How to “Not” Solve Euthyphro Dilemma

Well, many have tried. I cannot blame our friend in Here for doing so as well, though ultimately failing. Let’s see what’s given as the objection to the dilemma:

“The Euthyphro ‘dilemma’ is easily solvable in the context of the most basic understanding of orthodox Christianity when one realizes that moral goodness, commanded or un-commanded by God, is a reflection of His divine nature in humanity. Pursuing goodness, Christian or non-Christian, then becomes an existential condition as a result of God creating humanity “…in His image…”, His image being a reflection of His nature, one of perfect righteousness and thus perfect moral good.”

So many things wrong with this, one wonders where to start.

Firstly, ehm, I’m fairly sure there is no such thing as God so that “goodness” is his/her/its reflection. Wait, I can immediately hear religious people cry foul: That argument has no place here. Well it does, but since you insist, and since I can see a number of other things wrong with that “defence”, I’ll let it pass.

What next? Problem: “Your” god, assuming it exists, loves faxing down commandments left and right to his chosen prophets. “Kill gays”, “Beat women”, “Don’t eat shellfish”, etc etc. Are you telling me that these abhorrently stupid and immoral commandments are not to be followed? Obviously [hopefully!] we are aware that these are immoral. So, given that according to you we are reflecting his goodness, in “not” pursuing these we are reflecting “Your” god’s divine nature? So, somewho with a divine nature of goodness, commanded some rules that do not match his divine nature? Funny that.

Oh but wait, there is something even better, you didn’t solve the dilemma at all! As soon as you make that statement, someone is bound to immediately ask the following: So, basically, whatever your God’s nature is, goodness is? What if you God happens to be jealous (in Exodus for example)? What if he is Murderously Homophobic (Leviticus) or a Misogynist (I’d give Islam as an example here)?

Is it so, that you believe your God has all the attributes of being good, or, is it so that whatever attributes your God happens to have are attributes of goodness? If the latter is true, then goodness is arbitrary to your God’s nature. If the first is true, then those attributes are separate from your God’s nature, thus there is no relevance between them.

Also, another might ask a different question: Can your God alter his own nature? If not, then omnipotence goes down the drain, if yes, then morality goes… Oh wait, he already did alter his own nature between the old testament and the new one. Well, I guess nothing else left to say.

I suppose this is enough. For now…

Democratic Dictatorship: The Curious Case of the Town of Earthbridge

This is the newest essay on the final version of my recent book “In Pursuit of What is Right: The Progress of Moral Thinking (An Introduction)“. The book is available on Amazon.com, and hopefully is a help for students in college or high school who wish to know more about moral philosophy.

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The small town of Earthbridge was by no means a good place for living. It was a remote town, between the deserts of Sahra and the mountains of Kalimanjoor. The closest town to Earthbridge was at least seven days of hard riding through the desert, and people had to work hard for their livelihood. Even then most people had to live day by day with a small ration, through the hard years of labour.

Then one day, at the beginning of the harvest season, a man who called himself “The Wizard” came to town. He appeared suddenly from the desert, riding an old but still intact horse wagon. He set up shop on the main square, and claimed to have a solution for every problem that the good people of Earthbridge may have.

Curiosity made people gather around him, and each started shouting their desires and pains to the man. The Wizard raised his hands, and with the silence that followed he spoke: “Good people of Earthbridge! I can see now that you have many problems, and although I can make each go away, this may take a long time. Time which I do not have.” He paused and looked at the people around him, “Instead, I can make all your problems vanish with one sweeping motion of my wand. And in fact, not only that, but also I can make each of you much happier than you already are. I can make your crops grow each year without effort, and put you and your town on the path of becoming richer and richer every year.”

A smart man from the crowd shouted “But surely you will not do this for free! And you can see that we do not have much to give.”

