Prioritization of Interests

Consideration of the hierarchy of needs as a basis for the prioritization of interests would suggest that the most ethical decision is driven by the utility to the lowest level of need. But I have a sense it’s not quite so simple.

When an individual makes a decision that has consequences only to himself, it is plausible to consider that the definite sacrifice of a higher priority in order to definitely achieve a lower priority is irrational. (To be considered separately: do ethics even apply in such a situation?) However, in advance of an action being undertaken, the outcomes are not definite, and the decision-maker must consider probability.

In that sense, an individual may perceive that the chances of success at serving the lower priority are such that it is worth the risk to the higher priority. For example, entry into many social groups (a third-level priority) require an individual to undergo an initiation that poses an immediate threat to their well-being (a first-level priority). In is not unusual, nor necessarily irrational, for an individual to accept that risk.

The risk involved in investing is of a similar nature: while both the amount risked and the amount gained are a second-level priority (wealth, as a means to satisfy future needs), an individual may assess that the benefit of increasing their wealth is worth the risk of the amount they risk in the investment.

When an individual makes a decision that has consequences to himself and another person, interests are viewed from the perspective of the decision maker. That is to say that a first-level priority of one party (their immediate need) is at best a third-level priority when the consequences to them is made by someone else (presuming they value their social connection to another party).

The ethics of survival puzzles generally play upon this principle: a person who has the authority an ability to decide on a disposition of a resource that is immediately needed for himself and another party, it is presumed that the inclination of the decision-maker is to serve his self-interest first. From a purely functional or purely psychological perspective, this may be entirely justified, but it is not necessarily acceptable from an ethical perspective.

When an individual makes a decision that has no consequences to himself, and the benefit or harm is only to other parties, similar factors are taken into consideration. When the benefit and harm are to be done to a single party, the decision-maker is to consider the value of each and the risks to be considered (in effect, to make as “good” a decision for the other party as he would for himself).

When the benefit is granted to one party at the expense of another, the decision-maker who is motivated entirely by self-interest can be expected to consider the value of each party to himself, and comes to a decision based on the value he places on his future relationship with each of the two parties. However, if the decision-maker has no existing relationship and expects to have no future relationship, his decision is arbitrary.

Much of this bears further consideration – but insofar as the prioritization of interests is concerned, it would seem acceptable to accept Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a basis for rational decision-making when the benefit and harm implicit in a decision pertain to a single party. However, it is not a complete answer to the dilemma faced by a decision-maker who is weighing consequences that benefit one party and harm another.

Maslow Reconsidered

The primary problem in applying Maslow's hierarchy to ethics is that Maslow explores the motivations of the individual to act in his own benefit, whereas ethics most often considers the effect of actions upon others.

That said, there are a few aspects of Maslow's theory that seem compelling:

Primarily, that interests can be prioritized by a hierarchy, some being more important than others. This seems entirely rational, and has value to ethics in overcoming some to the problems inherent in binary systems of ethics - in which a consequence is labeled as good or bad without a sense of the degree of importance or impact.

Second, that the importance of an interest is relative to the achievement of a core value. In Maslow's hierarchy, it is clear that the chief "need" toward which an individual is motivated is life itself - in the sense of the survival of the individual. I have a sense that the same can be said of ethics - not only in the role that values play, but also in the identification of life itself as the root value, from which all other values are derived.

Third, and this is admittedly an indirect extrapolation, that the motivation of an individual to serve his own interests is entirely a matter of psychology that has little importance or interest to ethics. Said another way, ethics takes it for granted that an individual will act in his own interests, to serve his own needs, and that this is of no consequence to ethics. Instead, ethics focuses on the consequences of an action to others, and one of the chief ethical dilemmas is in considering when the harm done to others is justified by the benefit to self.

Each of these three aspects merit further consideration.

Maslow's Hierarchy

I've been stewing over the previous post and have found it difficult to proceed further along the topic without more detailed consideration of needs, desires, and interests. Unable to define them from a purely philosophical perspective, I defer to psychology.

It merits mention that philosophy and psychology are closely inter-related, such that one often intrudes on the other, and generally, the consequences are less than optimal (a psychologist's take on philosophy, and vice-versa, tend to be sloppy and inaccurate), and so it's important to state that my intent here is not to redefine psychology, but borrow upon it until a purely philosophical answer can be found.

Even so, it cannot be borrowed without some modification. Primarily, Maslow's theory is considered to be a hierarchy of needs, and I find that the distinction of "need" from "desire" is hazy at best, and moreover, it is of no consequence to ethics. And so, my intent is to translate Maslow's hierarchy of needs into a hierarchy of interests, and set aside the classification of an interest as a need or a desire.

Maslow's theory was that there are a broad array of human needs that can be depicted as a hierarchy, such that the lowest level of need is of primary interest to the individual, and that it is generally the case that the individual will be inclined to fill his lowest level of need before seeking to fulfill needs on a higher level.

This would translate to the subject of ethics as the motivation to serve an interest (or "satisfy a need"), and to prioritize certain interests over others (addressing basic needs before seeking to fulfill higher ones).

The lowest level of the hierarchy, hence the highest level of priority to motivation, are "physiological" needs, which arise from the immediate necessity of sustaining life: the need to eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and react to medical emergencies that pose immediate threat to life and well-being. The needs at this level can be further prioritized by their immediacy: the need to breathe being more pressing than the need to eat.

At the next level are the needs that Maslow considered to be essential to safety and security. These are still based on physiological needs, but seek to fulfill future needs rather than immediate ones: the need to avoid injury or treat medical conditions that are not an immediate threat, the need to establish stores of food and water for future consumption, etc.

