The Futility of Grand Principles 35
dream, first conceived in Europe three centuries ago, of relying
on reason to comprehend both human nature and the physical
world.
In the sphere of ethics, the goal was also extremely ambitious.
Philosophers sought to find an overarching, rational justification for
morality—a set of basic principles that were independent of religion,
tradition, culture, or individual beliefs. Some philosophers have de-
scribed this endeavor as the quest to replace the biased, subjective,
all-too-human approach to ethical issues with a transcendent, ‘‘God’s-
eye’’ perspective.
12
If these philosophers had succeeded, the results would have been
extraordinary. Once discovered, the fundamental ethical principle
could serve as a morality machine. It could, in effect, be placed at
the end of a conveyor belt, and people could feed their ethical
problems into it. After a period of clanking and chugging, the ma-
chine would apply the fundamental principle to the problems and
then give answers. For example, the fundamental ethical principle
could help someone like Steve Lewis rank the various ‘‘right’’ things
he felt obliged to do, and then he could learn whether he should
go to the St. Louis presentation. Peter Adario could learn what to
do about Lisa Walters and Kathryn McNeil. And Edouard Sakiz
could learn the most responsible way to introduce RU 486.
The notion of a morality machine is, of course, a caricature. Few
philosophers have believed that their principles should be applied
to problems in rigid, mechanical ways. None claimed to have a
universal tool for the problems of life. Yet the image of an ethics
machine captures a basic feature of this approach to practical ethical
issues: its goal of finding a universal, objective principle for resolving
hard ethical problems.
The Enlightenment project failed to achieve this goal. What
it produced, instead, were several different theories of ethics.
Each claimed to be objective and universal—and each, in funda-
mental ways, contradicted the others. MacIntyre describes the
dismaying consequences in these words: ‘‘The most striking feature
of contemporary moral utterance is that so much of it is used
to express disagreements; and the most striking feature of the
debates in which these disagreements are expressed is their intermi-
nable character.’’
13
As a result, forays into the academic realm of
36 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
competing ethical theories will provide little guidance to managers
with right-versus-right dilemmas.
Consider one of the favorite puzzles of contemporary moral
philosophers. Pedro walks into a village and finds Jim holding 20
people hostage. Jim says he will kill them all unless Pedro takes a
gun and kills one of the hostages. All of the hostages are innocent
people. What should Pedro do?
The basic principle of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian ethics is, in
rough terms, to do whatever brings about the greatest good for the
greatest number. This is the ethics of consequences. It points Pedro
in the direction of killing 1 hostage; if he does so, 20 people will
live.
The basic principle of Kant’s deontological ethics—which,
roughly speaking, demands that people do their moral duty—tells
Pedro that his duty is to respect the right to life of an innocent
person. The ethics of duty prohibits him from killing the single
hostage. But then Jim will slaughter 20 innocent people.
In short, two of the most important grand principles of moral
philosophy give contradictory answers to Pedro’s urgent practical
problem. True, they clarify the problems by cutting to the quick
and revealing the basic ethical trade-off. But, at the same time,
they intensify the problem, thereby tightening a Gordian knot by
providing powerful, conflicting definitions of what is right. This
problem is hardly confined to contrived cases like that of Jim and
Pedro. In many right-versus-right dilemmas, the morality of conse-
quences clashes with the morality of rights and duties. Perhaps the
most momentous of these arose when President Harry S Truman
decided to wage a nuclear war against Japan. In terms of conse-
quences, the use of nuclear weapons may have ended the war more
quickly, thereby saving the hundreds of thousands of Americans and
Japanese who would have perished in a land invasion of Japan. At
the same time, the bombs incinerated thousands of innocent infants
and children, and scarred others for life. The ethics of consequences
seems to justify Truman’s decision. The violation of the rights of
the innocent condemns it.
Philosophers are still at work on ethical theory. Some have
adapted the insights of Mill and Kant and created new versions of
The Futility of Grand Principles 37
their theories; others offer new principles for ethical decisions. Each
school of philosophy believes it has knock-down arguments against
its adversaries, but none has vanquished the others. The debates are
quite complex and elicit brilliant intellectual fireworks, but they cast
dim light on practical problems.*
Steve Lewis, for example, was trying to assess the ethical issues
involved in going to St. Louis or avoiding the trip. Each alternative
had different consequences for himself, his client, his firm, and
for other African Americans who would follow after him. But he
understood this. He also had to balance his own rights as a human
being, as a member of a minority group, and as an employee against
the rights of his firm and its clients. But Lewis also knew this. And,
if fundamental principles contribute little to a ‘‘simple’’ right-versus-
right issue like Lewis’s, someone in a complex predicament, like
Edouard Sakiz, should not expect much help from them.
The futility of these grand principles for right-versus-right prob-
lems will shock few thoughtful managers. They understand that
fundamental values and responsibilities collide in some situations.