 “Yes, I can see that” said the Wizard “But my price is not as high as you may think. I simply require a small sacrifice”. The crowd was suddenly silent. “A sacrifice from one of your own, one of your children”, continued the Wizard, “one child, no older than five years of age, must be put in the deepest well in town, and I will seal it with my magic. The child will not die, but he or she will suffer for each of the days she spends in that darkness. The magic will preserve her life, and as long as she suffers, you shall prosper.”

“Remember that in return for such a sacrifice, you will be rewarded with happiness and prosperity for yourselves and your town. You will be rich, healthy and happy.”

 Silence followed. Many people had no doubt that this stranger was the devil himself, disguised as a man of magic. Others who were more affected by the hardship of living in such state believed otherwise, and thought of the man as a saviour. After all, this sacrifice was only a small price to pay for a greater good and happiness for all.

Suddenly, everyone started talking at the same time. Heated arguments followed, and the crowd became an unrecognizable mass of people who moved and argued.

The man raised his hands one more time, and silence followed again. “My good people”, he said, “this will get us nowhere. The time that you may wish to spend arguing with each other is more than one lifetime.”

“But why not like any other civilized society put this motion to vote? You can easily decide what you can do this way, in a much shorter time. And before voting you may wish to have as much arguing as you wish.”

People of Earthbridge looked at each other. Surely, this was a wise suggestion, was it not?

The Value of Democracy: The conflict seems to be clearly between Utilitarianism (in particular act Utilitarianism) and rights based ethics. Many of the decisions we make in politics and policy making are not one-sidedly good for everyone, or make all people happy equally. Sometimes our decisions produce the overall best possible scenario, making “most” people happy, despite hurting or putting pressure on a minority.

Choosing what the majority wants seems to be a great way of finding out solutions to our problems. However, this immediately begs the question: “Can we decide for everything in the society by means of democracy?”

In the above example, most of us may think that torturing a child in such a way is unjustified, exactly because she has every right to not be tortured. Also, following the same rights based ethics type of reasoning, a voting on such a matter is simply irrelevant. Even if all people in Earthbridge agree that the child has to be sacrificed and tortured in such a way, still this would not make the action right, nor would it justify it in any way.

But on the other hand, we need to remind ourselves that people of Earthbridge are indeed under extreme pressure. What if the decision was about a special ration, or a new method of harvest, which despite making some people uncomfortable, would improve the town’s quality of life without taking someone else’s life?

Democracy is a good way of understanding what makes most of us happy. But it is not always in the right direction. We must tread very carefully when we argue a democratic voting justifies a specific notion. Sometimes the worst ideas have been chosen by people who did not realize the full force of their choices. For example the Russian revolution which ended in decades of suffering and loss of essential rights in the Soviet Union.

This is why the ability to make a distinction between our essential rights and “the good of all” becomes essential. We need to remember that we may not be able to make an absolute rule of this distinction, but knowing it, knowing the conflict between what we have as a “right” and what could be good for most of us while in expense of some others, can enable us understand the debates around political issues far better.

Relativist: A Pseudo Intellectual with the Tendency to Produce Horsecrap

Note: I am writing this post since after a long time I had an argument with a housemate of mine. He is a PhD student in sociology, and a relativist. The reason I am writing this is that I am hoping he reads this, since he has closed the means of conversation on the subject. In the spirit of being “the truthful heretic”, this post as always has a sting to it and I shall not hold back in attacking what I think is wrong and extremely damaging to human understanding and the quality of life.

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If I am asked who I dislike the most in the intellectual realm, surprisingly the first in my list will not be an apologist for a religion, but in fact a relativist. Pseudo intellectuals who can only add to the force of ignorance and stupidity in the world by sugar coated nonsense and not giving a damn to what is true, or other people’s pain and suffering.

I argued extensively in an essay in my new book on the subject of ethics, but in here I wish to talk about some of the usual claims that may be given as a defence. Let’s see:

“We construct our own truths, and this makes truth a subjective matter.” Really? Is this statement true or not? If it is as such that one constructs truth in one’s own mind, then the truth value of the claim “We construct our own truths” is also subjective. Therefore when I say “We do NOT construct our own truths”, I am as correct as the one that said above statement. Surely one may not take positions that refute themselves this pathetically. The only acceptable case here is the things that ONLY happen in one’s mind.

