Goodwill versus Manipulation

It has been reasoned that when a person undertakes a unilateral action for the benefit of another party, he seeks to increase his goodwill in the context of a relationship, or his esteem outside the context of a relationship, thereby making others more inclined to regard him as a "good" person and less resistant to the notion of entering into a relationship that benefits his interests. But does this mean that the notions of goodwill and esteem are wrong or evil, or that a person who seeks to establish a positive reputation has sinister motives for doing so?

Not necessarily.

The notion of "society" is a complex web of connections and relationships among individuals who become, to some degree, dependent on one another. The notion that ethics is important at all derives from the function of ethics in guiding human interaction in the context of society. In this sense, establishing a positive reputation is a means toward facilitating the entry into relationships, is a means toward establishing relationships, is a means toward participating in relationships, is a means toward establishing and preserving society itself. It is therefore socially beneficial for an individual to pursue the self-interested objective of seeking to gain esteem and thereby improve his reputation.

However, a line is drawn between a genuine interest in improving one's esteem and performing an action that is used to obligate others to act in one's own benefit in a direct and specific way. The former is regarded as goodwill, the latter as manipulation.

It is noted that a relationship is based in mutual obligation, and mutual consent. A manipulative individual seeks to convince another person that they are in a relationship, even though the other party has not consented to participate, nor have they been in a position to negotiate the terms of that relationship, or of the exchange. It is most common, in instances of manipulation, for the manipulator to perform some trivial act at minimal cost to himself and demand, in return, that another party undertake considerable effort to repay the favor.

In the strictest sense of ethics, an individual is not responsible for fulfilling any unspoken expectation of others, but is held responsible for acting upon the communicated expectations of others in the context of a consensual relationship or mutual obligation. And so, when a person is the subject of manipulation, they are within their right to ignore the insistence of the other party that an obligation that was previously unspoken must be fulfilled due to the unsolicited action they have taken.

However, the act of presenting a demand for compensation is ethically separate from the action performed for the benefit of others. The original act that was done for the benefit of other parties is not inherently unethical, even if it is done with the specific motivation of benefiting one's own reputation or esteem, as it is taken for granted that an individual is expected to act in their own interests, and they are entitled to do so. But when that action is used as a rationale or justification for demanding that another party enter into a relationship, as a means of negating the voluntary consent, this demand (but not the original action) is unethical.

As such, an action undertaken to generate goodwill cannot be categorized as unethical - it may be considered ethical, or at worse, it can be considered to be ethically neutral.

Nature of Relationships

There are many kinds of relationships, each of which has its own nature. Even relationships of the same general kind may entail different responsibilities in different instances. So deriving general principles of ethics that apply to all relationships between all parties is complex and any conclusion would be wrought with inaccuracies. However, there seem to be some basic principles:

Primarily, relationships entail a sequence of transactions between two parties, as previously considered. In some instances, the serial transactions and the recurring obligations that arise are the only basis for the relationship, and the only responsibility of one party to another.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a relationship may be based on a general notion that does not yield a definite and specific course of action: parties may enter into a relationship in which each is expected to act in the interests of the other, without a clear indication of what actions may be necessary in future, or which interests they are expected to serve, or what situations may arise, etc.

The more the two parties communicate their expectations, the clearer the course of action that each party must undertake to preserve the relationship. The notion that one party should understand, without communication, the expectations of the other, is the source of much debate and strife - though from an ethical perspective, a party is held responsible only for fulfilling those expectations of which he is aware. This is derived from the nature of a single transaction.

It's worth noting that a given culture may attempt to define the nature of certain relationships - that in a given country, religion, or group of people, a term such as "marriage" defines the terms of a relationship - but even this is mutable. Not all cultures define "marriage" in the same way, nor does every individual within a culture have the same understanding of the concept. It seems to me that deference to a cultural definition is not an acceptable substitute for communication, and that in entering into a relationship, the two parties bear the responsibility of negotiation of the terms their specific relationship, even if they are of the same culture.

There also seems to be, in the context of relationships, an expectation of gratuitous action - that is, that one party will act in the interests of the other while expecting nothing specific in return. My sense is that this is not a condition of the relationship, and can happen outside a relationship, and that the nature of this action is not affected by the existence of a relationship, so the notion of gratuitous action merits separate consideration.

