Ethics: A Refresher Course for Politicians
Intro to Ethical Conduct for Officials and Voters Who Elect Them
Feb 19, 2009
Unfortunately, public conversations are ripe with confusion as questions are raised by media wags, political pundits and talking heads on every air wave connected to a radio, tv, ipod, computer, or multi-media source in the United States. Something needs to be done. But what? Anyone and everyone seems to be asking. How about an Ethics refresher course for politicians and the voters who elect them?
While many definitions of what is meant by the term "ethics" can be substituted for one another depending on one’s culture, philosophy of life, or religious faith, suffice it to say that what is meant by the term ethical behavior is that conduct which comports with the spirit of the law and not just the letter of the law. In other words, while eliciting a guffaw by everyone who ever heard President Clinton’s answer to sworn testimony in the less stellar days of his presidency when during questioning he famously said "it depends upon what the meaning of ‘is’ is", he was not far off the mark.
It is as important to have a consistent understanding of what is meant by ethical conduct as it is to ponder whether or not a politician is engaging in something short of lawbreaking that is nonetheless unethical. About the most common understanding one hears generally is to the effect that it is unethical to act as if the "ends justifies the means". That is definitely true under one set of ethical guidelines but it not true when using a different set of ethical standards. Many are unaware that competing ethical standards even exist.
Examples of different sets of ethical standards are illuminated by Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics of the Silicon Valley in California. These competing standards are identified as: Utilitarian - that action which does the most good and least harm; Rights - that action which best respects and protects the moral rights of those effected; Fairness and Justice - that action which treats all equals equally; Common Good - that action which is best for the welfare of everyone; and Virtue - that action which is consistent with certain virtues. (Judith Tomsic, Esq. course on Ethics for Lawyers and Judges, U.C. Riverside - Palm Desert campus - 2007).
The question to determine before deciding whose conduct violates which ethical precept is to identify which precepts are being used as the standard for the conduct in question in the first place. Asking first what "is" one’s own standard for ethical conduct can help explain why there can be so much disagreement as to outcome. It’s as though citizens need to decide what "is" is.