Besides, why relativists don’t construct anything that they wish in their heads? Relativist homework: Construct a pink elephant in your fridge. You should be able to do it only by thinking about it.

Of course, logically this does not make any sense. But the good relativist will immediately question logic: “Logic is also culturally relative! It is political, because it was used by the white westerns countries to colonize others!”.

Utter load of horsecrap. Logic is the foundation of our understanding, our science, our progress towards any relevant evaluation of the truth value of different claims. If racists in Nazi Germany did horrible experiments on other people, would that make science any less true? I beg to differ. Only a mind divorced of reality can make such a claim. The truth value of ethical issues here is irrelevant to the truth value of logical or scientific claim. We may condemn colonizers as much as we condemn the so called burning of witches that to this day happens in Africa, also true about AIDS denialism, genital mutilation of girls, murder of gay men and women etc. 

In fact, I shall now turn the tables on the relativists: Do they at all care about the murder of innocents? Pain and suffering caused by superstition and stupidity? 

The true meaning of delusional hypocrite happens in relativist’s, after all, is it not so that they construct their own truth in their heads? 

New Book Published: “In Pursuit of What is Right”

Moral philosophy and answers to moral questions have always fascinated me. Part of it is because of living in an Islamic society that always claimed the likes of me (gays, atheists, liberals) were immoral, bad, wrong etc. This book was my wish, I wrote it to express myself the most, how I came to find reasonable answers for the sadistic nonsense thrown at me (at us) by the fundamentalists and fanatics.

I have tried to write for all those who may have the same problems, those who wish to find answers to moral questions in a logical way, and wish to see how we, human beings, have progressed towards these answers.

Find my book on Amazon Kindle: “In Pursuit of What is Right: The Progress of Moral Thinking (An Introduction)”

Choice and the Problem of Ignorance

The following is directly quoted from  “AIDS, Witchcraft, and the Problem of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa” written by “Adam Ashforth”. All rights are reserved for the author, and the original link to the paper can be found HERE. The paper was written in 2001, and what it contains may not be accurate today, though it is significant and relevant.

In a scene replayed tens of thousands of times in recent years in South Africa, a relative appeared at the Khanyile family’s door in the shack settlement of Snake Park on the outskirts of Soweto to inform them of a funeral. A cousin in a town not far off had passed away. A young man in his late twenties or early thirties, the deceased had been sick for some time. In their message announcing the funeral, the dead cousin’s parents specified nothing about the illness, other than to say he’d been sick for some time. The relative visiting the Khanyiles, however, whispered the cause: “isidliso.”

Khanyile and his family took note. They know about this isidliso, otherwise called “Black poison,” an evil work of the people they call witches. Along with whatever treatments the deceased relative would have secured from medical practitioners in his town, they knew without being told that he had been taken to traditional healers to combat the witchcraft manifest in the form of isidliso. All of Khanyile’s family concurred with this diagnosis except one. Moleboheng, twenty seven and skeptical, thought the cousin’s story was “nonsense.”1

“He died of AIDS, obviously,” Moleboheng told her mother after the cousin left. (She is far too polite and sensible to say this in front of the relative, for then the relative would report to others that her family were starting vicious rumors.) Mama Khanyile conceded the possibility of AIDS, although that didn’t necessarily rule out isidliso. Her view was that the AIDS, if indeed it was AIDS, must have been sent by someone. Someone had wanted to see the young man dead and had used witchcraft to send this AIDS or isidliso to kill him. Moleboheng still insisted that was nonsense, as she does whenever her mother starts on witchcraft. In this, as in most things pertaining to witchcraft, the daughter and her family agree to disagree. She knows that within African society at large her way of looking at things is in a distinct minority.