They know that the solution to these problems is more than a matter
of calling the local university and hiring a Kantian as a consultant.
14
Managers sense, quite correctly, that what philosophers have failed
to resolve in theory they must somehow resolve in practice.
* Perhaps these thinkers are really playing their own fascinating, complex game—
not the equivalent of Monopoly, but a form of deep play comparable to high-
level chess. In fact, philosophers often refer to their arguments as ‘‘moves.’’ More-
over, many arguments and counterarguments in specialized areas of professional
ethics have become so familiar and stylized that someone will eventually codify
them using chess notation. For example, P-K4: Market preferences have strong
moral weight because they reflect the preferences of participants in markets.
P-K4: But markets are often imperfect. N-KB3: Citizens can use the political
process to regulate markets and deal with market failures; thus regulated markets
have strong moral weight. N-QB3: But some market participants, like large corpora-
tions, have unfair influence on regulations, so markets remain distorted. A less-
flattering view of these efforts has been proposed by a fellow philosopher, Richard
Rorty, who has condemned ‘‘the neurotic quest for certainty’’ that underlies, in
his view, a good deal of philosophical writing.
38 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
E
THICS AS AN
E
LECTRIFIED
F
ENCE
Perhaps practical people should simply forget about the grand princi-
ples. Mission statements can be left to the staff at headquarters,
which will give them something to do. Economists and lawyers can
wrangle over fiduciary duties, and philosophers can pursue the ethical
superprinciple. Meanwhile, everyone else can get down to real work.
This strategy would be a serious mistake, for the grand principles
serve vital purposes. First, they can clarify fundamental issues at
stake in a practical problem. Mission statements and credos can
remind managers of the larger purposes their work serves, something
easily lost in the hurly-burly of everyday life. Moreover, the question
of which stakeholders matter the most is critical to many manage-
ment decisions.
Second, the grand philosophical principles are essential for under-
standing the difference between right and wrong, between good
and evil. They serve, in effect, as an electrified fence that separates
a sphere of right actions from a surrounding territory of wrong ones.
In this way, the basic principles of philosophy undergird the laws,
rules, and social practices that make civilized life possible. The grand
principles enable Steve Lewis to understand when his rights are
being violated and to take action when this is the case. Without
the grand principles, and without the institutions that translate them
into practice, life would degenerate into what the political philoso-
pher Thomas Hobbes called ‘‘the war of all against all.’’
Unfortunately, however, within the boundaries defined and de-
fended by the grand principles, one right action sometimes conflicts
with another. In these cases, the principles are too general, and they
are sometimes contradictory. In addition, managers must make their
decisions from the ground up, not downward from a realm of theory.
Hence, mission statements, legal standards, and the universal ethical
principles often fail people who must make right-versus-right choices
that will shape others’ lives and their own as well.
The tale of an Eastern sage and his young disciple illustrates the
problem. The young man asked, ‘‘O Wise Man, what holds up the
earth?’’ The sage responded, ‘‘The answer, my son, is a very strong
man.’’ After some thought, the young man asked, ‘‘What holds up
the strong man?’’ The sage responded, ‘‘A large stone, my son.’’ After
The Futility of Grand Principles 39
further reflection, the young man returned and asked what held up
the stone. The sage, growing impatient, said, ‘‘A turtle, my son.’’
When the young man persisted and asked, ‘‘What supports the
turtle?’’ the Wise Man snapped, ‘‘Look, kid, from there on it’s turtles
all the way down.’’
W
ARM AND
B
REATHING
T
RUTHS
Grand principles have another serious shortcoming: they are cold and
impersonal. People seeking what the American philosopher Charles
Peirce called ‘‘a warm and breathing truth,’’ a belief that will animate
and shape their lives, are naturally disappointed by these carefully
crafted, but austere abstractions. Right-versus-right decisions are
often choices about life, not opportunities for technical analysis.
Put yourself in the following situation. You are standing in front
of a burning building. You realize that you can run to one part of
the building and save a single child, or you can run to another part
and save three children. In neither case is there any risk to you. But
there is no way to save everyone. You must choose between saving
three children and saving one.
At this point, certain grand principles are marginally useful. If
you actually need reasons to act—rather than do nothing and watch
all the children die—the principles will provide them. The greatest
good for the greatest number is saving three children rather than
one. So the right thing is clear. You begin running toward the three
children. But you glance once more at the child standing alone and
realize that she is your daughter. What choice do you make now?
The grand principles have now become confusing. Three lives
still count more than one. Like your child, the three have a right
to life, and you have a duty to save them.* But you also have a basic
duty as a parent to protect your child from danger. In addition
* This is a highly simplified account of the philosophical analysis of this situation.
In fact, this type of problem has been debated for centuries and interpreted in a
multitude of ways, depending on which interpretation from which school of ethical
theory is brought to bear.
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