Also similar to transactions, relationships are established by mutual consent. In some instances, it may be argued that a person is forced or compelled to participate in a relationship (for example, relationships of proximity are largely involuntary), though it would seem that the nature of involuntary relationships merits separate consideration from the voluntary relationship, which is more common.

Relationships are also maintained by mutual consent. If, at any time during the relationship, one party wishes to discontinue the relationship, then the relationship is ended. In some instances, there may be a sense of lingering obligations to another party to complete certain transactions in recompense for the other party's past action, but "breaking" the relationship otherwise liberates both parties from the obligation to future actions or any further involvement with one another.

Given this consideration, a basic definition of a "relationship" is derived as a set of terms by which two parties obligate themselves to act in one another's interest. This still strikes me as vague - but given that a relationship is a concept that may manifest itself in an infinite number of ways, the notion is inherently vague.

One-Time Commercial Transactions

In the consideration of business relationships, it seems to me that I left several loose threads in regards to isolated transactions. While it is reasonable that there are expectations in an ongoing relationship, and that violations of these expectations are violations of trust by virtue of their being grounded in experience, it is not clear whether these same ethical standards apply to a one-time (or first-time) commercial transaction.

Primarily, the nature of most transactions is voluntary. It may be argued that a person is "forced" to enter into a transaction against their will, but my expectation is that this is highly unusual, and the logic behind such an assertion highly dubious. In the context of business, both buyer and seller enter into the transaction voluntarily and may opt-out prior to obligating themselves to the transaction.

The obligation arises in the promise to perform an action in exchange for the promise of another party to perform an action in return. Before promises are exchanged, no obligation exists. It can even be argued that there is a period after the exchange of promises, but before either party has acted, in which the transaction can be voided - though this merits consideration.

The motivation of entering into a transaction is to obtain something of value. The fact that obtaining this objective requires the actor to provide something of value in return is a necessary condition of the transaction - the value each party receives from the other is their motive for undertaking an action at all.

The primary source of ethical consideration in transactions occurs when one party fails to deliver on its promise to the other party after the point at which they become obligated by the promise or initiation of action inherent in the transaction. A seller who accepts payment and does not deliver goods has acted unethically, as they have obtained the payment based on a false promise. A buyer who accepts goods and does not deliver valid payment has likewise failed to deliver on their ethical obligation.

The notion of failure to deliver an agreed-upon value when the value provided is a currency payment is relatively straightforward - though there is one wrinkle in the case of methods of payment whose value is received at a later time (the payer may tender counterfeit currency, a bad check, a fraudulent payment card, etc.) So long as the payment is accepted by another party (generally, a bank into which it is deposited), it can be said to be validated, and the obligation fulfilled unless it is later discovered to be fraudulent.

The notion of failure to deliver an agreed-upon value when the value provided is a material good or service is less straightforward. This is generally experienced from the buyer's role, in which an item received either does not have the qualities they expected, or does not deliver the ultimate value they expected (in that a good is used as a resource in later actions).

The ethical responsibility of the capability of an item to deliver the expected value is not entirely borne by the individual who provided the item, nor by the individual who accepted it, but is subject to the communication that occurs between them prior to entering into the transaction agreement.

It reasonable to hold the provider of the item responsible for the items failure to deliver any value that was communicated to the recipient in an unsolicited manner. If the provider indicates "this is a gold ring" and it later turns out to be brass, he has deceived the recipient into providing greater value than would have been given if the true nature of the item were known.

It is likewise reasonable to hold the provided responsible for providing complete and valid information in instances where expectations are communicated. If the recipient asks if the brass ring is gold and the provider says "yes," he has likewise provide false information. Even if he claims not to be aware, when he knows the ring to be made of brass, he has misled the recipient.

However, it is not reasonable to expect the provider of an item to know the interests or desires of the recipient that are not communicated to him, as he has no sense of the recipients beliefs about the quality of the item, nor any knowledge of the use to which the recipient intends to put the item, until it is communicated to him by the recipient.