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I am using this in my new project to ask an important moral question: Are we free to choose in the light of our stupidity? Do we think that people (like the people in the paper above) should be forced to abandon their beliefs? What about the anti-vaccination movement in US and UK?

Introduction to Logical Fallacies (Workshop Style): Appeal to Authority

The fallacy that the notion X is true, only because authority Y says so. No matter who the authority is, God, Prophet, holy book, the President, or Mr. John Smith; the authority still needs a reason to believe the notion, and that reason has to be clear. Sometimes, the reason is perfectly clear. A doctor has a specialty and a definite insight into the illnesses s/he has specialized in. It is perfectly reasonable to assume a specialist has good reasons for her claims. Therefore it won’t be fallacious to back a claim about one’s health and cite the doctor as the source of it.

To make this more clear, we could put it this way: Authority cannot be replaced as a premise of an argument, or as the reason behind a claim. However, a legitimate authority can be put as the source of reasons behind a claim.

Example: There is quite an interesting issues on morality which could be pointed out under this fallacy. A lot of moral claims given by fundamentalists turn out to be purely fallacious, on both fronts: replacing the authority with reason, or appealing to an authority which by no means is even remotely close to being a specialist on the subject of moral claims. Sometimes it is even worse, the authority turns out to be completely devoid of any sense of morality.

One of these particular issues is the law itself, when the law is presented as the only reason for the correctness of a notion. In a back and forth conversation with some pro-guns after the shooting in Sandy Hook elementary school (in 2012), they kept pointing out that “We have the right to have guns, our constitution is clear about it.” and I kept asking them “It’s true that the law in US allows people to have weapons, but why do you think it’s the right thing to do? Why the law is right? What is the reason?”

The law does not make a notion automatically right simply because it is “the law”. There are reasons behind what our politicians decide to legislate, and simply pointing at a certain law does not make a similar claim right.

Perhaps the worst of all appeals to authority are the claims from religious fundamentalists on the subject of moral values. In arguments with religious fanatics, “X is wrong” is a notion that is usually backed up by “Because God has commanded it”. Obviously God (any God) is by no means a legitimate authority on moral subjects. Most of it could be because God never seems to clearly answer questions about his reasons for a particular commandment^[1]. And moreover, by reading most religious books we immediately realize that most Gods are worse than psychopaths, how could they ever be a legitimate authority on moral subjects?

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[1] Compare this with the case of  legitimate authority who specializes on a subject. For example a scientist on his/her specialty  A legitimate authority is always prepared to provide reasons for what s/he believes.

The Clash of Moral Theories: The Curious Case of Hypothetical Extremes

There is a very common dilemma in books about ethics and morality, and It goes something like this: Imagine there are four sick patients in a hospital intensive care, and they all need an organ to live: A heart, a liver, and kidneys. And imagine there is a perfectly healthy young person in the room next to intensive care, named the “Healthy man”. Assume all his organs can be transplanted into our four patients. Given that he is going to be sitting in that room for only another hour, is it right for us to kill that person and transplant his organs into these four patients, in the process saving them?

Most people (I’d add hopefully) would say no to that question. We seem to recognize that the person in the other room has specific “rights”, and one of these rights is the right to life, meaning he or she (in our example he) owns his life and is in control of it, in such a way that only he can decide if he wishes to donate his organs. If one has such a position, then one, in this case, plays the role of a Libertarian.

However, some may say otherwise. They may point out that the benefits from killing one person and putting his organs into others in order to save them could be calculated, and if it turns out that those benefits are indeed greater, then we have a moral “green light” or even moral obligation to do this deed. If you happen to agree with this type of justification for moral actions, then you are of the Utilitarian tradition.

As I mentioned, in that particular example Libertarianism shows itself much stronger. Most of us agree to the notion of one’s right to life, and to own ourselves in that sense. We find it reasonable for example, if we ask the healthy person if he wishes to donate his organs. Many of us would think it moral if the person himself gives consent to be killed for the good of those other four (some of us most likely would still disagree).

