If Profit is king, why be ethical?

Transcription

1 If Profit is king, why be ethical? Simon Edwards is the UK Director for RZIM Zacharias Trust and Assistant Chaplain of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. He holds separate degrees in law and economics and a graduate diploma in education from the University of Queensland, Australia. Earlier this year, the Australian cricket team were the subject of a major ball-tampering scandal that led to some of the leading players being banned from the team. Like many Australians, I found myself feeling hugely disappointed about the whole affair. There may be nothing new about cheating in sport, but when it happens in the gentleman s game, it seems like a real punch in the guts to all things good and noble. Yet whilst we may not like dishonesty, we have to admit that we often commend people for having a winning at all costs mentality. 01

2 Nor is this something just confined to sports, as we can see it in the business world too, from cutting corners on safety and cheating customers to exploiting workers and evading taxes. Sometimes these practices lead to high-profile scandals, like the VW emissions fraud or the sensational collapse of Enron, resulting in vast social, financial and legal costs, not to mention affecting the lives of thousands of people. Evaluating ethics So why bother with ethics or integrity, if profit is king? The short answer is that if you neglect virtues like honesty, integrity and fair dealing, then eventually everybody loses, because good business is built on trust. Professor Chris Bones of the Manchester Business School points out that not only is the ethical behaviour of companies and employees under greater scrutiny than ever before, but there is also far more knowledge in the public arena. This can have a reputational impact on firms, as many are now graded online according to a range of ethical criteria. This is one of a number of reasons why ethicallyminded businesses often outperform competitors by 500 percent. The honest truth about dishonesty Yet, if that s the case, why is there any unethical behaviour at all and how can it be addressed? These are some of the questions addressed by Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University, in his book The Honest Truth About Dishonesty. He concludes that we all cheat, which is why it is so difficult to address, and most of it is actually made up of different and subtle kinds of dishonest acts that each of us practice on a regular basis. One of the many case studies he mentions was the mystery surrounding a gift shop in Washington DC s Arts Centre which was found to be losing $150,000 a year. As payments were made into a cash box, rather than a register, the first assumption was that someone was stealing. However, after firing the person they thought was responsible, the losses continued until they eventually discovered that the problem was not just one thief, but many well-meaning volunteers each borrowing small amounts of money over the course of the year, but somehow never getting around to returning that money. In other words, cheating in business is not just done by a few bad apples who spoil it for everyone else, it is a much more widespread problem. Ariely explains that the crux of the issue is that humans live with two opposing fundamental motivations: the desire to see ourselves as good, honest and upright, and the desire to gain the benefits that could come from cheating. In other words, we want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror each day and see a good person staring back at us, but we also want to do whatever will help us get ahead in life. Defending the indefensible? So how do we handle these conflicting desires? We do so through a process of rationalisation essentially, we lie to ourselves. One psychological experiment that demonstrated this involved placing a six-pack of coke and several $1 bills into a fridge used by students. By the end of the day, every can of coke was taken, whereas the money remained untouched. Why? The answer is that taking cash was blatantly going against what peoples consciences told them, whilst they were able to rationalise that consuming drinks wasn t really stealing. It s amazing how good we are at deceiving ourselves. Ariely calls this capacity for self-deception cognitive flexibility, and it s this that enables 03 04

