Does an Organization Decide?

This seems fairly straightforward, and brings to light a significant concept: that an organization is not an actor, in the sense previously discussed. That is to say that the organization itself does not undertake any action or make any decision. It is the individuals within the organization who decide and act.

And this is the source of inaccuracy: if one suggests that the organization has made a decision, this obscures the fact that the decision was made by a person. Others within the organization may attempt to have input into or influence a decision, still others may agree or consent to the decision, and still others may undertake action to effect the decision - but the fact remains that the decision is not made by the organization, but an individual.

I would also suspect it to be true that a decision made by an individual within an organization is not universally accepted by all members of that organization. Some may oppose rather than support it, and a great many others may be unaware of it and wholly uninvolved.

And so, an "organization" can be seen as an effect of a purpose. The people and physical artifacts that the organization comprises are means to achieving its end. This may bear further consideration.

It also seems reasonable to suggest that an organization influences the decision-making process of its members, in that self-interest is replaced by the interests or goals of the organization as the driving force behind each decision to act.

However, organizations are often held liable, in a legal and political sense, for any action undertaken by a person who is identified as a member of that organization, even if the action is not motivated by the purpose of the organization. This seems a separate topic, to be explored later.

There is also the dynamic of people working in groups: not only are decisions influenced by the common purpose, but they are negotiated with and influenced by others with whom the decision-maker interacts. There are internal considerations - such as whether a decision will be accepted by other members of the organization, and whether they will support or resist the decision, whether they will assist in effecting it, and whether they will reward or punish the decision-maker or those who act in support of the decision. But to be clear, each of these actions is undertaken by an individual, not "the organization."

So it is the task of each individual within the organization to decide and act - and the suggestion that "the organization" makes decisions and undertakes actions is inaccurate.

Purpose of Organization

I have defined "organization" is a group of people who have chosen to gather into a unit to fulfill a specific purpose. The previous post considered the nature of an organization as being composed of people, but left off at the concept of a purpose.

The concept of purpose is significant, in that the purpose of an organization drives the behavior of those who constitute the organization. Within any other group, there is no unity of action. Take the example of race: one can distinguish a group of people as belonging to a given race, and the people may even accept that they are members of that race, but the race has a purpose or agenda (though certain members claim as much so to encourage others to support their personal agenda), it is merely a category.

Likewise, the residents of a given neighborhood happen to live in the same defined geographic area, but are not necessarily an organization. They may have certain interests in common, as a result of their similarity in the location in which they reside (not to mention that there are often other similarities among people who reside proximate to one another, such as their economic class), but are not necessarily organized to serve their common interest.

I have used "not necessarily" in the previous paragraph because there are instances in which a neighborhood organizes itself for a purpose, forming a homeowners' association. While that seems to be the trend in certain areas, it is not a necessity: people can live proximate to one another without forming an association.

An organization is gathered for a specific purpose, and is generally internally structured to suit that purpose. Participants or members of the organization have specific roles, which may be directly related to the core purpose or done in support of other members, and the affairs of the organization are conducted with some degree of formality.

Admittedly, this is a generalization: I would expect that, within any organization, there are members who do not actively support the agenda or interests of the organization, but have ulterior motives for participation. However, even in such instances, there is the expectation of the organization that its members will fulfill certain roles, and this is understood by all its members, even if they choose to act otherwise.

Choice is significant, and it occurs to me (though I am not entirely firm in this conclusion) that voluntary participation is a characteristic of an organization - an individual chooses to identify himself as part of an organization, and the other members of the organization choose to accept that individual into the organization. The individual may choose to leave the members, or other members may choose to expel him.

I'm not sure this is strictly necessary: there may be instances in which a person is not able to decide whether to join or leave an organization, or in which other members of an organization are unable to block his entry or mandate his exit. However, I have the sense that mutual acceptance of participation is a distinguishing characteristics that differentiates organizations from arbitrary groups.

What is an Organization?

The previous post discussed the ethics of organizations without considering an essential definition: what is an organization? In common parlance, there is the notion of an organization as an entity: it is often said that decisions are made an actions undertaken by an organization - but my sense is that this is an abstraction that leads to inaccuracy.

As a working definition:

An organization is a collection of people, which makes decisions and undertake actions to achieve a specific purpose.

