My purpose here is to set down an ethical framework: a terse list of general policies that summarize an ethical lifestyle. These are my policies; they grow out of my life experience and reading. I lay out some of the thinking behind them.
You are welcome to read them for amusement, and if you like, to copy the policies and adopt them as your own, or modify them. Or design your own set; it's an enjoyable exercise.
Of course a complete ethical system, completely thought out, would be an immense work. In fact, it would be a life's work, and each of us is engaged in the lifelong task of crafting a personal ethical statement. A short list of policies can never remove the need for judgment or the need to agonize over some decisions.
When a short list of ethical policies is well-designed and terse enough to memorize easily, it can serve two purposes: personal guidance and teaching.
You can use your short list as a touchstone to provide immediate guidance when you are forced to make a choice under pressure.
When you have time to consider your actions, you will probably make an ethical decision. But when you are under the stress of the moment, or under peer pressure to conform, it is easy to take the most expedient choice, or the path of least energy or lowest cost, or what appears to be the safest choice, or the choice that will let you blend into the crowd.
Sometimes the ethical choice is not the easiest, cheapest, safest, or least obtrusive. If you have time to nerve yourself up to "do the right thing," you can do it. But if you had that much time, you very likely would have avoided the whole awkward situation in the first place!
So there you are, presented with a sudden temptation or expected by a group to go along with something dubious, and there isn't time to debate, you have to act. That is when it is of some help to be able to recall a policy that you have affirmed and memorized.
The great thing about the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the Beatitudes is that they are easy to learn and easy to teach to children. Isn't it a good idea to equip a child with a memorized list of do's and don'ts? Based on my observation, most parents default instead to an endless list of situational rules: "Don't hit your sister. No, don't hit your brother, either. Don't hit anybody. No, you can't kick anybody, either." That sort of thing just invites the little sea-lawyer to say "I didn't hit or kick him, I pinched him!"
Religious training for some children exposes them to the Ten Commandments and perhaps the Golden Rule, and a few years later in a Catholic household, the Chatechism. These offer more general guidelines but not a compact ethical reference that you could put, for example, on a pocket reference card.
To serve either purpose, it is crucial that a list be terse and memorable, written in short, colorful words using simple grammar. However, the words must be chosen well to make each policy widely applicable and yet not stupidly restrictive. Here they are in summary form, suitable to be written on a billboard on the outfield fence:
| 1 | Harm nothing | I will not cause physical harm to another living thing except to defend myself or another from attack. |
| 2 | Cause no needless pain | I will never inflict physical or emotional pain on another living thing without an ethical reason. |
| 3 | Tell the truth | I will tell the entire truth whenever another person might use my words as the basis for action. |
| 4 | Don't steal | I will take no thing except in fair exchange or as a knowing gift. I will take no credit I have not earned. |
| 5 | Keep promises | When I make a promise I will keep it at any cost to myself, unless voluntarily relieved by the promisee. |
| 6 | Maintain yourself | I will act as a good steward of my own body, protecting it from known hazards and not exposing it to needless risk. |
| 7 | Spoil nothing | I will not needlessly damage, destroy, or render useless any animate or inanimate thing. |
| 8 | Care for your own | I will care for whatever I own or am entrusted with, keeping living things in good health and nonliving things in good order. |
| 9 | Consume little | I will take no more of anything than I can use well or truly enjoy. |
| 10 | Seek the best | I will make as much of myself and my opportunities as I can, and I will try to help others make as much of themselves as they can. |
| 11 | Accept responsibility | When I fail to live up to one of these policies, I will acknowledge my responsibility and make as much restitution as is possible. |
These policies are a hierarchy: the earlier ones are more important than the later ones. So if a conflict arises, the policy with the smaller number takes precedence.
I will not cause physical harm to another living thing except to defend myself or another from attack.
This is the first rule of an ethical life and overrides all the others. It incorporates "Thou shalt not murder" and goes beyond it to cover assault, torture, and all other deliberate harming, of people or animals. As I read it, it also includes an intention to not harm anyone by accident.
Compare this rule to the Ten Commandments: they say only not to murder, by implication permitting battery, torture, and accidental harm to people, and any kind of harm to animals. This rule promises not to do physical harm of any kind.
The Buddhist Five Precepts begin with "do not kill," and do not allow for any exceptions, even self-defense. A Buddhist does not use violence in self-defense. I disagree; as a philosophical rule I think society is safer as a whole when any person is at least potentially capable of unrestrained acts of self-defense. However, in your own ethical framework you might want to drop the "except..." clause entirely, and face the world with a commitment to being a harmless person.
The exception for defense of another person is important; it means you can react unthinkingly and violently if, for instance, you go to the defense of someone being mugged. However, this takes a step even further from the Buddhist ideal.
When both exceptions are included, it is still up to you whether those exceptions let you take part in military service, and to fight in a "just" war. It is also up to you whether you want to extend it to killing of animals done by others to provide you with food, and so become a vegetarian.
I will never inflict physical or emotional pain on another living thing without an ethical reason.
I make this a separate policy from the first, on physical harm, for several reasons. There are many ways of causing pain without doing physical harm, and plenty of unethical reasons for doing so. But a blanket policy against causing pain is not practical; there are times when causing pain is necessary, even unavoidable. That is not true of physical harm. I include emotional pain because the same impulse that would make one person swing a fist, makes another say something hurtful.
This policy covers such extremes as organized hazing and stalking, but it has wide application in daily life. For example, it covers the case of deliberately frustrating someone out of malice, as when a clerk deliberately ignores a customer, or insulting someone out of anger, as when you swerve around a slow driver on the freeway.
The "ethical reason" limitation permits you to cause pain in, for example: medical procedures; chastizing or frustrating a child; playing a contact sport; leaving a relationship; having to fire or demote someone at work.
