Why Does One Want To Be Ethical?

Asking someone whys/he would want to be ethical is really a backdoor way of asking why one would want to be a Saint.

Of course we all know the answer to that question, particularly if phrased with the word ‘ethical’ replaced with the word ‘saint’. How many times in your life have you heard someone admit, “Well, I’m certainly no saint” or drawing in others for support, “We aren’t saints”, or “S/he’s no saint”. I think you get the point.

Why is it, I have often wondered, that when people actually admit this they are also saying “I’m not ethical” or “I don’t have to be ethical” or “everybody is doing it so why not me too?” This is called the ‘every body is doing it, it must be ethical’ scenario. It must be OK even if we feel it’s wrong. The irony is just too much.

Let’s look at it from another perspective. Assume, or if you prefer, hypothesize, that all people, everywhere, are born ethical i.e. saints. Bear with me, for this will be a short excruciatingly painful exercise. Taking the next logical step, one can conclude the only thing that changes whether one is a saint or not is in the environment they live, breath and work. For example, parents have a great deal to do with how individuals are formed ethically in their early years, teachers too, then our siblings, older and younger if any, then blood relatives, friends, co workers, and so forth. In other words, everything people are about in their lives influences how ethical or “saintly” they will become and how true each and every one will stay to their original self.

Some of us fight hard to take the ethical high ground. In effect, these sterling examples swim upstream, beat to a different drummer and, it would seem, care what everybody else is doing while the rest seem to care less. These mavericks often feel sorry that the rest of us “just don’t get it” knowing in their hearts and minds that we are all our brother’s and sister’s ‘keepers’. Most of the time we think they are ‘nut cases’, or in the nicer sense, ‘goody-to-shoes’ until and unless one of them really rises above us all. When that time arrives, it is no longer possible to ignore the incredible good that comes after them and that they stayed true to their birthright.

Oops! There I’ve said it. Birthright. The founding fathers of the United States of America put it more succinctly and perhaps their words may ground us in a reality we often choose to not accept. They said, “All men are created equal with certain inalienable rights…” Following the hypothesis above, we can pretty much take it to the bank that if we indeed believe these guys and we really are born equal, a belief that most Americans seem to accept quite readily, then we are all born completely ethical and therefore we are, in fact, living, breathing, saints too - at least in the beginning!

The next time it is brought to our attention that a corporation or an organization is charged with being corrupt or unethical, consider that the whole represents the many. The many includes every worker no matter how much they insist they are not a part of it when the organization is proven corrupt. Laying it off on the other guys that make the most money is just plain escapism and exactly what happens most often, if not every time. The view is summed up by a line from a comedy routine, one milked for everything it was worth, by the late and great comedian Freddy Prinz. He would pepper his standup routines with his famous tag line “it’s not my yob (job)”. We can add the mantra to workers, employees, associates, partners, owners, board members, et al, caught up in an organization’s ethical scandal, “it’s not my job to be ethical!”

Does anyone want to be ethical? Seems people talk a good game. They even act like it on occasion and, once in awhile, there are those among us who actually remember their birthright. But, for the rest, the ‘aura of ethics’ is used it seems, most often, to derive whatever benefit they can from it but with the backup excuse “we’re no saints and we’re not perfect.”
 You draw your own conclusions.

What I see is crystal clear. You and I have a choice but we can never say again, we didn’t know.

Asking someone whys/he would want to be ethical is really a backdoor way of asking why one would want to be a Saint.

Of course we all know the answer to that question, particularly if phrased with the word ‘ethical’ replaced with the word ‘saint’. How many times in your life have you heard someone admit, “Well, I’m certainly no saint” or drawing in others for support, “We aren’t saints”, or “S/he’s no saint”. I think you get the point.

Why is it, I have often wondered, that when people actually admit this they are also saying “I’m not ethical” or “I don’t have to be ethical” or “everybody is doing it so why not me too?” This is called the ‘every body is doing it, it must be ethical’ scenario. It must be OK even if we feel it’s wrong. The irony is just too much.

Let’s look at it from another perspective. Assume, or if you prefer, hypothesize, that all people, everywhere, are born ethical i.e. saints. Bear with me, for this will be a short excruciatingly painful exercise. Taking the next logical step, one can conclude the only thing that changes whether one is a saint or not is in the environment they live, breath and work. For example, parents have a great deal to do with how individuals are formed ethically in their early years, teachers too, then our siblings, older and younger if any, then blood relatives, friends, co workers, and so forth. In other words, everything people are about in their lives influences how ethical or “saintly” they will become and how true each and every one will stay to their original self.

Some of us fight hard to take the ethical high ground. In effect, these sterling examples swim upstream, beat to a different drummer and, it would seem, care what everybody else is doing while the rest seem to care less. These mavericks often feel sorry that the rest of us “just don’t get it” knowing in their hearts and minds that we are all our brother’s and sister’s ‘keepers’. Most of the time we think they are ‘nut cases’, or in the nicer sense, ‘goody-to-shoes’ until and unless one of them really rises above us all. When that time arrives, it is no longer possible to ignore the incredible good that comes after them and that they stayed true to their birthright.

Oops! There I’ve said it. Birthright. The founding fathers of the United States of America put it more succinctly and perhaps their words may ground us in a reality we often choose to not accept. They said, “All men are created equal with certain inalienable rights…” Following the hypothesis above, we can pretty much take it to the bank that if we indeed believe these guys and we really are born equal, a belief that most Americans seem to accept quite readily, then we are all born completely ethical and therefore we are, in fact, living, breathing, saints too - at least in the beginning!

The next timeit is brought to our attention that a corporation or an organization is charged with being corrupt or unethical, consider that the whole represents the many. The many includes every worker no matter how much they insist they are not a part of it when the organization is proven corrupt. Laying it off on the other guys that make the most money is just plain escapism and exactly what happens most often, if not every time. The view is summed up by a line from a comedy routine, one milked for everything it was worth, by the late and great comedian Freddy Prinz. He would pepper his standup routines with his famous tag line “it’s not my yob (job)”. We can add the mantra to workers, employees, associates, partners, owners, board members, et al, caught up in an organization’s ethical scandal, “it’s not my job to be ethical!”

Does anyone want to be ethical? Seems people talk a good game. They even act like it on occasion and, once in awhile, there are those among us who actually remember their birthright. But, for the rest, the ‘aura of ethics’ is used it seems, most often, to derive whatever benefit they can from it but with the backup excuse “we’re no saints and we’re not perfect.”
 You draw your own conclusions.

What I see is crystal clear. You and I have a choice but we can never say again, we didn’t know.

Author: Dr. Fred DiUlus, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Ethics in Free Enterprise