I've decided to define an organization in terms of the people it comprises rather than any physical artifacts: objects or structures. My sense is that it is a commonly accepted notion: a "church" is not so much the building but the congregation, a "nation" is not so much the geographic area as the persons who identify themselves as a member of that nation.

It is possible for an organization to exist without physical artifacts. Taking the examples above, a "church" is organized among devotees before a building is constructed, and a "nation" is organized among citizens who remain members of that nation when they travel abroad (and immigrants are not necessarily members of the organization simply by stepping into a geographic area).

In this sense, the artifacts are incidental. They may be obtained by the organization for a given purpose, related to the purpose of the organization. The physical artifacts may even be disposed of without dissolving the organization.

However, the people are not disposable to an organization. If the people disband, or abandon the purpose of an organization, the organization itself ceases to exist. With that in mind, I do not think it is inaccurate to suggest that an organization is, by definition, a group of people.

The addition of "to achieve a specific purpose" also seems essential to the notion of organization. The difference between an "organization" and a random group of people is that there is a commonality of purpose among the individuals who compose the organization. This bears further consideration.

Rational Basis of Ethics

An underlying premise to this study is that ethics is based on reason, and that any action that is not the result of a reasoned decision is not subject to ethical evaluation.

That said, I think it's acceptable to hold as unethical the failure to apply reason: if a person who is a capable of rational though undertakes an action without considering the consequences, this is a dereliction of ethics. While they have not chosen to act in an ethical manner, their choice to act without due consideration is, in itself, considered to be a failure of their ethics.

Said another way, if an actor is capable of rational though, we expect them to apply reason to determine the ethics of their decisions and the precipitating actions. The converse of this statement is that if an actor is not capable of rational thought, we cannot expect them to apply reason, nor can we assess the consequences of their actions as ethical.

This would seem to be a reasonable premise: we do not hold animals accountable for the ethics of their actions. We may assess them to be dangerous, but this is in much the same way as we assess an inanimate object to be dangerous: a wild animal that attacks a person is no more "evil" than a sharp stone that cuts the foot of a person who treads upon it.

The matter becomes less clear when we are considering a person who is incapable of reason: a person who is mentally retarded, a child who is too young to exercise logic, a person whose mind is disabled by age or psychological disorder, or a person who is overcome by emotion. We cannot consider the action of such individuals to be influenced by ethics, or subject to ethical evaluation.

This is not to say that we cannot choose to react to their actions, or act in advance to prevent them from harming others, if we consider them to be dangerous - but whether or not we are required or entitled to prevent dangerous individuals from doing harm a separate ethical decision, pertaining to the actions taken by others, not to the actions of such individuals.

The assessment of whether a given individual is capable of exercising logic is a matter of psychology rather than philosophy, and a clear distinction should be made between the two fields of study. We must take care to refrain from classifying a person as "incapable of rational thought" simply because we disagree with their reasoning. As to what other criteria might be implied to correctly determine a person's capacity for logic, I leave that to psychology.

Other than the lack of capacity for logic, there may be instances in which a person who is capable of reason chooses not to apply it. In certain circumstances, the necessity for action is such that it is not possible or practical to undergo the mental effort of applying reason - action must be taken quickly. My sense is that it would be difficult to make a general assessment of situations where one can reasonably state that there is "no time to think," and that the determination of whether this is true must be considered in the context of a specific situation.

Complexity of Action

In considering action and consequence, I have taken too narrow a consideration of actions - as if any single action is entirely an isolated phenomenon.

In some instances, I expect that there are unitary actions that can be considered in isolation, but in others, I expect that one action necessitates other actions. And just as ethics should consider all consequences of a given action, it should also include every action in a chain of events, or what may be considered to be a course of interconnected actions.

Most obviously, undertaking a given action may require other actions to be taken in advance of the action in question. The example of building a fire involves not only the act of igniting the fire, but also of gathering the material that is to be burned. IF these actions are not performed in advance, the action itself cannot be performed. And because they are performed for the sake of doing something else, the entire "bundle" of actions must be considered.

It also seems that there is a connection between an action and certain actions that follow it - but there is no strict causal connection. Given the same example (building a fire), it can be reasonably said that the actions of extinguishing the flame and disposing of the remains are actions that are related to the primary action, but there is no causal relationship between them (I cannot build a fire without gathering fuel, but I can certainly build a fire and not bother to dispose of the ashes afterward).