In this sense, the recipient bears responsibility for initiating communication related to the item he will receive. There is no ethical transgression on the part of the provider for failure to provide information that has not been requested by the recipient - and the suggestion that the provider "should have known" what the recipient might have wanted to know bears little validity in the majority of instances.

The exception to this would be in the instance of a repeated transaction. In such instances, the provider of the item can reasonably be expected to understand, even without explicit communication, that the recipient expects the item to have the same qualities as a functionally identical item that was previously received from the same provider.

As a final note, it is worth mentioning that the notion of "caveat emptor" has largely been inverted in the competitive marketplace. The sellers of items often guarantee satisfaction while being unaware of the buyer's expectations, and refund purchases without arguing the reasons. This can be attributed to the seller's interest in retaining the buyer's business (outside the immediate transaction) or avoiding damage to their own reputation, which is a matter that bears separate consideration. However, the motivation of the seller to assume this responsibility is external to the immedaite transaction.

Trust and Business Relationships

It's been considered that the notion of a relationship between two parties adds complexity to their interactions, and that in its most basic sense, a relationship arises from a series of interactions (11/28) that create individual periods of obligation that overlap, giving the sense of an ongoing commitment between two parties. However, the notion that a relationship is something "more" than a series of transactions is not uncommon.

I'd like to explore this notion further, though at the same time to isolate it from the broader sense of relationships. The "relationship" between members of a community is of interest to ethics in a political sense, but is largely out of scope in the context of business (except in the relationship between business and community), and domestic and social relationships also seem to be beyond the scope of business ethics.

It's also my sense that any party who interacts with another party in the context of business could be said to have a relationship (stockholder, employee, executive, competitor, etc.), and these may merit separate consideration. For the present, I'll focus on the ongoing relationship between vendor and customer.

Not all commercial transactions take place in the context of a relationship. There is the notion of the one-time sale, in which the obligation of the buyer and seller end at a specific time, and the lack of a repeat purchase leaves both parties with the impression that they are "done" with the other.

Granted, there are various stipulations and expectations inherent in such a transaction, which may vary according to the nature of the good or service that is purchased, and there are instances in which a buyer may be dissatisfied with the transaction and seek redress. But provided that all goes well and both parties are satisfied, the transaction is completed.

One of the chief indicators of transactional satisfaction is the willingness of the buyer to repurchase from the same supplier (and conversely, the willingness of the seller to enter into a transaction with the buyer). While there may be some argument that satisfaction does not have to be complete in every way for this to occur, and that one or both parties may be accepting some compromises for the sake of convenience, it would be difficult to assert that parties who seek to repeat a transaction are significantly dissatisfied with their previous encounter.

The significant difference between an initial purchase and a rebuy transaction is that the latter implies a degree of trust. Each party assumes that the repeat transaction will be essentially the same as the one before, and has a reasonable expectation of the other party that the repurchase will be essentially the same as the initial purchase.

In this regard, it is reasonable to assert that the expectations of each party constitute an obligation on the part of the other party to undertake the responsibility to ensure the uniformity of the transaction to previous experience, or to provide information to the other party if it is foreseen that it will be different than before. To withhold or conceal information that would make the other party aware of a difference is a form of deception.

To some degree, the same can be said of the initial transaction, but the responsibility to provide information is not as compelling, as there is no previous experience between the parties. As they are unknown to one another, each assumes a certain level of risk in entering into a transaction, and should things go awry, there is no established trust to be violated. However, once this transaction is completed, it is reasonable for each party to assume future transactions will be measured against this standard.

It seems to me that this is what is meant by the notion of "trust" among parties who are in a relationship. In some situations, it may be arguable that trust creates additional obligations, but at the minimum, trust is based on consistency of transactions between two parties that routinely interact.

Duration of Obligation

With the exception of the imperative to do no harm, obligations are limited in their term. At some point, the obligation is fulfilled. In some instances, an obligation is fulfilled at the completion of an act; in others, it has greater longevity. Ultimately, it seems to reason that the duration of obligation is negotiable, but the duration varies greatly. The example of a commercial transaction is sued to illustrate this notion:

The obligation of the buyer is fulfilled upon receipt of payment. To split hairs, the obligation is not satisfied by merely tendering payment, as a buy who tenders payment in the form of a rubber check or counterfeit currency has not satisfied his obligation. In most instances, the payment is accepted and validated in a short amount of time, and the buyer's obligation is fulfilled.