3 people to cheat, whilst still convincing themselves they are good people. Deepening dishonesty If we are going to successfully advance their career more quickly or make more money by taking a moral shortcut? problem, but suppose you are the only one. What is there to hold you back? Nothing at all, if the only argument against being unethical is that it s not A further problem with cheating is that even the smallest acts of dishonesty tackle the Surprisingly, this is a question that business ethics courses and codes of profitable. In the current intellectual and cultural climate, there s not much breed more deceit. One experiment that showed this involved a maths test where participants were allowed to mark their own papers before being problem of cheating in conduct rarely seem to address. The Greek philosopher Plato addressed this question through a conversation between his teacher, Socrates, who we can say in response to Thrasymachus challenge and that s because, having largely rejected God or the idea of anything transcendent in paid according to the number of answers they claimed to have got right. The results showed that in a group where a fake participant was clearly business we need to think was concerned about justice, and Thrasymachus, a radical sceptic who, like many people today, didn t believe in any objective moral law. The latter life, we ve lost any solid grounding for morality. As Dostoevsky famously put it in one of his novels, if God is dead, all is permitted. seen to cheat and be rewarded for it, there was twice as much deception carefully about argued that justice is just a mask for power and that ethical standards are A pragmatic argument like good ethics from the others, when compared with a group where such an act had not been witnessed. This susceptibility to being influenced by others is why the question of why?. Why not real, as they are simply artificially invented rules. On that basis, the ends always justify the means, so there s no reason why we shouldn t cheat, as it promotes good business only provides a reason for people to be ethical, when it is advantageous, but it doesn t provide a reason to be so when it is Ariely suggests businesses shouldn t tolerate even small indiscretions, because it lowers the bar for everyone. shouldn't we cheat? does sometimes help us get to a goal. Thrasymachus later reinforces his point by appealing to the ancient myth disadvantageous. So it doesn t provide a solution to the problem of cheating in business. of Gyges. He was a shepherd who Ill-gotten gains If we are going to successfully tackle the problem of cheating in business (or any other area of life) which we ve identified is more subtle, contagious, and widespread than most people The standard answer currently given to employees in a firm is that, at the end of the day, it won t be profitable for the corporation, because good ethics promotes good business and vice versa, and it won t be profitable found a magic ring that made him invisible, which enabled him to kill the King, marry the Queen and rule the kingdom. And the question is put to Socrates: who wouldn t do the same thing as Gyges, if they had the power? Searching for an answer If we want to find a cure or a solution to the problem of cheating in business which we ve identified is not just down to a few bad apples, but to all of us three things are needed: imagine we need to think carefully about the question of why?. Why shouldn t we cheat? for them personally, because they may be fired, for example. However, what would be the motivation for an employee to act ethically, if they could How would you respond to that question? Admittedly, if everyone cheated in business, you would have a 1. A good reason to be good 2. Help to be good 3. Grace when we fall 05 06

4 And I want to suggest that the only place in which these three things can all be found, is in Christianity in Jesus Christ. 1. A good reason to be good When ethics is taught today, most of it is about how to apply certain principles to different situations, rather than discussing the foundations behind the principles. In other words, people are educated about how to be ethical, but not why. That means that the most fundamental question is often not being addressed: where do these moral values come from? in the sea in the first place? What s their mission or purpose? Let s assume, for example, as Socrates did, that getting rich is not the main purpose of life, because money is meant to be a means, not an end. On that basis, if you decide you want to become wealthy through business, it makes little moral difference if you do so by being ethical or unethical, because one is being good for a bad reason and the other is being bad for a bad reason. By contrast, living a good life is about being good for a good reason. Oxford don, C. S. Lewis, argued that for ethics to be effective, it needs to operate on three levels, which he illustrated by describing three ships. Level one is about making sure the ships don t bump into each other: the social ethics involving rules about how to get along with each other. Level two is about how the individual ships can stay afloat: the personal ethics relating to character and virtue. Lastly, level three is about the most fundamental question of them all: why are the ships And it is God who gives us a good reason for being good, and it relates to the question of what we were made for (our purpose). According to Christianity, our happiness is linked to being good, because in being good we are helping to fulfil our ultimate purpose, which is to love and be loved. Love is the highest form of goodness and, being made in the image of a relational God who loves, we find our ultimate happiness in loving relationship with God and with others. A GOOD REASON TO BE GOOD. 08

