you've said isn't incompatible with my view. I'm 54 and I too am alarmed by changes which, with my values, I'd rather not be witnessing. In fact, one of my main concerns is the one you point to - the effective (if not intended) consequence where the body politic is educated to a role of consumerism rather than of citizenship. Too, when this trend (if we are correct in assuming it so) is allied with population growth worldwide and then that further population adopting our profligate and short-sighted behavior, the future of 100 years from now could be unpleasant indeed. Just one teenie corner of such possible futures - an increase in the general acceptance of totalitarian means to maintain 'order', scares the hell out of me.

But, when I talk to my daughter and nephew and their friends, they see a future more hopeful than I. This mirrors the perception I had at their age that my parents were becoming increasingly gloomy as they aged. I read a wonderful item in a Western Civ history book some years ago. The author noted some grafitti scrawled across a fence which said (this is from memory now, but it's close)..."I do not know what this world is coming to. Everywhere, values are crumbling and people have no honor. Children no longer listen to their parents. This is a terribly time." The wall and grafitti in question had been uncovered in an excavation in the Middle East and was more than 2000 years old.

Link to:
THE KEY TO PROSPERITY
by James F. Bracher
http://www.masetllc.com/news/082102.shtml 3/4 the way down

The "ethical pendulum" will swing back if there isn't a monkey wrench thrown into the works. The last ethical crisis we went through was the savings and loan debacle and how soon we forget. It is as complex as Jespah pointed out and using situation ethics to push out the envelope is something consciously calculated to divert attention away from manipulative accounting, for instance. They just basically believe at the time that they are smarter than anyone else and they won't get caught.
I'm not sure ethical standards should be determined entirely by conscience but I can't help looking at these people as sociopaths with money.

An' insult to dedicated sociopaths everywhere . . .

perception

I'm not so optimistic as you may be regarding the inevitability of a pendulum swing, sharing LW's cynicism that much can continue, either disguised or forgotten. It was a very long time ago that Eisenhower mentioned the military industrial complex and now look who's got their fingers in social programs.