By Cara Walker
Loyal. Fair. Caring.
These are words most people would want to use to identify themselves. While the way we strive towards these attributes may seem almost subconscious at times, these characteristics are what many of us base our moral foundations upon, since we as a society have dubbed them all generally “good.”
But what happens when we must choose between them?
What happens if we have to choose to put more importance on one over the other? And what happens if you and I choose differently?
Recently I had to decide this very thing for myself. I was given a list of five scenarios and asked to rank them in order of importance when making an ethical judgment. The order I selected then translated into how I viewed the five moral foundations outlined in Jonathan Haight’s book The Righteous Mind – care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation.
At the top of my list was care/harm. When faced with an ethical decision, I tend to be most concerned with protecting others, and I care deeply about whether someone was harmed in the process. Surprisingly, the foundation of loyalty and betrayal was ranked fourth based on my answers.
This caused me to stop and consider what the implications of this were in regards to how I viewed ethics. Because didn’t I just say that both loyalty and care were two things I strove toward? How then is my ranking going to affect my future ethical decision making process?
It also brought to mind the Society of Professional Journalism Code of Ethics, which includes these two key components: Minimize Harm and Seek Truth and Report It.
Obviously, a journalist with similar moral foundations as me would place more emphasis on the minimizing harm component of that code while another reporter who ranked loyalty higher on the list would place more importance on seeking the truth, perhaps in an effort to be loyal to their readers.
Despite the fact that they are both important parts of this code, the code itself can be interpreted and used in different ways. This is why it is important to understand your own personal ethics based on your moral foundations, so you can evaluate professional codes in regards to your own way of thinking.
In my case, I know I will approach decisions more from the minimizing harm side of my readers, yet I know I can’t completely disregard my loyalty to my readers and my editors.
As we can see, there is no definitive way to look at ethics. It is this interplay of personal and professional development that allows us to make the best decision for ourselves and for those around us, whether they be our bosses, our peers or our readers.