Now, I want to try and make a twist, which by default is not expected to be there. Assume that instead of saving four people, by killing the person inside the other room, we can save four million. Maybe instead of his organs, we can use the cells of his body to cure all the people in the world that need a heart transplant, through a new miracle in medical technology. What then? Does this change the way we think about our moral duty in this case? Does the scale matter?

I think, I hope, most of us would think twice here. After all it is the lives of four million we are talking about. However, even then we may not consider this a moral duty to personally kill the person without his consent. But this is where it gets even more interesting, when it gets more extreme: What if we were forced to choose? Imagine a crazy psychopath, maybe our very own Jigsaw, has kidnapped two people: A Mr. X and the Healthy man. The game here is the game of death-death, either Mr. X kills the Healthy man, or Jigsaw will kill four million people by releasing a virus into a major city*.

What now? Would we think Mr. X is justified to kill the Healthy man, even if the Healthy man does not consent to it? It seems we may lean more and more towards the conclusion that Mr. X is justified if he kills the Healthy man. “Save the one, save them all**” in here has to turn into “Kill the one, save the rest”.

The dilemma here is the fact that our moral theories are still the same. The only thing changed was the scale, or some circumstances which force was introduced. A true Libertarian would still say that the right of the Healthy man on his life is still more important than four million lives, and in the last example Mr. X has done wrong if he kills him. On the other hand, in the first example, a Utilitarian would still think that we are justified in killing the Healthy man, even if the benefits from it, calculated by the Utilitarian, are only slightly greater than not killing him.

This brings me to my main conclusion: While i do believe there is right and wrong, and it is determined regardless of our perception, I do not believe we have such things as moral “laws”. In other words, we have objective morality, but no objective moral laws. Some objective values may be very common, but that is not to say there is no exception to the rule. The exception is the part that dispels the illusion that we have robust everlasting “laws” governing rights and wrongs. Every conclusion about right and wrong is the outcome of a set of moral theories and facts, surrounding a specific moral question about a specific case, still objective, but it may differ in each different case***.

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* Assume ceteris paribus, meaning we cannot have any outcomes other than the two mentioned, and Mr. X can only choose the two actions Jigsaw has given him the opportunity to: Kill the Healthy man, or not kill him.

** 

*** I’ll be happy to be challenged on this. I think it is a strong blow to the idea of a “moral lawgiver”, of course maybe not as strong as Euthyphro dilemma, but still useful.

Morality, Superheroes and the Case for the Right Thing

It was the night, but not a silent one: screams and cries of hundreds of people could be heard from all over Gotham city. Batman, standing on the tallest point of Wayne tower, sighed. The Joker had escaped; again. It was going to be a long long night.

The thought of writing this post came to me after I watched “The Dark Night Rises”. (Have in mind that although the next sentence is most likely expected by those who will watch it, but it is a spoiler nonetheless): There is a scene at almost the end of the movie, in which Catwoman (played by Anne Hathaway) kills Bane (Tom Hardy), saving Batman’s (Christian Bale) life, and immediately telling him: “About the whole no guns thing, I’m not sure I feel strongly about it as you do.”

She is of course referring to the fact that Batman does not kill criminals, no matter how “evil” they are, and obviously would not allow other “vigilante superheroes” to do so either (e.g. Catwoman). This phenomenon of course is the underlying theme of almost every superhero movie and cartoon ever made (for example my favourite one the justice league), and though I’m not very familiar with the original comic books, I’m positively sure the same theme happens there as well.

I believe that this poses a very interesting moral dilemma, that shows the conflict between individual-right-based ethics and consequentialist ethics. The question is, should Batmen kill Joker (Should a superhero kill a super villain)?  But there is even a better question: Is Batman doing something wrong by not killing the Joker?

Justice demands it

There is a common perception among people (religious or not) about justice, which is very close to the notion of “An eye for an eye”. Although in recent years and under the influence of social activists this perception has changed in some cases (for example capital punishment by death based on “A life for a life”), still most people think it is justified to retaliate an action with the same opposite: “you destroy my property, I destroy yours”.