The sense that the following actions are necessary is a matter of ethics: that a person who starts a fire is to be held responsible for these other actions - specifically, that it is "right" of them to do so, and wrong of them to fail to do so. However, this is subject to argument: it is a matter of "should" rather than "must"

There may be instances in which a following action is strictly required, not merely a matter of expectation, though I cannot immediately think of an example that does not seem entirely ludicrous, and not entirely accurate (they are most often consequences than separate actions).

The concept of causation between an action and the action that follows it is quite often erroneous in this regard. It is (mis)used to justify undertaking an action because another action was taken. For example, the justification for retaliatory action (because they attacked us, we were compelled to attack them) suggests that the second party's attack on the first was inevitable, when in reality, it was a separate and independent decision (the retaliatory attack did not "have to" be made - the retaliator decided to undertake the return attach, and that decision is not bundled with the first, but merits a separate ethical deliberation).

And so, when considering an action, we must consider all other actions that are must be undertaken to perform that action as part of that action. Any action that should be undertaken, but is not strictly necessary, involves a separate decision, hence a separate evaluation, though it may have an impact on the evaluation of a primary action (if building a fire is deemed unethical because of the likelihood it will burn out of control, then accepting the separate action of tending the fire decreases this likelihood and diminishes the "wrongness" of the initial action).

False Dichotomies

One of the key problems with many ethical systems is the acceptance of a false dichotomy: that one may do "right" or "wrong" and that there is no instance of an action that is neither right nor wrong. That is to say, no action is to be considered ethically neutral.

But it seems to me that there are situations in which ethics do not apply. Specifically, if an action is to be assessed by the beneficial or detrimental consequences, it follows that an action without consequences cannot be assessed as right or wrong by any standard of ethics.

While it is difficult to conceive of an action has no consequences whatsoever, it seems to me that there are actions where the consequences are so negligible that it is absurd to attempt to apply ethics. Without specifying additional conditions that would change the fundamental nature of the action, one cannot reasonably say that to stand or to sit is an "ethical" decision. There are no appreciable consequences of the action to anyone but the actor, and the consequences to the actor himself are negligible.

I have the sense, but am not prepared to state it emphatically as a conclusion, that any action that an individual undertakes that has no consequence to anyone but himself is beyond ethical consideration. That a person acts in their own benefit is to be expected. That a person may act in a way that harms himself is a less comfortable notion, but still seems to be beyond the scope of ethics. I will give this more thought.

Another problem with binary systems is that they assume man is faced with a choice of doing right or doing wrong. Aside of doing something that is neither right nor wrong, there is also the possibility that a man may not "do" anything at all. Ethics pertain to actions, and an action must be undertaken in order for ethics to apply.

This may be subject to greater debate. There is a popular notion that failure to do good is the equivalent of doing evil, or vice-versa. There are an infinite number of actions that might be undertaken at any given moment, and an individual's choice not to do any of them cannot be assessed as good (because he fails to choose any of the evil actions) or evil (because he fails to choose any of the good actions).

In this sense, inertia must be regarded as ethically neutral. An action that is not undertaken cannot be assessed as ethical or unethical, simply because no action has actually occurred, nor any consequence effected.

Said another way, ethics assesses the consequences of an action. If there is no action, or if there are no consequences to an action, ethics simply does not apply.

Right and Wrong: Fundamental Consideration

At this point, I think I have sufficient material to begin to consider the factors that make a decision "right" or "wrong" in terms of ethics.

An action that has only positive or beneficial consequences is to be considered "right" by the standards of ethics, and the decision to undertake such action is to be considered sound.

An action that has only negative or harmful consequences is to be considered "wrong" by the standards of ethics, and the decision to undertake such action is to be considered unsound.

These are very simplistic premises, and I expect that they will require revision as they are considered in greater detail, but I think that the fundamentals will hold.

If one considers all the consequences of an action, to all parties impacted by them, including any opportunity cost, and finds that they are universally beneficial or harmful, then it would be difficult to dispute the conclusion of whether the action, and the decision to undertake the action, is right or wrong.

The problem, of course, is that there are very few instances in which the outcome of an action is universally positive or negative. Given that a decision may lead to actions that have mixed consequences, the overall assessment of the right/wrong of the action involves a balance of positive and negative outcomes to arrive at an overall judgment of the soundness of the decision.

