Deontology, morals, ethics, values.

Here are some of the concepts that are

omnipresent when we try to talk about and evaluate our actions,
and to say that someone has done something good or bad.
But these terms that we often hear run the risk of appearing to us as
more or less interchangeable, or in any case are not always
easily distinguishable in terms of their respective meanings.
However, despite some difficulties, we will see that these different notions
must be distinguished and that the work to establish their
meaning is particularly fruitful to enter the field of ethics.
So, let's start with a first distinction,
the one between ethics and morals.
This is a well known discussion in philosophy,
that always starts with the same observations:
that one can’t distinguish between these two terms via their etymology.
Indeed, ethics comes from the Greek “ethos”, and morals comes from the Latin
“mores”,
and both words refer to the idea of morals.
But of course, even if the etymology of the two terms is close,
even if the dictionary does not generally establish
no clear distinction, we can nevertheless distinguish them
in a more precise way, which is usually done in the following way.
In a moral discourse we rely on the difference between good and evil,
are attentive to the duties that stem from it, and to the formulation
of precise rules that allow us to accomplish these duties.
Paul Ricoeur, after making a similar observation about the same
etymology for the two notions,
suggests that we should distinguish between them
by pointing out the obligatory character of morals.
Referring to strong notions that are considered to be universal,
such as good and evil opens the door to the domain of obligation:
the obligation not to harm, which is accompanied by norms and prohibitions.
What distinction does this create?
While morals create a relatively rigid framework,
with a more general discourse and these heavy notions of good and evil,
the notion of ethics is somehow more flexible.
It departs from the notions of good and evil,
and even criticises the distinction between good and evil.
But that’s not all.
Ethics is also the search for the basis of obligations and the objectives of
actions.
It proposes a discussion of of the rules as they exist.
Ethics is thus more embodied in real situations.
It doesn’t try to simplify reality or to relate it
to indisputable categories or to mask its complexity.
This distinction is perhaps still too abstract.
Let’s try to give an example.
In medicine, we often refer to the Latin phrase
“primum non nocere”,
which establishes an important principle for doctors:
first, do no harm.
It doesn’t appear in the Hippocratic Oath, but in another text
by Hippocrates, a treatise on epidemics.
Faced with disease, one should keep two things in mind:
doing good, or at least doing no harm.
This quote has been
at the forefront of medical training since the 19th century,
and has been increasingly concerned with ethics.
So here we are with a very simple principle
easy to understand, and to which it’s normal to adhere.
First, do no harm.
We see a distinction emerging between what is right and wrong,
since the term “harm” is clearly related to evil.
So, it's almost like saying:
first, do no harm,
not to make the patient's condition worse than it already is.
This principle is therefore related
to morals in terms of the distinction we’ve begun to establish.
It gives is the objective of the action, what we are trying to do above all,
to not harm the patient, not worsen his or her health.
This discourse has a very general scope.
Now let’s see if we can
put it into perspective in real life situations.
For example, how can we use this principle
in the situation of Covid 19?
Indeed, at the beginning of the crisis, we started from a lack of knowledge
about the efficacy and risk
associated with various treatments.
At the same time,
the urgency of the situation forced us to take action and care for patients.
But then, how to respect principle of doing no harm?
When the scientific community
organized to set up clinical trials to test various drugs,
the principle we’ve been discussing, doing no harm, was no longer appropriate.
Indeed, either we risked harming
by administering drugs without testing them, without proof of effectiveness
and with the risk that it will worsen the condition of the patients,
or we began preliminary tests at the risk of harming
patients who wouldn’t immediately benefit
from potential treatments.
In sum, the principle of not harming went both ways
because it is too general.
Everyone agrees that the patient should not be harmed.
So we agreed about morals.
But how can we not harm patients, or harm them as little as possible?
For this, we had to discuss ethics.
The drug that has caused the most controversy
was of course Hydroxycloroquine.
In late February 2020,
Dr. Raoult said it was safe and effective.
He based his opinion in many instances,
and defended the idea that not using this treatment
and forbidding its prescription for Covid 19 was unethical.
The response of the Academy of Sciences
and the National Academy of Medicine appeared in the publication
of a communiqué that was entitled “Primum non nocere”,
and which reiterated the principle of not harming
in the much more specific framework
of giving hydroxycloroquine to patients with Covid 19.
This press release reminded us that there is a risk
of harming patients more by using a drug that had not been proven to treat the
disease,
and whose evaluation became more complex or even impossible
if it was used in an uncontrolled manner.