This is not the position that most (if any) philosophers take in ethical issues. And the reason is simple, I think most people would agree that two wrongs will not make a right. In more sophisticated terms, this notion cannot be justified in any of the moral theories we know and we use as the “right” thing to do. Looking closely at the issue, we can see that there is an equivocation between “revenge” and “justice” in such perception.

therefore, based on that argument, no matter how many people the Joker “has” killed, Batman cannot justify killing him based on the idea of “An eye for an eye”.

Killing is wrong, period

If one asks Batman himself why he does not kill the Joker, his answer will most likely be in form of a moral code: Killing is bad, because it is bad. It seems most of the time that it is taken as it is given, without any justification behind it. But occasionally even the comic book characters need to give a better reason. This is the case for “Under the Red Hood”, with the following dialog (Extracted from IMDB):

Batman: You don’t understand. I don’t think you’d ever understood.
Jason Todd: What? What, your moral code just won’t allow for that? It’s too hard to cross that line?
Batman: No. God Almighty, no. It’d be too damned easy. All I’ve ever wanted to do is kill him. A day doesn’t go by I don’t think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture he’s dealt out to others and them end him.
Joker: Aw. So you do think about me.
Batman: But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place, I’ll never come back.

Of course, Batman is talking about revenge, not justice; but this is a crucial point: Where should a superhero stop? The argument here is a superhero (or no one for that matter) is in a position to decide about the lives of others, no matter who they are or they have done, simply because no one is capable of escaping the “corruption” it brings to them. They fear they will never come back.

Well, although this seems still an unsatisfying argument, we can see it as a moral code: “Killing is wrong, period”.

The case of “What if?”

In history of Batman comics, Joker has proven special. He has escaped the infamous “Arkham Asylum” numerous times (I dare say double digit, in games, cartoons, books and films), and each time has killed more people. A consequentialist (or Utilitarian) argument could be made that simply the cost of having Joker around is going to be much higher than the cost of simply “ending him”. The reason for that is Joker is most likely (as far as the Joker goes, definitely) going to kill much more than he already has. This argument is not about what he has done in the past, it is about what he is most likely to do (or will do) in the future.

If we look at the case from the consequentialist perspective, “Not” killing the Joker will be the wrong doing. At least at the point that Batman’s knowledge of him reviles the fact that he (the Joker) will kill more people in the future. I believe that many of us intuitively would agree to this notion. If someone presents us with the case of “Someone has a time machine, should s/he kill Hitler?”, I think many of us (most of us?) will agree to that.

Now comes the hard question: “Someone has a time machine, should s/he kill baby Hitler? Or Hitler’s mother?” Should one kill the source of “potential” crimes against humanity?

The case of reality

I think that Batman in fact “should” kill the Joker, since not only there is no guarantee that he will kill more people, but also it is highly likely. But in reality, or a more practical sense, the case is not as easy as it seems. Most criminals cannot escape prison and remain there. Even if they do escape, at least it is not repeatedly (unless of course they are Steven Jay Russell).

Also, our ability to judge the future actions of a sane person is highly untrustworthy (remember that the Joker was completely insane). It is possible that a person actually changes his/her behaviour, and it seems justifiable to give them “a second chance”, not just “end them”.

In the end, there is an irony in Batman’s story: It seems that Batman has done more or less the wrong thing in the context of his own story, while in reality basing one’s actions in such a way that takes not killing to be a virtue seems the right way to be. Batman has done the wrong thing, but has given the right message.

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P.S. This discussion can go much more deeper than this. As I was writing it, I knew there’s a lot more to say on this subject which are ignored here.

Rules of the Game, Psychopaths and whistleblowers

The world of business, and the history of business ethics, are made of two parts: Before and after Enron scandal. In the immediate aftermath of the scandal itself, it seemed a critical point in history of finance and economics to economists and financial managers. So much so, that it was described world changing, even more than September 11^th by economists like Paul Krugman (2002).