It's also worth noting that evaluating the outcomes of a single action is fundamental, but it is not the full scope of ethics. In many instances, there are multiple options for action - and at the very least, there are always two choices to be considered (to undertake an action or to refrain from doing so), and it would seem that ethics would require a decision-maker to undertake the option that is "best" in terms of its outcomes.

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with that premise - it implies that ethics is a reduced to the consideration of efficiency or productivity - and my sense is that it may be premature to begin pondering dilemmas, so I'll refrain from comparative considerations until another time, and keep focus on the ethics of a single action, with the concession that it is overly simplistic.

Consequences: Direct and Indirect

Thus far, consequence of action has been considered mostly in a direct manner, but this is an incomplete view of consequences. Often, the consequences that are of greatest interest to ethics are those that are not directly related to the action, but precipitate from the action through a chain of causation.

For example, the action of drawing water from a village well causes there to be less water in the well for others to draw upon. This is a direct consequence. Taken to an extreme, withdrawing all water from a well causes the well to run dry. There being no water in the well may result in other consequences, such as the resource being unavailable to water crops.

This sets up a chain of causation: drawing water from the well causes there to be no water available for crops, causes the crops to die of dehydration, causes those who depend upon those crops to starve. And for that reason, we would assess the act of drawing water from the well to be bad/wrong because the precipitating consequence is harmful.

Having a chain of causation adds complexity to consideration. We might ask if the person who drew the water from the well was aware of the precipitating effect, several links further down the chain. We might also inquire as to whether at any point, action could have been taken by others to avoid the consequences (could the well have been dug deeper, or another water source found to provide for the crops) - and, if so, if it is the responsibility of the actor to have undertaken such an action, for the sake of drawing water.

My sense is that much of this is specific to the situation, and it would be difficult to draw a general conclusion. In a broad sense, ethics applies to indirect consequences, but the length of the chain of causation and the possibility of mitigation may be mitigating factors.

Consequences: Intentional vs Unintentional

In considering ethics, it is generally accepted that the intentional consequences of an action are of primary importance in determining whether a decision was ethical. It's generally held that a person who acts intentionally to cause harm is "worse" than an individual whose actions happened to cause harm, but that causing harm was not their intention.

I expect this is because ethics is based on reason: the factors that were taken into consideration in making a decision can be said to have influenced that decision, and any factor that was not taken into consideration had no impact on the decision, though they may have had an impact on the consequences.

However, failure to consider consequences, while not a deliberate choice to do harm, is not entirely ethically inconsequential. In arrears, we consider an individual to be responsible for any harm that results as a consequence of their actions, regardless of whether they were intentional. And as such, we consider an individual responsible for considering all possible consequences of an action in making the decision whether to undertake the action itself.

Said another way, failure to consider the consequences is a failure of ethics, though not as grievous as considering, but disregarding, the same consequences.

Even so, there remains a mitigating factor for unintentional consequences of an action: whether it was possible for the consequences to be foreseen. We accept the imperfection of human logic: we are not by nature omniscient, and therefore there are factors that are not known that will lead to outcomes that cannot be predicted. And in such instances, we further mitigate the culpability of the individual in making a decision.

For past action, there remains some argument over what "could have been known", coupled with suspicion about the honesty of a person who suggests that the reason they failed to predict an outcome was that they did not know. Much is left to conjecture.

However, for future action, the scope of knowledge is a matter of fact: the individual who makes a decision knows what they know before the decision is made, and any knowledge that comes to light after the decision is made (or when the action is initiated and cannot be prevented) can accurately be said to have been "not known" in making the decision - though one may argue in arrears that the decision-maker failed to exercise due diligence.

Another factor in gauging future consequences is probability. There are seldom instances where we can be perfectly certain before taking an action of what the consequences will actually be. We are limited to assessing the likelihood of consequences - and we make a decision based on the likelihood of outcomes.

In this way, decision-making is different from the act of assessing past decisions: once an action has occurred and consequences have resulted, we have better knowledge (not entirely perfect, but much more accurate) of the consequences of the action.