5 By contrast, if you believe, as many modern intellectuals do today, that we live in a godless universe operating in accordance with the inexorable laws of blind and indifferent forces, and that each of us is here through an accidental and unguided process of time + matter + chance, it makes it impossible to point to any ultimate purpose in life, and therefore to any solid foundation for the ethical standards we are trying to live up to. There is no objective moral law, but instead ethical behavior is simply the result of personal preferences and social conditioning. So if we want to be leaders when it comes to the question of ethics in the workplace, we need to be able to speak about the question of purpose. Why are we here in the first place? This is an important question, not just for businesses, but for everyone personally, because everything else flows from there. 2. Help to be good Secondly, as we ve seen, we all need help to be good, because we are all susceptible to the temptation of cheating, or taking a moral shortcut, even when we have the best of intentions. Andrew Carnegie, who became one of the wealthiest men in HELP TO BE GOOD. the early twentieth century, was gain the whole world yet lose their someone who tried to maintain his soul? It s possible to gain everything in integrity by vowing to give up business life that you thought would make you in his thirties, so that he could not get special, but in the process, lose the one caught up in the debasing idolatry of thing in life which really does make you amassing power and wealth. Yet, when special: your soul. the time came to it, he was unwilling to stop and unfortunately some of the Most of us don t intentionally jump off degrading effects he feared eventually the moral edge, like Gyges, but instead, worked themselves out in his life. Even most slip downhill bit, by bit, by bit. though he became a great The first time we cheat a little, the philanthropist, who built thousands of conscience is very loud. The second libraries, many of his own employees time, it is still loud, but not as loud. By complained bitterly about their poor the third, fourth and fifth time, it gets working conditions and housing, which easier and easier, even if we begin to led to many of them dying prematurely. cheat in bigger and bigger ways. We A question that Jesus once asked goes become a bit like Frodo in The Lord of right to the heart of the issue for us the Rings, who slowly succumbs to the here: What good is it for someone to evil power of the ring and in the end, is only saved by an unlikely act of divine providence. How do we fight cheating and corruption in business and in society, if much of the problem is not out there, but inside of us? That s the real challenge we face. If the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart, how do we heal ourselves? How do we get out of this pattern of rationalisation and selfdeception? Written centuries before modern psychology, the Bible also speaks about this inner conflict of desires in the human psyche (or soul). In one of his letters, Paul shares about how he had thought of himself as a moral man, but had been willing to do anything in order to get ahead, including destroying the lives of others. Even after his life had changed, he wrote very personally about his ongoing struggles: When I want to do good, I don t, and when I try not to do wrong. I do it anyway the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp. And then he goes on to say, Who will free me from this slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free. That was Paul s experience 09 10

6 Jesus had set him free. He couldn t get himself out of the loop, but God could. If the problem is on the inside, we need someone from the outside who can operate on the inside of us. Only God can do that and he opened Paul s heart to grace. Paul had been a driven person who was intent on succeeding at any cost, but by encountering Christ, he discovered the purpose of a human life is not about winning it is a privilege and an opportunity to love and be loved. Yet living a life of love, which involves, among other things, honesty, integrity, and fair dealing, is not easy. We can take morality seriously and yet timeand-time again we can find ourselves unable to live up to our own standards, let alone God s. That s why we also need grace when we fall. 3. Grace when we fall There s an old story about two pastors who were going to visit someone whose wife had left him, after she caught him cheating on her. As they were on their way to counsel him, the older pastor said to the younger pastor, Do you think you could ever do something like that?, to which the younger pastor responded, No, there s no way I could ever do something like that. The older pastor said, Well, you better go home then. I will take care of this one alone. We are so fallible as human beings, as even the most wellintentioned of us can fall. The less we realise this, the more susceptible we are. Whether we cheat small or whether we cheat big, we all need an act of grace. Whether we cheat small or whether we cheat big, we all need an act of grace. And we find it in Jesus. We see this so clearly in an encounter between him and a tax-collector called Zacchaeus, who was at the top of his profession and had made himself very wealthy in the process. There must have been something missing in his life, because he went to great lengths to catch a glimpse of Jesus and even climbed a sycamore tree to see over the crowd. But Jesus didn t just see Zacchaeus, he already knew him and, in a dramatic moment of encounter, he called his name and told him to come down immediately. Zacchaeus did not put it off, but he humbled himself and obeyed. Jesus then came into his home and into his heart. The result was a total transformation of his life and he vowed to give half of his possessions to the poor and to pay back those he had cheated (four times as much as he had taken). Zacchaeus heart was healed and he was no longer orientated towards the question of how much can I get?, but how much can I give? There is a proverb in the Bible that says Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death. Zacchaeus name meant righteous one, but he was anything but that. Instead, it was the only one who has ever truly lived up to that name who helped Zacchaeus discover who he actually was who he was created to be and what his purpose in life really was. Jesus saved him. Zacchaeus didn t earn it, but it was a gift of grace, when he opened his heart to Jesus. Conclusion Ethical instruction and codes of conduct are hugely valuable and GRACE WHEN WE FALL. important, as they remind all of us of what is right and wrong, which makes a huge difference. They can help us to stem the tide of unethical practice and corruption, by making it harder to rationalize and self-deceive. Nevertheless, the deepest transformation does not just come from conformity to an external set of ethical rules, or from fear of the negative consequences of being found out. As important as these are, they are no substitute for what Jesus is offering, which is for all our lives to be redeemed and transformed, from the inside out. In Jesus Christ, Zacchaeus discovered a reason to be good, help to be good, and grace in his failings. We may never have cheated in life or in business as spectacularly as Zacchaeus ever did, or maybe we have, but whichever the case, are not all of us in need of these three things as well? Stay connected festivalofthought.buzz 11 12