There are many lessons to be learned from this scandal, particularly within the realm of business ethics, but this essay focuses on two of the most important ones: The case of psychopaths as the outcome of the rules of the market game and the case of whistleblowers and their actions.

Games and psychopaths: In game theory, the rules of the games determine its outcome. This also means that the rules of the game also determine players that can stay in the game by winning it. Ironically, sometimes the rules are such, that the most crazy, or the most unimaginative and unperceptive player will win. A very good example will be chicken game (Poundstone, 1993): Imagine two teenagers that drive their cars straight towards each other. Whoever turns the wheel first, will lose. If none of them turns the wheel, they both die (or at least damage their cars severely).

Looking at the game, there is no doubt that if one of the players is insanely proud and wants to win the game no matter the price, without seeing one step ahead (i.e. eventual death), and the other player has at least some common sense, the insane player will win the game. If the game was to be repeated, or if there was a tournament of chicken games, I guess we can all see what would have happened in the finals.

Now, back to the case of Enron, there were two particular game changers (out of the ordinary of corporate businesses) that changed and shaped its seeming success and its impending doom, even before it happens, by determining the players that were allowed to stay in the games the company was playing.

The first rule, which was the prelude to the effects of the second, was simply deregulation. On the one hand, the usage of “Mark to Market” accounting, interestingly with the approval of Arthur Anderson (their accounting firm), and on the other hand there was an external factor of energy deregulation in California (Gibney, 2005). In particular, the fact that Enron’s profits based on mark to market were whatever they wanted them to be, in other words total subjectivity of the profits shown, was to play a key role in the game.

The second, and much more important in creating psychopathic environment in Enron itself, was the program called “Performance Review Committee” or PRC. This was a grading system introduced by Jeffery Skilling, the infamous CEO of the company, based on the notion of “Money is the only thing that motivates people” (Gibney, 2005). The system was a brutal process of elimination based on Skilling’s conception of Darwinian natural selection: Ranking people from one to five (“best” to “worst”), and then firing the ones that had not performed very well (i.e. had not made enough money) and giving huge bonuses to the ones that had.

What is the result of these two main game rules? No regulation boundaries, and then no ethical (or moral) boundaries. Then, the firm started eliminating those who may have had some ethical boundaries of their own based on PRC, which was designed to keep profit seeking people in (remember the example above about the tournament between chicken game players). Thus, the firm kept people that were motivated “solely” by profits: Let’s call them market psychopaths.

Now they had people, traders in particular, that were bound to nothing but making money. And with no regulations on electricity in California, they were prepared to shut down the entire power of a state just to make some profit out of it, and then later even joke about what had happened (Gibney, 2005).

Therefore, the first lesson that we learn from Enron scandal in terms of players themselves, is that the rules of the game matter, because they determine who stays in the game. If the rules of the game are unjust, as we can clearly see in case of Enron, the players will most likely act unjustly and wrongfully. One good reason for the existence of codes of ethics, aside necessary regulations is the exact same thing. They can affect the long run outcome of the games that corporations play, and in a good way.

On the importance of whistleblowers: The case of Enron can teach us something critical about whistle-blowing. Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistleblower, is a great example of how and why an employee should blow the whistle. Although the statement has been doubted (Ackman, 2002), the pattern of Ms. Watkins’s behaviour is significant. Aside from the fact that what she did first, which was writing to Ken Lay (Chairman and CEO of Enron after Jeff Skilling’s resignation), may not be considered whistle blowing at all (Ackman, 2002; Varelius, 2008); the pattern of first going to the management, and then blowing the whistle on the whole thing seems justifiable.

It seems, in each step of the way, first informing Ken Lay (the chairman of the board) and then publicly testifying against what people like Skilling had done (Gibney, 2005) three key elements play an important role. Interestingly, only two of them are immediately visible: Loyalty to the company (Varelius, 2008), and her duty for doing the right thing. She first went to the person that was supposed to be responsible for the fraud issues, but when he didn’t, or couldn’t do anything, she rightfully went to the public.