The obligation of the seller, meanwhile, has greater longevity. In most instances, their obligation to the buyer is not fulfilled by delivering a physical good or performing a service, but persists for a reasonable amount of time afterward. Primarily, if the seller has misrepresented the nature of the good itself, this is fundamentally no different than a buyer who has presented counterfeit currency.

Beyond that, the seller remains obligated until the item has been consumed or a reasonable amount of time has passed, such that age or usage could reasonably be expected to devalue the item for its intended purpose. The qualification of "reasonable" indicates that there is some variance that I will not presently explore. There is also the notion that the seller must share responsibility for any harm that arises from the use of an item that he has provided to a buyer, but this is a separate matter from the sales transaction.

And so, in the context of a single transaction the obligations between buyer seller are limited in their duration. In a basic sense, the buyer's obligation terminates on receipt of payment, and the sellers obligation terminates on the consumption of the goods provided.

An ongoing relationship between buyer and seller can be seen in a basic sense as a chain of transactions, with the obligation of seller to buyer renewing on each purchase (though to be precise, each obligation is entirely separate, so it is not a renewal of the same obligation but the initiation of a separate obligation, similar to the previous one).

It is in this sense that obligations take on persistence: it is understood that the buyer will be inclined (of importance - "inclined" and not "required") to return to the same seller, and that the seller will be inclined to serve the same buyer, so long as each fulfills their obligations in the previous transaction. And given the experience of successful transactions, a level of trust will arise for mutual obligations to be fulfilled. And until such time as the trust remains, the relationship persists.

My sense is I've digressed to a separate topic (relationships) which merits further consideration on its own - but in the context of the duration of obligation, it's significant to note that an "ongoing" obligation arises through repeat transactions - it is not separate and independent of the individual transactions.

Source of Obligation

In the context of a transaction, two parties consent to take separate actions, each for the benefit of the other, and the expectation of gaining the benefit from the action of the other party becomes a motivation to perform the action that is expected of them by the other party. In this way, the actions are no longer independent of one another: one party would not be motivated to act for the benefit of the other were it not for the benefit they expected to receive in return.

One problem of this approach is in the focus on expectation. An individual is not obligated to undertake an action simply because it is expected by another – the obligation arises from a promise: an indication of intention that is presented to the other, with the intention that they would accept it as true and govern their own actions accordingly.

When conflict arises in the context of obligation, the blame is assigned to one of two parties. If the individual who presented the promise fails to act according to the terms of the promise, they are clearly in the wrong. If the individual who accepted the promise made assumptions about the terms of the promise (up to and including the notion that a promise had been communicated), the other party is not held accountable. Much argument arises from the conflict over what each party understood to be promised, and it merits consideration at a later time.

It’s also worth noting that there may be obligation that exists outside the context of a transaction: when one party indicates to another an intent to undertake an action without the necessity of the other party performing them any service in return, this is deemed to be a unilateral promise.

A unilateral promise is not enforceable as a contract. Because the actor received no obligation in return, the second party is not entitled to compensation for the failure of the actor to perform the action. However, if the second party undertook an action based on a unilateral promise, and suffered damage as a result, it can reasonably be argued that the action of the first party, in making the promise, caused harm to the second party, whose actions were based on expectations created by the first. This seems in the nature of deception or dishonestly rather than neglect of an obligation.

Considering the consequences of both bilateral and unilateral obligations, the common element seems to be an indication on the part of one party that is taken as earnest by the second, such that the future action of the second party is dependent on their expectation that the first party will act on the intentions they have communicated.

This seems to be around about way of suggesting that obligations arise from promises, regardless of whether any promise is made in return, and that the source of harm inherent in neglecting obligation arises from the actions that others may take on the belief that a promise is made in earnest.

Neglect versus Harm

In considering of the notion of "doing harm" to others, harm was considered only as a consequences of action. I have considered the possibility that harm could also be considered to arise from a person's neglect to act - and am led to the conclusion that this is not the equivalent of doing harm.

