"We Could Do Worse than Duty Ethics"
Somewhere in the middle of adolescence I, along with many other people, lost love for the necessity of treating others well because it is our duty, or obligation, to do so. Somewhere as I was questioning why things are the way they are, I also began questioning why I had to respect or honor certain people who didn’t seem to care about me. I began to evaluate people based on their behavior or characteristics, and not because of their position.
Years later as I got on the other side of wanting to be shown respect for my position, I understood that, barring the total unethical, parents and grandparents and others in authority should be conferred honor for their position, and not for how they act or seem to be. In a sense, I came to this point by realizing that all the questioning, distrust, and mistrust of those in authority brought about the breakdown of authority and sometime might lead to seeming chaos.
Still, there is a part of me that likes the results of the sixties and seventies that taught us that not everyone in a position is good. But there needs to be a balance between conferring honor and respect to someone by virtue of his/her position or rank and holding them to the standards of normal ethical behavior.
I recently heard a retired person lifting up all the ethical values he learned through his career in the military. In conversation with another person it emerged that many of these values were learned because of the chain of command. In the military, you come to respect those who are over you and later, as a career military person, have others respect you when you are over them. Under ordinary circumstances it works toward building up better human beings because an individual doesn’t consider themselves the best because of who they are, but because of something they come to deserve or earn.
Listening to the conversation I began to think that “you could do a lot worse than duty ethics.” How many people in our society today, who probably did not consider themselves under anyone after adolescence in K-12 school, don’t think they owe anyone anything?
A couple of months ago on the same weekend my wife and I experienced the worst kind of behavior in two separate incidents in two parking lots. In the first one , I was in the wrong as I swung open my driver’s side car door and barely touched the passenger side front door of the pickup truck next to me. As I got out, someone in the front seat of the nearby vehicle lashed out at me for nicking his door. I said that I was very sorry, looked at the door and saw no visible scars from the nick, and began to go into the store. I was pelted by expletives from the man in the pickup saying, “it is not good enough to be sorry.” His nasty language followed me all the way to the sidewalk of the store. I knew that something might happen while I was gone, but I needed to go into the store. Indeed, when I returned I found that, though the pickup was gone, there was a very faint key mark all the way down my door. Then later that weekend my wife went to a restaurant and picked up food. She parked in an open place next to a large service truck. When she came out, the driver was waiting for her and cursed her up and down for parking there. You see that even though she was in an eligible place, it was one that he needed to turn into to get out. Once again, she apologized (though she had done nothing wrong), but it did not seem to make any difference.
We learned by experience that weekend that honor and respect don’t go very far in our uncivil society. Whether it was the prior experience of the other people, or simply their demeanor, they did not respond to our civilized behavior. They were not willing to do what is right to another person.
I still have trouble with duty ethics myself sometimes. Perhaps it is because I find so many people in positions of authority not being very good at what they do. But I still believe that it is the case that, without any other reason not to, you should “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Or as Immanuel Kant once said: "Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." To me that means that I am to act toward others in a way that if everyone did the same, the world would be a better place. I hope that others will do the same.
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