Back to the Basics
Adherence to a high standard of ethics is essential to a quality life and a sound professional practice or business. This country was founded on a commitment to individual rights and a belief that individuals are capable of governing themselves.
Or, as Marcus Aurelius observed, "A man should be upright; not be kept upright."
Dr. Albert Schweitzer gave a definition of ethics in a 1952 Paris speech that I believe will satisfy both the philosopher and the professional. "In a general sense," Dr. Schweitzer said, "ethics is the name we give to our concern for good behavior. We feel an obligation to consider not only our own personal well-being, but also that of others and of human society as a whole."
Confucius once was asked, "Is there one word which may serve as a practice for all one's life?" He answered, "Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
Do not make a mistake of confusing ethics and law; they are two entirely different concepts. Ethical conduct is self-imposed; lawful conduct is externally imposed. While one may go to jail, pay a fine or lose a license for being found guilty of violating a law or regulation, no law or rule is as powerful and no mandate so compelling as an individual's perception of right or wrong.
If legislatures or courts could compel love, there would be no divorce. If they could compel friendship, fairness and honesty, there would hardly be any litigation. If courts could compel mercy, many of the evils of our life would cease to exist.
The well educated and the less educated alike learn most of their ethics from living. For example, children learn to lie only from adults; it is not a natural form of expression, and a child who had never been lied to would not know what a lie is.
Morality cannot be legislated or regulated. A person is either honest or dishonest. There is no in-between. We need to return to the basics.
Ethics precedes and leads to law. The late Earl Warren, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, recognized the relationship of law and ethics in a speech he made in November 1962.
He said,
"In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics. Each is indispensable to civilization. Without law, we should be at the mercy of the least scrupulous. Without ethics, law could not exist. We are sometimes painfully aware of the inability of law to solve problems of ethics. There are innumerable facets of our lives, with which the law cannot possibly deal."
Sam Ervin, the late and former U.S. senator from North Carolina, said it differently:
"Some people think government ought to regulate all the affairs of all our people. They overlook the fact that a willingness on the part of the people to assume responsibility for their own life is inseparable from liberty and whenever you destroy that willingness in people and rob them of incentive, liberty is going to perish."
If we continue to use government as a crutch for our failure to act as we should, there may be a day when we cannot walk without it.
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