My aim is to consider the circumstances in which the standards of ethics may conclude that an individual is obligated to act for the benefit of another party. This tends to be a difficult subject, and the focal point of much consideration and argument, and a fundamental consideration to ethics.
To begin, obligation is the focal point of ethics. When a person acts alone, undertaking an action that has no appreciable impact on other parties, the question of ethics do not arise. A person is expected to act in ways beneficial to himself as a matter of course. A person is entitled to act in ways that are harmful to himself, though this may seem irrational to an observer. The consideration of "right" and "wrong" are practical matters, nothing more.
The consideration of ethics begins only when a second party enters the stage, and the consequences of the actions undertaken by an actor impact this second person. They may have a direct impact, in which any harm or benefit immediately arises from the action, or an indirect impact, in that the consequences of the action alter the situation in a way that is ultimately beneficial or harmful to the other party by virtue of the change in the environment.
The fundamental question of ethics, then, is whether it is "right" for a person to take an action due to the consequences it may have for other parties. This gives rise to the notion that the individual is required to consider the impact to other parties before undertaking any course of action.
And at this, a working definition of obligation can be derived: obligation is the requirement for an individual to consider the consequences of an action to other parties in advance of undertaking that action.
While this may be tedious, my sense is that it might give rise to problems if the goal of obligation were not fully explored: given that the options are to act or refrain from acting, and given that the consequences may be beneficial or harmful, there are four possible outcomes (1):
Obligation to act in ways that are harmful to others
The notion that a person is obliged to harm others seems entirely absurd at first, and on further consideration it remains largely so. The only exception I can presently conceive is in reaction. It might be argued that acting in a way to harm another person effects restitution (when the actor seeks to be compensated for the harm done by the previous actions of another person) and a punitive value (when the harm inflicted on another is a punishment that is intended to dissuade them from repeating the action that elicited the reactive punishment).
Punitive action is a topic best suited for political and legal debate, so I expect to avoid it in future. While the notion of restitution seems germane to the topic of business, in that an individual who has performed a service and not received payment may feel obligated to obtain compensation in a manner that could be perceived as harmful to the other party, the primary interest in doing so is not to harm the other party, but to gain the benefit to which they feel entitled. This may bear further consideration in that context, but not in the sense of obligation.
Obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are helpful to others
This notion seems unusual, though not quite as absurd as the former, in that the typical argument is based on the premise that when it is possible to help others, the obligation is to render aid rather than withhold it (which will be addressed later). Even so, my sense is that there are instances in which a person may be obligated to refrain from acting in a way that benefits other parties.
One instance in which it is logical to feel reluctance to render assistance is in the context of education or mentoring. The belief that another person will not learn a skill or be inclined to develop the facility for performing a task if another party intercedes to perform tasks in his benefit does seem to be rational. In this sense, the actor's intention in refraining from assisting is positive in its intent: to give to the other person not the immediate benefit they may wish to have, but instead a more long-term benefit of learning to accomplish the task for themselves.
Another instances in which it is logical to refrain from rendering assistance is in a situation where the actor accepts the limitation of his own knowledge. That is to say, the actor is uncertain whether the action he undertakes will render a benefit the other party desires without doing greater harm. In plainer terms, there is the obligation not to interfere in situations where you lack the information, experience, and knowledge to be sufficiently certain that the action will have a beneficial outcome.
Obligation to act in ways that are helpful to others
Under certain circumstances, the notion that a person may be obligated to undertake an action for the benefit of another party seems reasonable. However, the precise circumstances are a subject of much debate, and bear far more scrutiny that I can give them in the content of the present post.
I expect there will be many meditations in which the notion of this obligation is considered, and I can think of no general principle that I can state at the present time, without more intense consideration.
Obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are harmful to others
It seems to me that the obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are harmful to others is virtually an axiom. "Doing no harm" seems a requirement for considering an action to be wholly ethical. An individual is entitled act in a way that harms himself if he so desires, and obligated to suffer the negative consequences of his own actions is a matter of course, but I can find no rational basis the notion that an individual is obligated to harm others.
Exceptions to this principle seem absurd: the notion that a party would seek to obligate another to undertake an action in which the sole consequences would be to harm them would be the equivalent of acting, by proxy, to harm themselves - which would fall into the defined categories as altruistic, sacrificial, or insane.
Notes
- I have conveniently omitted from the consideration above instances in which an action has no consequences for others, or instances in which the consequences do not result in appreciable harm or benefit to others. I don't wish to take these off the table, as a number of false dilemmas arise from the exclusion of the possibility of actions that have no appreciable consequence. However, I believe they can rightly be excluded from consideration in the context of obligation.
No comments:
Post a Comment