Form this, a future decision cannot be accurately assessed as being "good," but merely whether it is sound: if the individual who makes the decision has made a sufficient effort to discover the possible consequences, and made a decision based on a sufficiently reasonable assessment of the likelihood of outcomes, we can then say that the person has made an ethically sound decision, regardless of what the actual outcome happens to be when the action is undertaken.

The evaluation of sufficiency remains arguable. This should be considered.

Ethics and Law

It was suggested that, when considering the ethics of consequences, that there is limited value in considering the consequences of past actions, except as a method of deriving guidance, from experience, for making decisions that will have consequences in the future.

Past action is also the primary concern of law, which seeks to add punishment in arrears as a method of justice, to "correct" the effects of a historical action and to add to the negative consequences of future actions of the same nature. If a person acts in a way that harms others, but does no harm to himself, he may not be dissuaded from undertaking the same action again in future, and doing further harm to others.

This leads to the topic of law, which is a different topic than I had intended to address in this blog - but it cannot be altogether avoided, as the judicial system adds punitive consequences to an action: one may undertake an action that is not harmful to anyone, and the legal system may cause harm to the actor.

When making a decision in which one may expect there to be legal consequences, to oneself of others, these consequences bear consideration and may influence the decision. However, they are inconsequential to the ethical consideration of an action: what is prohibited by law is not necessarily "wrong" and what is permitted (or required) by law is not necessarily "right."

Neither would it be correct to say that the legal consequences are consequences of the action itself. The action of punishment (or reward) is the result of an entirely separate decision, often made by an entirely separate actor.

From a practical perspective, it is worthwhile to consider punishment or reward in the decision as to whether to take an action. From an ethical perspective, punishment and reward are a separate matter.

Ethics of Consequences

In the context of action, it was concluded that an action is not ethical in and of itself, but the consequences of that action provoke a consideration of the ethics. In a fundamental sense, an ethical evaluation assesses the consequences of an action were good or bad - and from there, to work backward: if the consequences were good, the action was good.

It is possible to take another step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions. In fact, it seems essential to do so. If ethics focuses entirely on actions that have already been taken, it has no value in guiding behavior. That is not to say that there is no point in analyzing pas actions: while the past cannot be changed, the lessons taken from it provide guidance for future decisions, which is the value of ethics.

It is also possible to take a second step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions, which are made by people. This returns to the previous question of whether a person can be considered to be ethical, but arrives at the same tautology that led me to dismiss "person" as the subject of evaluation: a good person makes good decisions, which might imply that every decision made by a good person is a good decision.

While there remains the concept of the "good person," my sense is this is useful evaluation, as social existence depends on trust, and trust is earned over time by an individual who makes good decisions (based on the notion that a person's character guides them to act in a consistently good or bad manner) - but this bears further consideration. For the present, we focus on consequences, as each decision to act may be good or bad, independent of the person who makes that decision (i.e., a good person does not always make good decisions, but may make a bad decision, hence the good or bad rests in the decision, and not the person).

It must also be acknowledge that, thus far, "good" and "bad" have been considered in an overly vague and general sense. It is presumed that a positive or beneficial outcome is "good" whereas a negative or harmful outcome is "bad." It seems to me that these concepts are far more complex than that, but I will continue along that line of logic and return to the "essence" of good/bad at a later time.

So to revisit the second step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions, which are made on the basis of motives. And while that seems logical, the chain of causation weakens: while we can consider the motives that drive a decision as a method for evaluating the ethics of the decision, the consequences of the action may not entirely jibe with the motives. That is to say that we can appreciate the desire to do good, but ultimately assess ethics not merely by the desire, but by the outcome. And even in evaluating decisions in advance of outcome, "good intentions" do not guarantee a good outcome, nor pardon the actor from any negative consequence of his action.

Ethics of Actions

In considering the context of action, it was considered that any "act" involves an actor, who takes an action, which has consequences. And after consideration, it was determined that the actor cannot be considered the source of ethics, any more than an inanimate object. This leaves action and consequence as the possible sources. The present post will consider the action.

The notion of separating action from consequence is not novel, but was considered by Immanuel Kant who, in The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), sought to define a "categorical proposition" - which, in plainer terms, is an action that is right in and of itself, and should thus be performed regardless of the consequences. He arrived at the conclusion that such a thing does not exist, and I do not presently intend to rehash or summarize his argument, merely to concede that this idea is not my own invention.