So, without going into details
of this matter, it’s interesting to analyse it with a cool head
by noting that the moral obligation
to not harm, which is universally accepted,
did not allow for immediate translation into action,
in terms of the way Raoult’s interpretation created a division,
at least to some extent, in the medical community.
We can speak in these cases
of a tension between a practice and the objectives that are imposed on it.
The difference we’ve established between ethics and morals
allows us to understand this tension and its dynamic.
Ethical considerations also have the task of
bringing our actions and principles into line through debate
which attempts to take into account the specificities of the context.
Thus, it is rare that a given situation
allows us to be in agreement with all moral principles,
and somehow to always be on the right side in questions of good and evil.
Let’s look for example at a whistle-blowing engineer
who reveals certain misconduct in his own company,
or practices that jeopardize the safety of users.
Of course one can say he did a good thing,
that he acted well, but not that he did good,
because his act necessarily went against certain basic moral principles
of the engineering profession, which he pushed into the background.
These include loyalty
to his or her employer, respecting the employer’s interests, etc.
As soon as it is a matter of compromise
and of debating about opposing obligations - in this case
the obligation to denounce misconduct or security problems,
which contradicts the obligation to respect the interests of the employer -
in this case the engineer can no longer be described as doing absolute good.
The same is true of other ethical considerations like
conflicts of interest when one is evaluating
whether a researcher being paid by a private company,
which is not objectionable in itself, creates a risk that the comments he or she
makes
or the results he or she publishes are no longer objective.
Ethics can also look at
on industrial, military, or state secrets.
We can understand that industrialists want to keep their manufacturing secrets.
But what about a vaccine that humanity depends on for its survival?
Shouldn’t we have an ethical debate about the vaccine for the common good?
Similarly, it is understandable that
the military and the state don’t act completely transparently
in intelligence matters, for example.
But during certain operations
there are reports of torture or degrading treatment
for the human person, ethics enables debate about
the possibility of denouncing these acts.
Finally, in an entirely different context, morality requires an employee to
maintain
good relations with colleagues and the hierarchy.
But if the hierarchy turns a blind eye to abuses, if it does not play its role
in clearing up cases of harassment, for example,
it is clear that the employee does not
have to endure harassment in order to maintain their position at all costs,
good relations which, in fact no longer seem to exist.
We’re in the process of setting up
a distinction between a moral that
creates a fixed universal framework based on the good
and an ethics that opens a debate whose goal is to agree
on notions that are perhaps a little more modest, such as what is nice or fair.
To wind up this important difference between ethics and morals
here is the conclusion of the sociologist Christelle Didier :
“Ethical discourse encourages debate, while moral discourse discourages it.”
Let’s continue this overview of ethics with the notion of values.
What do values refer to?
It makes sense to look at the common meaning of the word ‘value’.
What is valuable is that which is dear to us, or which is costly.
The word implies something precious and sought after,
and the term ‘value’ is positive.
And so, values are first of all ideas or ideals to which people
attribute, or at least claim to attribute, value in a certain culture
or a certain social group.
For example, Fairness, freedom, respect are all notions that are recognized
as good and worthy of being promoted.
Values can be very different, depending on the field we’re considering.
Those that govern political life – freedom, equality, fraternity -,
have little to do with values used in science,
when researchers try to define the values that guide their work.
Of course, there is scientific integrity,
the idea that one shouldn’t falsify data or cheat in general.
But the value of integrity is not specific to scientific activity;
it also exists in the political and even the business world.
But there are also values that are specific to scientific activity,
such as precision
which should guide researchers in obtaining measurements,
more precise instruments, and theories that are
more precise and better in line with the facts.
There is also the scope of the theories that makes one prefer a theory
that unifies many different phenomena
rather than a theory that only explains a small number of phenomena.
For example the theory of universal gravity explains both
why objects fall on earth and the trajectory of the stars.
So it covers a lot of ground.
This is a real value of this theory, a quality that is sought after.
What are some other scientific values?
Simplicity.
When equations are not too complex
with not too many variables that govern the phenomena, rather than
extremely complex theories.
In short,
In every field of human action, we can agree on
the choice of values that it is advisable to adhere to,
because they are like beacons that guide the practice.
In an interview dated 1991, Paul Ricœur, again
writes the following. This is a long quote:
“The status of a value is in fact very particular, and difficult to understand.
Politicians often forget this when they refer to ‘the values of the republic’
or ‘democratic values’.
As if this formula were self-evident and did not raise any difficulty.
The notion of value has a special status for two reasons.
In the first place it combines objectivity and subjectivity in a singular way.
