On Knowing What’s Right (1st Post of 2)

My father is my hero. By the time I came into the family, he had already earned a law degree, been hired by the State of Utah, then later opened his own firm with a couple partners. I grew up na?ve to the significance of his accomplishments, which had come early in his career. In his den at home on a shelf of his library, he displayed two quill pens of pure white feathers in a stylish leather cup. They were always perfectly arranged, crossed like mini swords, exactly symmetrical. As a tyke I innocently asked if I could try them out on one of his ubiquitous yellow legal pads and a jar of India ink. Smiling but with a firm voice, he always refused, to my repeatedly crestfallen dismay. Now let me tell you, he would put his real South American taxidermized toad in my hands and let me hop it around the carpet. And he would unbox his creepy Amazonian shrunken head and let me touch its leathery cheek and pet its coarse hair, making shivers race through my body. And we would take turns with his authentic, brightly painted, hand-crafted-in-Mexico balero (he would always beat me). In fact, of all the nifty knickknacks, bright baubles, and strange souvenirs in his den, the sharp white quills were the only things he never put within my reach. Years later when I was nearing college age, I learned that lawyers who are admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States are presented with a white feather quill. (See “Supreme Court; In Re Quills,” New York Times, April 4, 1986; https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/04/us/supreme-court-in-re-quills.html) My father had argued a case, and the Court had agreed with him. He was barely 30 years old at the time. Sometimes we don’t know the significance of things until much later in life.

My father related a conversation he once had that shook him and caused him to rethink his notion of good and right. In those early days working in the Utah State Capitol, a judge whom my father greatly admired confided in him that he was planning to retire. My father took the news hard and told the judge how highly he was regarded. “You will never know how comforting it is to have someone on the court who always tries to do what’s right,” he lauded. At that, the judge unexpectedly bristled. “Hell, Burt,” he rebuffed, “Any fool can do what’s right. It’s knowing what’s right that’s hard!” The judge’s greatest concern was choosing between two well-reasoned, compelling arguments presented by articulate legal advocates, and being right. What made it hard was how much he cared about being right, that is, doing the right thing. We all face choices like that in life, and it is hard to know what’s right. Sometimes we don’t know how hard.

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“Any fool can do what’s right.
It’s knowing what’s right that’s hard!”

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So if I am to prepare for that hard day, how can I know what the right thing to do is? That’s an important question. Maybe even one of the most important questions. We are by and large accidental heirs of an incalculably rich Western heritage—we have inherited more individual power to exercise our divinely endowed agency for good or ill than perhaps in any other society in history. This legacy of liberty hangs in the balance, tilting on the moral character of each generation. What should we teach our children, that they might preserve it for theirs? Philosophers have written tracts, treatises, and tomes upon the matter. Less distinguished moralists have slapped mottos on bumperstickers and memes on social media (including me—how do you like the image header to this post?)

Clearly, there is no single answer to this most important question. But that doesn’t mean there is no answer at all. I know of six time-honored tests that help tease out the vital matters entangled within a question of conscience. I offer them humbly, knowing full well they are not the whole answer, but a start toward more clarity in our daily struggle to perceive and choose the right.

1. The Hippocratic Test - The ancient Greek Physician taught his acolytes to do good and to abstain from doing harm. A latin phrase, primum non nocere—first, do no harm—is often associated with the Hippocratic Oath (although the original Greek does not contain it.) To be aware of the good we can do, but also to be aware that our intervention may cause more harm than the good we intend, is the cautionary lesson of this test. 
2. The Reciprocity Test, a.k.a. The Golden Rule - What if someone did this to me? How would I feel about it? How would it affect my opinion of the one who did it? This test may be the most widely held standard of behavior in the world. You might know it as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Jesus Christ taught, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matt 7:12) Confucious taught, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others,” and, “Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.” (Mencius  VII A 4) Hinduism teaches, “One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself.  This is the essence of morality.  All other activities are due to selfish desire.” (Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8) The Buddha taught, “A state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” (Samyutta Nikaya v.353)
3. The Role-Model Test - What if the person I most admire and emulate did this? Would my regard for them as an ethical person rise or fall? My Sunday School teacher used to scold me for my irrepressible boyhood antics, chiding, “What would your mother think, I can’t imagine!” That would usually bring my high-spiritedness down to a more reverent level. Maybe because it is such a personally powerful and accessible test, it has been the most susceptible to mass marketing. In Christian pop culture, “WWJD” bling adorns T-shirts, mugs, necklaces, and more. Like it or hate it, the test works.
   
   

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   "What would your mother think, I can’t imagine!"
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4. The Publicity Test - What if the thing I’m about to do is published and broadcast in tomorrow?s news media? Will it build trust and enhance my reputation (or my company’s) for integrity and competence? Sadly, in my opinion, this test’s power is eroding, as our society becomes more polarized, more susceptible to the idea of moral relativity, and less cohesive around the Judeo-Christian tradition. If our society applauds a wrongdoer’s defiance when it should rather inflict shame upon him or her, it upholds evil and will squander its legacy. Still, we haven’t slid so far that the Publicity Test is entirely ineffectual.
5. The Universality Test - What if everyone did it? Would it contribute to the stability, integrity, and strength of society, or would it erode its foundations? Immanuel Kant is credited with this one (presented here as deciphered by people who actually understand his grand philosophical oeuvre.) Alas, as the Publicity Test decays, the Universality Test will play out before our very eyes. What is to become of a society whose citizens shrug off moral restraints, heeding the cautionary tugs of neither guilt nor shame, to do whatever they please to whomever they perceive is in the way of their obtaining what they want? By the way, Kant gave us another maxim, similar to the Reciprocity Test, which is to consider others not as means to an end but as worthy ends in and of themselves. In other words, view others as worthy of respect, as you are deserving of respect. This sounds quite a bit like, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” doesn’t it.

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   Consider others not as means to an end
   but as worthy ends in and of themselves.
   —Kant

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6. The Bell, the Book, and the Candle Tests - This test is a three-in-one set. First, conflicts of interest, bestowal of special considerations or advantages, gifts, gratuities, etc.—these things should set off “bells,” and you should listen to the alarm. Is it legal? Check the “book” of law, regulation, standards, and rules. Is it moral? Check the “candle” of your conscience. Is the action worthy to be set on a candlestick to give light to the whole house, or better hid under a bushel?

My father taught me many of these, not only in word but also in deed. He once told me that the most difficult decisions he faced were between two goods or between two evils. I have seen him wrestle mightily with such decisions, like the judge from his early career, wanting to do the right thing, if only he could be sure of recognizing it. I’ve known him always to think carefully, systematically, and prayerfully before deciding and acting. I know these six ethical tests were routinely employed at such times and that they point true. For those of good conscience, it is hard to apply them and not spot and segregate the worse demons from the better angels of our nature.

Once enlightened thusly, may we all list toward our better angels.

Michael B. Howard is a born consultant with experience in Change Management, Finance, and IT governance.  He is an Air Force Veteran of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and did a few things in a few places over the course of his nearly 22-year career.  Contact him through LinkedIn or at [email protected]

What ethical tests do you apply to difficult decisions?