To return to the context of use, action is performed by an individual, but it is not performed merely to act, but to achieve an outcome from undertaking an action - which therefore leads to the sense that the action is incidental, and the consequences are to be considered, as they are the motivation that led to the action having been undertaken. Said another way, were it not for the consequences, the action would not have been undertaken.

It is also worth noting that an identical action may lead to different consequences under different circumstances. To slice with a knife is not considered unethical if the object beneath the blade is a loaf of bread, but it may be considered unethical if the object beneath the blade is a human being, and yet it may not be considered unethical if the person holding the knife is a surgeon performing a procedure on a patient, and again becomes unethical if the surgical procedure is unnecessary to aid the patient but is instead done as a justification to get money from his insurer. In each of these instances, there is no difference in the action, but in the consequences.

While it may seem that, by process of elimination, we have arrived at the conclusion that "consequences" are the basis of ethics, this notion bears further consideration.

Ethics of Persons

In a previous post, I considered the ethics of objects, and arrived at the conclusion that ethics cannot correctly be applied to objects, in that an object is not inherently right or wrong, good or evil, except in its use.

The concept of "use" implies that there is an actor, who takes an action, that has consequences. Each of these components bears consideration - and for the present post, I will consider the ethics of the actor - the individual who undertakes an action - and consider whether the actor is subject to ethical consideration.

The question of whether a person is inherently good or evil was explored in classical (Greek) philosophy and perpetuates to this day in certain schools of religious doctrine. Such systems maintain that there are persons who are inherently good and persons who are inherently evil, and they should be considered as such regardless of what actions they undertake.

This line of thinking quickly degenerates into logical quagmire. Is a person good because they do good, or is the doing of good what makes a person good? If a good person does only evil, is that person still good? Is everything a good person does to be considered good? Is a person who does mostly good and some evil a good person or an evil person? The contradictions in these questions arise because the quality of good is applied to both the actor and the action, and is resolved by accepting that one of them is good or evil, and the other is unimportant to matters of ethics.

If we are to eliminate either actor or action as subject to ethical consideration, and assuming that the actor is the source of good or evil would suggest that a person who is good or evil is not subject to judgment - they simply are what they are and do what is in their nature to do, and will remain essentially good or evil. Such a perspective makes ethics moot, and as such must be considered of no value to ethics. The result is that the action, rather than the actor, is to be taken as subject of ethical consideration, but the action. This will be considered in further detail in the next post.

To make a distinction, the present inquiry is to the nature of a person as the source of good or evil rather than the character of a person, which represents something quite different: our expectations of their future behavior based on past behavior. There may be some merit to this assertion, and there may be some value to knowing the character of a person when predicting the course of action they may be expected to choose - but this bears separate consideration.

Ethics of Objects

Central to the study of ethics is determining the criteria by which something can be considered "right" or "good." Fundamental to that question is the identity of the "something" that is assessed - and while my working definition of ethics already identifies the decision to act as the subject of ethical scrutiny, my sense is that it merits further consideration.

For the present post, I'll explore "things" - objects - with the aim of considering whether they are correctly excluded as the subject of ethics. However, the notion that an object can be inherently good or evil seems entirely absurd. An object "does" nothing - it undertakes no actions, and therefore cannot be held accountable for its intentions, or any consequences.

The consideration of the ethics of an object becomes slightly less absurd if the object has the potential to do harm: a berry that is poisonous might do harm to someone who consumes it, a rock with a sharp edge might do harm to someone who treads upon it, a tree might do harm if it should fall upon someone.

Objects with the potential to do harm are considered to be "dangerous" rather than "unethical." Under certain circumstances, we might consider it to be ethical for a person to prevent them from doing harm, but this is entirely beside the point: the object itself is not assessed by the standards of ethics.

To go a step further: what of objects that are designed or fashioned so as to be dangerous? A product may be unsafe, or it may even designed to be used to inflict harm (such as a poison). But even in these instances, an object is still merely dangerous - if any question of ethics arises, it is generally asked of the person who designed the object, or the person who uses it, or of the person who provides it to another to be used.

Thus far, I have considered ethics only in the negative view - that which is wrong, evil, or harmful. But if objects were considered in the positive view - that which is right, good, or helpful - my sense is that I would arrive at the same conclusion: that an object that is designed or used to have a positive effect is not inherently right or good, but is potentially beneficial - and any ethical assessment is made of the design, use, or provisioning of such an object for a beneficial purpose.