I will tell the entire truth whenever another person might use my words as the basis for action.
This policy mandates "full disclosure" in any economic transaction. And it disallows misrepresenting oneself for social advantage, or to an employer. The word "entire" blocks selective truth-telling.
Compared to the Biblical "false witness," this policy goes much further. However, it is not as complete as the Buddhist precept "do not lie." I put in the exception "whenever..." in order to allow waffling in some social settings. If no one will act on the basis of what you say, what does it matter?
Placing this after policies 1 and 2 means I think it is ethical to lie in order to avoid hurting someone, or to defend someone from harm.
I will take no thing except in fair exchange or as a knowing gift. I will take no credit I have not earned.
Maybe this is a little more wordy than "thou shalt not steal," but it's also more explicit. It is so easy to work up a grudge and say "It isn't stealing, they owe it to me." That's the reason for the explicit "fair exchange" clause (which is also my nod of respect to the Libertarians and Objectivists in the crowd).
When I make a promise I will keep it at any cost to myself, unless voluntarily relieved by the promisee.
This policy aims to make promises and commitments very serious things, not to be made lightly. The exception for voluntary relief encourages one to go to the promisee and explain the problem, rather than just running away.
To me, all types of commitments come under the heading of "promise." That includes social commitments like marriage, and economic ones like the contract between me and my employer. So this policy covers a lot of life, from marital fidelity to being a good parent (the implied promise to a child to foster it well) to being punctual at work, and even to keeping an appointment with the hairdresser.
This rule comes after not harming, telling the truth, and not stealing. In other words, I don't agree to keep a promise by stealing, lying, or by causing pain or injury. This answers one of the classical debates of ethics, one articulated by Socrates: do you keep a promise to a friend when that would lead to violence? In the Socratic dialogue the issue was whether you should return your friend's sword when he wants it to kill someone. In modern terms, it's whether to keep a promise to return the car keys, when the friend who demands them is drunk. My answer, controlled by the priority numbers, is that you can break a promise when keeping it would violate one of the higher policies.
I will act as a good steward of my own body, protecting it from known hazards and not exposing it to needless risk.
This policy includes the religious rule against suicide (which is not one of the Ten Commandments, by the way) but goes far beyond, to deny all types of self-destructive behavior. It clearly implies not smoking, not drinking to excess, and so on. But you can interpret it as demanding you, as "steward" of yourself, to eat right and to exercise ó since not doing those things on a regular basis creates well-known risks.
Limiting to "needless risk" allows for judgement calls on the hazards of sports, and on occupational hazards.
The rank of this policy means that I think it might be ethical to put yourself at risk in order to avoid harming anyone, lying, or stealing. The rank also means I think it can be ethical to make a promise whose fulfillment entails self-injury. Promises are dangerous things! But consider the implicit promise of caring for one's children: it has to be ethical to risk your life to save your child's.
I will not needlessly damage, destroy, or render useless any animate or inanimate thing.
This policy is meant to cover all types of damage, whether willful or thoughtless, whether vandalism or only carelessness, whether of your own property, someone else's, or empty unclaimed desert.
You can extend the rule to say that when your society damages something ñ for example, cutting down old-growth forests or filling the air with greenhouse gases ñ you are responsible.
The exception "needless" permits you to tear down before building. It could cover the destruction you cause during what you feel is a "just" war.
I will care for whatever I own or am trusted with, keeping living things in good health and nonliving things in good order.
This, like the policy on self-maintenance, is a positive, active policy rather than a prohibition. I think it's important to find an ethics that is more than a list of "thou shalt not" rules.
Things in the scope of this policy are mundane: keeping your car maintained; watering your houseplants (a particular failing of mine); feeding your goldfish; cleaning your tools and putting them away; not abusing the rental car; keeping your home at least sanitary. Mundane or not, when it is one's conscious, affirmed policy to attend to these things, one's survival potential is definitely improved, along with self-esteem.
You could argue that one makes an implicit promise of good stewardship toward one's own goods and chattels, especially living things. In that sense this policy is only an elaboration of the policy on promises. However, that's a pretty subtle notion. It's worth making an explicit policy of the importance of responsibility and good husbandry.
I will take no more of anything than I can use well or truly enjoy.
This policy mandates conscious, thoughtful consumption of the world's resources. It is simply a rewording of the Stoic maxim "everything in moderation," or the Fifth Precept of Buddhism, "no intoxication." It is not a vow of poverty ñ I intend "use well" to permit stocking up against hard times and "truly enjoy" to allow splurges.
As with the policy on vandalism, you are free to take a wider point of view, and to think that when your community or your society overconsumes or wastes, the ethical failure is your own.
In any case, its position in the list means that I think the needs to protect myself, maintain my body, care for my goods, etc., come first. This policy just says, don't use any more than you have to.
I will make as much of myself and my opportunities as I can, and I will try to help others make as much of themselves as they can.
This is my attempt to add a proactive duty toward excellence or self-actualization, and a policy that looks in the direction of caritas, if not agape. It has to come here, nearly at the end, since the more stark responsibilities must have priority.
When I fail to live up to one of these policies, I will acknowledge my responsibility and make as much restitution as is possible.
This policy recognizes that failure is inevitable but not final. It makes "accept responsibility" a positive duty.
Sauce for the gander, eh? How does this framework stack up on the criteria that I applied to the other frameworks?
| Prescriptive | Yes; all prescriptive rules for behavior. |
| Authority | None whatever, other than personal affirmation. |
| Compact | Yes, easily written on a pocket reference card or billboard. |
| Coverage | Rather complete: few if any common sins unmentioned; and some proactive directions. |
| Back to "Looking for an Ethical Touchstone." | Send a comment to the author |