The Power and Purpose of Ethics: Driving Toward Better Living and Being Better
Michael J. Piellusch MA, MS, DBA
Technical Writer/Editor @ U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Contract Technical Writer/Editor
Continuing my never-ending search for good and great books, I recently discovered a great book entitled The Power of Ethics written by Stanford Professor Susan Liautaud. Dr. Liautaud provides six key points to describe her subtitle of How to Make Good Choices in a Complicated World:? Banished Binary, Scattered Power, Contagion, Crumbling Pillars, Blurred Boundaries, and Compromised Truths. This mini essay summarizes these points as well as the overall theme of ethics having power.
Banished Binary: Making the Swift Right Answer When Yes or No Loom
With the Boeing 747 Max tragedies as an excellent example of banishing the binary, Liautaud (2021) describes the tragic sequence of events that led to the death of two plane loads of passengers and crew members: Ethiopian Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610.? Both crashes were the result of a series of poor decisions complicated by less than truthful (inadequate and misleading) communications and a very slow grounding by the FHA of a flawed fleet of Air Buses.? Germany, France, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Oman, Norway, and South Korea either grounded their fleets or banned the fleet from their airspace before the United States took corrective action.
Liautaud explains that some decisions regarding right versus wrong are clear cut; however, many other ethical decisions are dilemmas that involve multiple choices and require a set of principles and guidelines.? An undue delay before making a yes or a no binary decision can be troublesome or tragic.? Making a non-binary decision based on profit more than people or profit more than the health of the planet can be unethical and can damage the reputation of an individual, an organization, or a nation.
Scattered Power
Scattered Power is somewhat similar to binary vs. non-binary decisions. Liautaud (2021) describes the potential beneficial uses of clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) which can be used to modify gene structure to cure cancer, heart disease, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, blindness, Alzheimer’s, and many other human illnesses. The ethical issue arises with the potential harmful uses of CRISPR.? Liautaud speaks of the ethical edge and CRISPR in the wrong hands could easily cross the line into the realm of weaponized or other unethical uses. The potential uses of CRISPR to modify embryos, human eggs, and sperm go beyond a single individual and would affect future offspring if DNA was modified by CRISPR.? Liautaud describes treating illnesses as a somatic usage; whereas using CRISPR to affect future generations has been termed germline usage.
Contagion
Liautaud (2021) describes her third Power principle of ethics as “contagious ethical behavior” (Contagion) as a sort of snowball effect where one unethical action leads to another as an individual or a group of individuals descend down the slippery slope of fraudulent, immoral, or illegal behavior (or all of the above).? With impressive well researched detail, Liautaud describes the shocking and very upsetting scenario of how Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson stole the Democratic primary runoff election for Senate ?from Texas governor Coke (cowboy) Stevenson.? Johnson and his supporters fabricated 200 votes to give Johnson a stolen victory by 87 votes.? The ethical contagion was played out in an elaborate series of obstruction of justice maneuvers that ultimately ?ended with the disappearance of the evidentiary ballot box containing the 200 fabricated ballots.? Liautaud bases her research primarily on Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Caro’s incriminating book entitled The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent.? The principle of ethical contagion?tells us that one mistake (intentional false step) often leads to additional missteps.
Crumbling Pillars
Liautaud (2021) identifies the three traditional pillars of ethics as transparency, informed consent, and effective listening.? These three at-risk pillars form the pivot point of her seven “points of departure.” ?Similar to a magnetic compass used to navigate across our global oceans, pillars of ethics have guided decision makers within the United States and in many other countries for centuries. Liautaud asserts that we need these pillars more than ever in our “increasingly complex reality” (p. 95).? Clearly, these complexities include climate change, natural resource depletion, poverty, global health crises such as pandemics (and other defiant health crises), and dangerously automated wars motivated by political and theological differences.? Collectively, the three pillars are “the scaffolding for trust” (p. 97).? Automated and virtual reality helped our planet survive the COVID-19 pandemic, but digital signatures and electronic consent forms have increased the convenience of “informed consent” but clicking “I Agree” does not always equate to “I have read and fully understand what I am agreeing to.”? Liautaud describes the ethical edge and asserts that automated (rote) transactions (implied without the traditional handshakes) “lead to even greater confusion and diminished trust” (p. 98).
