The Virtue of Character
Why do we need codes of ethics or their more modest version, codes of conduct, if we hire
the right people?
This is a fair question. If we hire the right people, they will know what to do.
But how will we know if they do the right thing? And how will we know if they are the right
people? We do not ask new hires what their ethical systems are, whether they favor a Kantian,
utilitarian, or rule-based consequentialist system. Nor to companies train in any of these ethical
theories as part of the new hire indoctrination. But we do give them codes of conduct, as if that
makes them ethical.
Instead what we seem to look for is character. That’s a different ethical system. We will get
to that in a moment. First we need to look at the basic, classic dichotomy of rules versus
consequences (or outcomes), in fancy philosophical terms “deontological” and
“consequentialist,” that boring stuff that starts off most ethics discussions. Philosophers and
ethicists love to debate these. We seem to need rules, and yet we measure the success by their
outcomes. “Do not lie,” and so we tell the government thugs the pregnant democracy advocate
is behind that door, and they kill her. Yet when we start with consequences, we also get in
trouble. “Advance freedom and democracy,” and so we kill the government agents. We thus find
we need at least a few rules to put some hard direction to the outcomes we want, otherwise we
wind up with a debate at the moment we need action, and criticism for making bad decisions.
If we can get the rules right and agreed upon, then we will all know how to act when that
ethical problem confronts us. We will also be able to judge whether the person dealing with the
situation followed the rules. Assuming we bother to check the rules, and there is a rule for that
problem. That’s the plan. We might still find ourselves looking at the outcome thinking, “We
followed the rules, everyone did what they should, and still it seems like a lousy result.” For
example, I am working at the security and operations desk when employee A calls me to say
she has been robbed at gunpoint in the parking garage, the robber is driving away. She is
unhurt. Rules say I should close and seal all doors by pressing a few buttons; and to call police;
I do all this. Minutes later employee B calls to say he can’t get out of the garage, he is hurrying
to the hospital to see his son who, emergency doctors say, has a very short time to live. The
“rule” for concurrent or sequential emergencies is, follow the rules for the first emergency and
resolve that first, do not assign priority if the emergencies conflict. The robber is caught. The
son dies before the father can see him. In following the rules, I achieved penal justice, and
caused great grief.
In consequentialist-based ethics, we set the desired outcomes and then try to act in a way
that most likely will satisfy that outcome. Back to my job at the security desk. The first
emergency is the robber. The second emergency is the father hurrying to get out. The ethics
are, when two emergencies cannot be resolved at the same time, act on the one likely to yield
the greatest relief. Given that employee A is unharmed, I open the exit gate to allow employee B
to leave. The father gets to his son in time. But the robber, seeing the open gate, speeds
through and runs over employee C crossing the driveway, killing her. The greater relief seems
to have yielded greater misery. The son was going to die anyway, and now I’ve wound up killing
an innocent person.
Leaving aside some of the adjustments made to these two major sides of ethics, (worthy of
a separate discussion), we have two more ethical theories to consider. One is “moral sense,” a
term philosophers are a bit uncomfortable with but scientists and social scientists are finding
evidence for. This is more emotive, less analytical. Research shows that humans have some
innate moral sense, evident in early childhood, about what is fair. At least, it works for fairness, if
not necessarily for more complex problems. It can be a fuzzy concept; the more we try to
analyze it the more we wind up with rules to accomplish it. Otherwise, we degenerate the
discussion to uninformed gut feelings – “it’s the right thing to do.” Well, the right thing to do is
sometimes the right thing for both of us, and sometimes only for you, and sometimes I think it’s
completely wrong for everyone. So we have to be careful. But it can be a good check on some
of the rules and outcomes we seek, and it is useful to acknowledge that all our ethics efforts
need some reference back to what humans consider right. At least, until we think through our
prejudices to something better. In modern times, killing whales for their blubber and killing
elephants for their tusks were the right thing to do, until the killing became unconscionable, and
then illegal.
The second major alternative is called “virtue” ethics. It refers to a person developing
character traits that we consider virtues, typically the classical virtues such as courage,
temperance, honesty, humility, generosity, honor, loyalty and friendship, honor, fairness, to
name some of them. They come from the ancient Greek virtues, which were the ethics of the
time. These were revived to be the foundation ethics in the Scottish and English Enlightenment.
(Actually, moral sense was also part of the Enlightenment.) These are both rules and outcomes,
but they are inculcated in a person, forming the character, even if we never see a person live
out all the virtues. We say of a person, “He/she is a solid person, of good character. I would
trust him/her to do the right thing, regardless of what the code says. And even if I don’t know the
right thing.”
For example, years ago I had to deal with someone on the other side of the deal. We
eventually got to the deal, but I could not stand the guy, and always had one hand on my wallet
in my pocket when I saw him. Every time we shook hands, I checked my hand in case he stole
that. I came up with a little three-question check on my sense of people: (1) Would I trust him
with my wallet? (2) Would I trust him with my daughter, or to look after a drunken young woman
who came on to him, to see her home safely? (3) Would I trust him for advice on a troubling
situation? The first question is about a rule – don’t steal. The second question is more of an
outcome – do not take advantage; it is also moving towards character – act with honor. The
third question is about character. I do not have to know his or her rules, or his or her views on
rules-based or outcome-based ethics. I need to know his character.
The CEO and CPA may be doing everything within the law and regulations to make
earnings targets and bonus hurdles, yet we may soon stop trusting them to run the company.
The lawyer who says, “I can make an argument for that, it’s not prohibited by the law,” is fine as
our advocate, not as our counselor. The real estate developer who says, “I got the seller down
by another $20,000, left nothing on the table,” and the seller now needs food stamps. Under
rules and consequences, these actors are on the mark. Yet many people would prefer they
were not standing on the mark or the line, but well within the safe zone.
If I hire a person to be at the security desk when the two phone emergency calls come in, I
will provide the person rules. We need them in those situations, because there is not time to
think through all the possibilities when the calls come in. But I am not going to ask my new hire,
Are you a rules-based ethicist, or a consequentialist, or a modified-rules based ethicist? Even if
the person could answer, the answer would be meaningless to the hiring decision unless I know
enough about ethical systems to want “my kind” with me. More realistically, I want (depending
on the job) someone who I trust will follow rules, or someone I trust to make the right decision
within the rules – when there are rules. And when there are no rules, I need someone I trust.
That is character.. That is practical wisdom within the situation. That is virtue ethics. That is a
developed moral sense from informed judgment.
What would such a person have done when those two calls came in?