The third element which may not seem visible on the first look is the loyalty between employees themselves. In case of Enron of course there was none, since Ms. Watkins was sure based on evidence that Andrew Fastow was involved in fraud (Gibney, 2005).

Therefore, each stage of blowing the whistle is to be carefully weighed. Accepting the premise that blowing the whistle can be a moral problem (Varelius, 2008), this action by itself is not, and cannot be a moral problem if both of the previous steps have been followed, meaning that loyalty between colleagues and loyalty between employees and the firm has been broken or does not exist.

 

References:

Ackman, D. 2002. Sherron Watkins Had Whistle, But Blew It. Forbes. [Access online: http://www.forbes.com/2002/02/14/0214watkins.html%5D

Gibney, Alex (Director). 2005. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. 2929 Productions. [Accesss online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xIO731MAO4%5D

Krugman, P. 2002. The Great Divide. The New York Times. [Access online: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/29/opinion/the-great-divide.html%5D

Poundstone, W. 1993. Prisoner’s Dilemma. Anchor. USA.

Varelius, J. 2009. Is Whistle-blowing Compatible with Employee Loyalty?. Journal of Business Ethics. 85:263–275.

Book Review: “Lying” by Sam Harris

I got excited about the book the first time I saw it’s cover. Firstly, it is written by Sam Harris, who has shown in the recent years that has a way with words that could make the most trivial arguments into something worthwhile. Secondly, since I am by nature truthful, meaning normally I cannot lie even if I try, lying had turned into the subject of my lesser moral obsessions.

I always had in mind that there come times in which lying is a necessity. Although I’m not anything close to a good liar, I lied numerous times to my family in the middle east about my sexuality, something that I am still doing, and I made it believable. I had to make them believe it, because I was lying to save my own life: You may know that death is the punishment of having sex as a Homosexual in the world of Islam. And yet, we are always told “You should be truthful”, and it is never added in the end of this moral code that there are occasions that there would be no way but lying.

I got the book with hope that Harris could give a scientific explanation for our behaviour, and/or give a good argument in favour of a better moral code that includes these sorts of dilemmas. I was disappointed, but a part of it was the result of my expectations.

The book itself is not bad. It is in fact very simple, which is it’s both strength and weakness: Those who expect more will be disappointed, but the book in fact could be a very good guideline for ordinary people who seek to know why we have good reasons for our every day ethics and codes, in this case lying. Also, because it is simple, it can be easily used to teach teenagers both the moral of being truthful and how to reason to reach those morals.

For me, though Harris in some cases does make compelling arguments, the book was lacking in some answers, answers that in fact were the subject of my not so much trivial obsession.

Take the case of Anne Frank in the attic for example: If a Nazi German officer and his SS group are standing on your doorstep asking if you have any Jews in the house, and Anne Frank is hiding in your attic, will you lie to save her? Or will you tell the truth even though telling the truth could cost an innocent person her life?

Harris mentions the exact same example in the beginning of the book, but then changes it slightly into a case for a murderer and a child hiding in your home, in order to reach to two different points he wants to make. This slight change makes his point almost relevant: You should not lie, because something worse “may” happen.

Yes, in case of a one man murderer that may be true, but then again, something better could also happen. And, we know that telling the truth “will” create a great evil deed, in which we bear more responsibility than in case of lying. The case of a murderer is different with the case of Nazis, we can stand and defend the innocent against one murderer, but it is practically impossible to stand alone against a whole bunch of SS, ready to kill for the Reich.

If we lie, we know that we have done something to save a life, yes, we may have taken a risk, but that is better than being directly responsible in someone else’s death by telling the truth.

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Overall, Harris does not solve the important dilemmas. But he makes good and simple cases for those who wish to know why they should not say trivial lies, and why being a liar is nothing good in ordinary life.