This may be more germane in the context of business, where an individual seeks to obtain an object due to its potential to be put to a beneficial use, but exploring that dynamic can be done in greater detail at another time.

And finally, to round things out, there are objects that seem neither inherently dangerous nor potentially beneficial - though it may be argued that any object can be dangerous or beneficial depending on how it is used. This further underscores the conclusion that it would be incorrect to apply ethics to an object, but to the action that involves its use.

This may bear further consideration, but for now, I feel that I've exhausted this line of inquiry, and arrived at the conclusion that ethics is not applicable to objects.

Functional Definition of Ethics

I realize that I failed to arrive at a working definition of "ethics" in my post "What is Ethics?" In that meditation, I considered ethics as an academic discipline, but the definition of ethics as a branch of philosophy seems insufficient.

With that in mind, here is an attempt at a working definition of the term, which is likely to be refined as I continue to consider the subject:

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that considers "right and wrong" in the context of human action as a means toward providing guidance for making decisions that will lead to "right" action.

To expound on this definition:

Ethics is defined as a branch of philosophy, which is explained in detail in the previous post. The only additional detail I would like to add at this time is that philosophy deals in abstractions, seeking to discuss the general nature of things, with an eye toward applying general principles to specific situations that may arise.

The consideration of "right and wrong" also distinguishes ethics from the other branches of philosophy (metaphysics and epistemology). In addition to considering whether the outcome of an action is "right," the notion of "right" itself is a topic to be considered.

The context of human action is also worth including. While it would seem self-evident, I have encountered instances where an attempt is made to apply the concept of ethics to "things" rather than actions, and to actions over which human beings had neither influence nor control. The latter, however, may be subject to further consideration.

The function of ethics is defined as providing guidance, with the implication that it is to be applied to the future. Ethics can, and often does, evaluate the actions of the past - and while there may be some value in doing so (to judge and punish wrongdoers), its principle value is as a guide for actions to be taken in the future.

The specification of decision-making is likewise an area that may require further consideration. Ultimately, we refer to actions as being ethical or unethical, but every action is preceded by a decision and it is only here that ethics can have a meaningful impact.

And finally, the objective of ethics is defined as leading to "right" action. While it is possible that an individual might assess ethics with the intention of pursuing "wrong" or abandoning "right," ethics is most often employed to define the correct or desirable course of action, and negative consequences are a failure to consider ethics rather than the deliberate choice to define and follow a "wrong" course of action.

What is Ethics?

In an academic sense, "ethics" is defined as one of the three branches of philosophy, the other two being metaphysics and epistemology. It's not my intention to take on a broader focus in this blog, but it seems worthwhile to explore the broader perspective, if only in a proscriptive sense - i.e., to focus the present study by examining similar considerations that will be "out of scope."

Metaphysics denotes the study of reality, and seeks to answer a fundamental question: how do we know what exists? It questions whether the things we accept to be "real" actually are. We may believe something to exist because or our sense perception (we can see and touch an object), or because we have a memory of it, or because we have been told of it by someone else - but it is also possible that we are deluded, our memory is faulty, or someone is seeking to deceive us.

Epistemology denotes the study of truth, and addresses the question: how do we know that which we know? It goes beyond the metaphysical consideration of mere existence to consider the way in which we validate information, through a process of logic, to determine whether a statement or conclusion is true or false. Just as metaphysics considers whether a physical object is grounded in reality, epistemology considers whether an accepted fact is grounded in logic.

Ethics demotes the study of right, and addresses the question: how do we know what action to take? It questions whether a course of action, intended or merely considered, is "right" or "wrong" - and, as a prerequisite to that assessment, what constitutes the "rightness" of a given action. This is the topic of the current study.

Correspondingly, metaphysics and epistemology are not the topic of the present study, but are presupposed by it. Ethics may seek to consider the question "is it right to grow wheat" (or in the context of business ethics, whether is it right to grow and sell wheat) without pausing to consider questions such as: "does wheat exist?" or "how do we know what makes it grow?"

These may be valid questions, to their respective branches pf philosophy, but are largely irrelevant to evaluating the ethics of a given situation.