The next level are social needs, which are also derived from physiological needs, but in the context of other people. Specifically, the individual is motivated to enter into relationships with others that will help him to fulfill his future needs more efficiently: family, neighbors, community, employer, etc. It is at this level that the motivation begins to become blurred, as psychology insists that an individual has a "need" to belong to social units that is not directly related to his ability to fulfill his physiological needs.

The next level of needs pertain to esteem, which is a purely psychological consideration. This deals with the emotional fulfillment of the individual: self-esteem, the respect of others, confidence in his abilities, and a sense of achievement.

The highest level of needs pertain to self-actualization: the development of abilities that did not previously exist, and are not directly related to physiological needs. Though it seems to me that this is related to esteem (a person gains abilities to increase the same factors, respect, confidence, sense of achievement), I may be overlooking the reason for differentiating them.

From a perspective of ethics, the first three levels of Maslow's hierarchy are acceptable in their objectivity. I do not think it could be argued that these "needs" represent genuine and objectively valid motivations.

However, the purely psychological elements of the highest two levels (and the psychological rather than physiological element of the third) are more difficult to accept as a basis for objective evaluation. I don't dispute that humans are motivated by such things, but find it difficult to include them in objective assessment of interests as they are tautologies (a person desires to belong to a group simply because they desire to belong to a group).

Borrowing upon Maslow's hierarchy, I will accept for the time being that there are four "levels" of interest, in order of highest to lowest priority:

1. Interests that are served in order to satisfy immediate physiological needs
2. Interests that are served in order to directly impact the ability to meet future physiological needs
3. Interests that are served in order to directly impact the ability to meet future physiological needs by means of others
4. Interests that are served for reasons unrelated to physiological needs

I have a sense that this will hold up under a liberal amount of scrutiny, and will suffice for the evaluation of ethics in most situations.

Motivation and Benefit

Previous consideration of action has implied, but may not have directly stated, that actions are undertaken out of a desire to effect a change in conditions. It also seems reasonable to assert that this desire is to effect a change that will result in an improvement of benefit to a certain party.

While this does not discount the possibility that the motivation might be to have a negative or detrimental effect, my sense is that this is seldom (if ever) the motivation of a rational individual - rather, that the negative consequences of an action are side effects rather than the primary motivation.

The benefit to a certain party is also of significance: it is unlikely that there exists an outcome that is universally positive. At best, it will have a positive effect for some, and no appreciable effect upon others. In some instances, generating a positive effect for some may be damaging to others.

This merits consideration, but is beyond the scope of the present consideration: that in assessing ethics, we must account for the complete scope of consequences for all parties that are affected, but the motivation to undertake an action is specific to the interests of a given party.

Germane to the present consideration: what constitutes a benefit? Chiefly benefits are consider in the positive effect on the party under consideration, but a decision may also be motivated by the desire to avoid negative effects. This seems an important distinction, but the effect on motivation are fundamentally the same: whether it is to achieve something "new" or perpetuate the status quo, it is still a benefit.

There also seems to be some distinction between need and desire, though this often falls along the same lines, with a "need" being defined as a motivation to perpetuate the status quo and a "desire" being defined as a motivation to effect a beneficial change to the status quo. Again, there appears to be little difference to motivation.

There also seems to be the sense that a "need" is more pressing than a "desire," and therefore to be automatically granted a higher degree of importance as a motivational factor. My sense is that this is a matter of psychology rather than philosophy - and while it may merit consideration, the two still remain equivalent in the consideration of ethics.

It's also worth noting that benefit and detriment remain subjective concepts - though my sense is that it should be fairly straightforward to classify a specific outcome as good or bad, and that people will generally be in agreement, this remains entirely subjective and shallow in its consideration.

In the end, it seems this meditation has yielded more questions than answers.

Activities of an Organization

Another hypothesis that bears consideration (see original post) is that an organization does not make any decision to act, nor undertake any action as an organization. The same can be said of business: the business itself does not decide or act. Decisions and actions of the individuals who compose the business decide or to act, and not all decisions or actions are made in interests of the business.

The interests that drive a decision, then, may be considered as a differentiating factor: if the intention of a decision to act is made with the intention of accomplishing a purpose that serves the interests of the business, rather than those of the individual making the decision, then the activities that precipitate from that decision can be considered to be "business activities."

However, that alone seems insufficient. There is some danger in assigning responsibility for an action to an individual or entity simply because they derive a benefit from that action. The example that comes to mind is in a charitable donation of funds that were gained by an unethical activity - are those that are benefited by the donation to be held accountable for the activities that generated the funds donated to them? This seems unreasonable, in that they had no part in making the decision of how the funds were generated.

It seems to me that authorization is also a factor, and is likely more important a factor than the receipt of benefits. If a charitable institution engaged in unethical activities to raise funds to support its operations, then it is to be held responsible for the decision to undertake those activities. It might also be suggested that if the institution encouraged others to undertake those actions for its benefit, it is to some degree responsible for providing that motivation.

But this runs afoul of the premise: that the institution does not decide or act, but certain individuals within the organization have made the decision to decide or act. And while the decision was made in the context of the institution, and for the benefit of the institution, the responsibility for the decision rests with an individual.

And the argument at this point comes full circle, because the individual who made the decision to participate in or encourage others to undertake an unethical action was motivated to do so to his desire to achieve some benefit for the institution.

I don't think that this has been fully explored, but it seem to be pointed toward the conclusion that the actions undertaken to achieve a certain goal can be said to be related from, or even to originate directly from, that goal. Hence any decision made to benefit a business precipitates actions that can be called "business activities."

This seems a matter of classification that may have no direct bearing on ethical responsibility: the decision-maker rather than the benefactor is responsible for the ethics of a decision, though it may be said that it is for the sake of the benefactor that the decision was made.