Primarily, an action is considered to be ethical or unethical by virtue of its consequences. When a person has not taken an action, no consequences have been effected, and there is no basis for the ethical evaluation of something that has no been done. Even so, there remains the argument that harm has been done by an individual's neglect.

This does not stand to reason: in a situation where an individual has neglected to undertake an action for the benefit of another party, harm is not caused. The other party was already in a situation where harm would come to them, and the neglect of another party to render assistance is not the cause of that harm, nor does their choice not to render assistance, in itself, cause the harm to be increased - the harm would befall the other party if the actor were entirely absent from the situation, and his mere presence does not obligate him to act.

This is not to say that neglect is acceptable in all situations: specifically, in the instance where there is a relationship between to individuals, it is generally (though not universally) understood that one of the conditions of a relationship is mutual assistance in time of need.

While this seems a reasonable conclusion, it rests upon a few notions that have not been explored as yet: the notion of a relationship (which has been considered previously 10/5 but in a superficial manner) and the notion that conditions of a relationship may be implicit.

The concept that a relationship exists between any two parties due to proximity is largely a concern of politics - which implies that otherwise unacquainted persons have an implicit relationship with one another as members of a of a given society or community (which are also abstract notions) - and that any member of a society is obligated, under certain circumstances, to provide assistance to other members of the society. But again, political arguments are beyond the scope of the topic of this blog.

While I cannot concede the obligation of one person to render aid to another, I can conceive that a party may feel entitled to grant assistance to others, and that this may in certain situations be entirely ethical. Provided he has sufficient understanding of the situation to be reasonably certain that the other party will come to harm, the decision to render aid is rational. And provided his actions do no harm, the action may be considered to be ethical.

However, this is a digression to another topic - whether it is ethical to undertake action for the benefit of others, which has previously been considered. The present question is whether it neglecting to act for the benefit of others can be considered the equivalent of doing harm - and I am reasonably confident in the conclusion that it cannot.

Doing Harm to Others

It has been concluded that an obligation that arises by virtue of the social environment is the obligation to refrain from acting in ways that do harm to others. The notion is that this is an obligation merits further consideration - but for the present, my intention is to focus on the concept of "doing harm."

The most plausible rationale for concluding that an action has done harm is in that it has ended the life of another person, as life has been defined as the primary value, from which all other values derive. This would seem to be axiomatic.

It would follow, then, that one could also conclude that harm has been done by any action that is derived from this fundamental value. To return to the hierarchy of needs, any action that places a person in immediate peril by preventing their ability to eat, drink, breathe, sleep, etc. can be concluded to do harm to that individual.

There is also some merit to the notion of there being degrees of harm: to injure a person is to do less harm than to injure him, to steal water that he is in immediate need of is to do less harm than to steal water he has secured to meet his future needs, to cause a neighbor to mistrust him is to do less harm than to subvert the trust of his spouse.

By strict and binary logic, to do harm at all is unethical, but the consideration of the degree of harm that has been done may be significant in some decisions. In particular, when an action would benefit one party and harm another, it may be reasoned that the benefit is "worth" the harm. I do not have the sense that the action can be considered ethical, since harm is done - but it stands to reason that certain decisions may involve choosing the least unethical course of action.

This brings to mind the assertion that it is impossible, under any circumstances, to take any action without causing harm to someone. I'm inclined to disagree - primarily because the notion is generally backed either by hypothetical situation involving conditions that are highly improbable, or contortions of logic that stretch and distort the concept of harm, or both.

The notion of harm becomes weaker at the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It seems less plausible to assert that one has "done harm" if an action causes a person to feel less self-esteem or obstructs an individual from becoming more "self-actualized." It seems to me that the attempt to place upon another person an obligation for preserving one's own sense of self-worth is a manipulative tactic, common to the passive-aggressive personality type. While there may be some merit to this notion, I am unable to presently conceive of an example of a situation in which it would apply.

I don't consider this topic to be "closed" - there are a few other considerations that come to mind, and I am not confident that this logic is complete or entirely accurate, though I expect that this will suffice for most purposes.

Nature of Obligation

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

1. 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.