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Apologetics

Ethics – can sometimes be tricky

On January 10, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

From an Australian clergy discussion-list:

An interesting case in the news this week of the fellow who put a fake notice about the ANZ  bank and a mining company which led to a drop of share price on the stock market. Made even more interesting by the backing of the Greens.

I recall there is a section in the Code of Ethics for ministers, etc, which states: “It is unethical for Ministers deliberately to break the law or encourage another to do so. The only exception would be instances of political resistance or civil disobedience.”

I have always assumed that “political resistance or civil disobedience” would cover something like being involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler in order to save millions of lives. I suppose though it all depends on your politics. From the left, an attempt to bring down mining companies is an attempt to save the world. From the right, refusal to pay the carbon tax is a stand against being duped by the idea that global warming has human causes.

I think I will go and have a beer with Pontius Pilate.

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So, is planting a bomb next to someone as an act of political resistance a more intrinsically ethical thing to do than tell a lie?
Interesting
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‘I suppose though it all
depends on your politics…’

And your ethics.  What about supporting a terminally ill parishioner in voluntary euthanasia?  Or a chemo patient to take marijuana to help with the chemo nausea and loss of appetite?  Or even taking a more active part in either of those than just encouragement?

Both are acts of civil disobedience, and it seems the CoE makes allowance for individual conscience.  Or is there something that specifies exactly what constitutes a legitimate exception to the Code, and says who decides?

In the case in point, though, I suspect that the two aspects of unease are a) the initial lie, and b) the lack of choice that shareholders had in protecting their investment.  Or, in other words, when is it ok to be dishonest and/or exercise individual conscience when the outcome will adversely impact large numbers of people financially?

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From what I see of the conversation to date the question is live and doesn’t matter which way you ask it
Your comment was that you were uncomfortable with Moylan’s actions because the lie is “intrinsically unethical”… Isn’t the very point of civil disobedience or political resistance that the person takes what is potentially a dubious ethical action (when taken in isolation from the context) for a greater social good.
Cutting the wires on private property is possibly “intrinsically unethical”.  So too is trespassing on another’s property (or damaging private property/ machinery).     But is getting in to Pine Gap for the purposes of a protest about peace or damaging a bulldozer to protect rainforest ruled out because they are “intrinsically unethical” ?
If we only allow for civil disobedience and political resistance when there is no question about the intrinsic ethics (is there really such a thing??) of the action itself, then there won’t be much room for the concept
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The perspective I was putting is that if there is a law that says “people of a certain ethnic background can’t sit on this seat”, than that law is, in itself, unethical. Sitting on the seat despite not being allowed to do so by this law is justified because “sitting on a seat” is not unethical in and of itself. I’d call this “civil disobedience”. This is in contrast to, for example, physically damaging the equipment that makes the signs that say “This seat for whites only” or physically threatening lawmakers until the law is changed.
I take your point though – is anything intrinsically ethical? I’m starting to think my distinction is artificial and it is really a matter of weighing the ethics of each potential action in the context of each specific situation.
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Hmm. The whole area gets trickier and trickier. I suppose when I think of the plan to assassinate Hitler I think of the accusations against Bonhoeffer, which makes me think there must have been a good theological rationale from such a brilliant mind. The other person I think of is Field Marshall Rommel, a soldier acknowledged by both sides to have been not only a brilliant commander, but one with very high ethics. Rommel’s involvement in a plot to kill Hitler led to him being given the opportunity to swallow cyanide so that his family would not be persecuted. When I look at Rommel’s actions I see disobedience (not civil since he was in the military) in the form of him ignoring orders to kill captured commandos, Jews, and civilians. There is nothing intrinsically unethical about ignoring orders to kill. However, this does not seem to have been enough to stop Hitler, leading to plots to blow up Hitler and those with him. This kind of act is surely unethical at that level.

The problem seems to be the human ability to construe and re-construe the situation. What is the difference between blowing up Hitler and a terrorist bomb? At the gut level I feel the first is justified, but the second is one of the most evil actions of our time. It would seem that certain parties are prepared to go along with democracy as long as they get their way. If they don’t, they wage a war of terror on the civilian population until the population lives in so much fear they give them what they want.

But how do we discern the difference? We are seeing the government of Syria trying to portray the rebels as terrorists. But before we scoff at that, have we not seen the U.S. under Republican regimes define the government of other countries as lawful, and rebels as “communist insurgents” if arrangements between a dictator and themselves proves economically and politically advantageous? Here the power to define the situation by having more control over the media appears to strongly influence what would be valid civil disobedience and political resistance.  Is the exercise of my civil disobedience to be determined according to whether I read the Sydney Morning Herald or the Daily Telegraph?

…Unless one takes a pacifist stance, it may be wrong to kill in civilian life, but acceptable to kill in war. The  Church cannot argue for a pacifist stance while it appoints chaplains to the defence forces who wear the uniform. And yet in this century we have seen the U.S. define a situation as “war” in order to justify the maintenance of torture chambers…

I was going to respond to this discussion with the demand for more answers than questions, but I’m not doing very well, am I? But I can imagine some cynical person asserting, in view of the above, that ethics depends on spin.

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What is the difference between blowing up Hitler and a
terrorist bomb? At the gut level I feel the first is justified, but the
second is one of the most evil actions of our time.

Isn’t the basic difference one of who the target is?  I mean, if what makes civil disobedience ethical or unethical is whether the overall outcome is positive or negative for society as a whole, then blowing up Hitler (who was damaging society) is different to blowing up civilians (or even target organisations) in order to make a point.  And I think it’s the same basic point behind the rule of war that said you could bomb military targets (and the troops on the front line) but not civilian areas.  Effectively, the idea that it’s ok to bomb people who are actively engaged in the war, but not harmless bystanders.

And I appreciate that it still comes down to perspective on what constitutes “positive or negative for society as a whole”, but surely that’s – at least to some extent – a matter for public opinion, in the same way that forming laws (also for the good of society as a whole) is?

It’s actually an issue covered in some interesting ways in Harry Potter, where the motto of the “communist bloc” wizarding school (it’s not given an actual location, but the members have names that sound Russian or similar) is “For the Greater Good”.  There’s some very interesting exploration of what constitutes the greater good, and how you aim for it.

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