Blurred Boundaries
Liautaud (2021) begins her chapter on blurred boundaries with a detailed description of an incredible humanoid “celebrity” machine named Sophia.? Beyond vocal capabilities similar to Siri and Alexi discussed in the crumbling pillars chapter, Sophia can display 62 facial expressions and can perform human-like functions such as cutting birthday cake. Liautaud asserts, “We may want to believe that human-nonhuman engagements and enmeshments are still far from our own day-to-day lives, but they are here today and very much a part of the society we all live in” (p. 125).? The chapter explores the distinctions between AI products that “think” like humans (reasoning) and AI creations that "act" like humans (behaving). Liautaud ends the chapter expressing concerns about the blurring or weakening of trust and the dulling of the edge, if you will, between truth and denials of and distractions from truth.
Compromised Truth
Liautaud (2021) opens this chapter with a description of Donald Trump’s inauguration day.? She describes Chuck Todd of Meet the Press and presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway arguing about the unsubstantiated White House claim that the new president “enjoyed the largest inauguration audience in history” (p. 151).? Chuck Todd stated that “[This falsehood] undermines the credibility of the entire White House press on day one” (p. 151). The argument continued to go downhill as Conway evaded Todd’s questions and comments and claimed that her comments were “alternate facts” and not falsehoods. Liautaud asserts “The epidemic of ‘alternate facts’ or what I call ‘compromised truth’ is one of the most insidious and dangerous global systemic risks of our time" (p. 153)
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Concluding Thoughts
From Liautaud’s (2024) first chapter entitled “The Edge of Ethics” to her final chapters entitled “Ethics on the Fly,” and “Resilience and Recovery,” as well as her epilogue of “Ethics on Tomorrow’s Edge” she makes additional supporting points about her six key points and the three pillars as mentioned above.? “Ethics on the Fly” are relatively quick binary decisions such as grounding the 737 Max sooner rather than as a later delayed reaction.? Liautaud provides a “binary” rule of thumb for decision making: identify two principles, evaluate the most important consequences, select two relevant forces, and chose two alternatives.
“Resilience and Recovery” features a tragic detail about a customer dying from analgesic shock after eating a sesame seed bun at a Pret A Manger store. Pret A Manger was responsive and resilient both in expressing their condolences and doing a better job of detailing all of their ingredients including buns and other food items purchased from other stores.
The driving force of Liautaud’s work is encapsulated in her book title where “power” is the enduring theme.? Nathaniel Hawthorn identified the writing technique of giving any book, article, or essay an “iron rod” and power seems to be the takeaway strong thread of meaning behind her book, her classroom teaching as she describes, and the essence of ethics (Piellusch, 1976). ?Our increasingly complicated world needs more and more advocates of transparent, well informed, and authentic listening, thoughtfully deciding and assertively implementing ethical decisions and practices.? Liautaud’s (2024) epilogue emphasizes the critical timing aspect of many ethical dilemmas. “Ethical decision making at its best starts early ?– at the spark of an idea, not at the moment of damage assessment” (p 222).? Ethics as some say are like birds; they are everywhere.? Unfortunately, as Rachel Carson (1926) observed in Silent Spring, the spring may indeed become deathly silent if we as humans do not become more ethical and caring stewards of our planet and our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth.
References
Liautaud, S. (2011). The power of ethics: How to make good choices in a complicated world. Simon and Schuster. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Power_of_Ethics/eHENEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Power+of+Ethics+written+by+Stanford+Professor+Susan+Liautaud&printsec=frontcover
Caro, R. (1991). ?The years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of ascent.? Vintage. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Means_of_Ascent/K7YEteQuN3IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Years+of+Lyndon+Johnson:+Means+of+Ascent&printsec=frontcover
Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin.
Piellusch, M. J. (1976).? Hawthorn’s iron rod [master’s thesis].
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