On the one hand, a value is imposed on someone
with a certain amount of authority like something that is handed down in a
tradition.
In this sense, it is not devoid of objectivity.
On the other hand, the value only truly exists if it is adhered to,
as if conviction were the condition that brings it into being.
Secondly, the values are located,
it seems to me, halfway between lasting convictions
of a historical community and the incessant re-evaluations
brought about by changes in times and circumstances,
with the emergence of new problems such as those of the environment,
from the application of biological techniques to being able to control life,
the global economy, etc.
To illustrate this second particularity
of values, one can think of what
a passengers sees through the window of a train.
The landscape unfolds, but its various parts are perceived at different speeds.
Distant horizons move slowly, while what is near passes by very quickly.
In my view values fall between the two.
Too often, in the current debates, we forget this specific position
and dogmatists too readily emphasize the immobility of the horizon,
while nihilists too readily emphasize the instantaneous disappearance
of the foreground, and the brittle character of values.
I believe, on the contrary,
that large political categories are situated between the two.
They don’t go by in an instant.
They are part of the long term.
But they are also fundamentally perishable
and must therefore be continually updated
in order to respond to the very rapid changes of our history."
End of quote.
So, there is in this interview with Paul Ricoeur
essential things that he points out about values.
The first is that the notion of value combines objectivity and subjectivity.
What does this mean?
What is subjective, is what depends on the subject,
preferences of the history, of the singularity
of a particular person. As an individual I adhere to certain values
I am more sensitive to them, I understand some better than others.
But with values there is also a dimension that is independent from the subject.
Everyone can recognize him or herself in these values.
There are shared values
that transcend individual differences.
Ricoeur thus emphasizes the singular relationship
that values have on both
the individual and collective levels.
On the other hand, Ricoeur emphasizes that the notion of values
is part of a certain kind of temporality and anchoring.
They form a frame of reference
that is stable, but not immutable.
Values change over time as our relationships to
class, gender, nationals, cultures, religions, and colors change,
and also as our relationships to technology and knowledge change.
Can people’s values
at the time when the continents had not been completely mapped
really be the same as
in a globalized
and hyper-connected world?
We have this idea of a framework,
of something that allows us to act and to judge according to what is already
there, present and well established, but at the same time,
it is a not too rigid framework that will move with time
and changes of all kinds, particularly cultural and technological.
Hence the metaphor of the landscape that unfolds from the window of a train.
Values are the middle plane, between what we see close up and that goes by
quickly,
so quickly that the nihilist or relativist who places values
on this plan doesn’t pay attention to them any more,
and the background in the distance, with the mountains that do not move
and are what conservatives refer to when they associate
immutability to the notion of values.
The truth is between the two, with values having a certain stability,
but being open to constant and necessary re-evaluation
which corresponds to reflection in ethics.
What can be said about values too,
is that they provide the ideals that guide action.
This allows us to distinguish between values and two other notions:
principles and rules (or norms).
I can say that I have values,
but also that I have principles, that I respect certain rules.
What difference is there between these terms?
The notion of value is the most general,
the farthest from action and its exact context.
For example, autonomy,
health and justice are values the take the form of very general ideals,
but whose implications in a given context are not very immediate.
If we compare them to the notion of principles, for example,
the principle of self-determination, of respect for life,
or of giving everyone his due, we obtain some general directions for action.
Finally, the standards and rules
really determine the action and frame the decision.
Examples include compliance with contracts and free and informed consent.
The word ‘principle’ means a fundamental orientation that inspires action.
The word ‘rules’ calls up something more concrete, closer to action.
Principles are often indeterminate, and allow for a variety of applications.
Rules have precise contents.
The great principles are relatively few and are stable,
while rules can be numerous and variable.
The last concept we will consider is ethics,
a words that refers to all the duties and obligations imposed
on professionals in the exercise of their profession.
These are rules that have been enacted for the primary purpose of ensuring
protection of the public and to mark out the relations
of the professional with the client as well as with his own profession.
This is known as the deontology of
journalism, of doctors, lawyers, the police, etc.
Here, for example,
the first French Code of Ethics for engineers, which was written
quite late, in 1996. Here are some excerpts.
In a section entitled Personal Behavior, we read:
the engineer maintains his culture and his competence
according to the evolution of techniques.
Or, the engineer demonstrates a high level of professional conscience
based on honesty, integrity and a sense of responsibility.
Given that we are placing ourselves in the context of certain professions,
we might wonder what the difference is between professional deontology
and professional values.
In both cases, indeed, it is a question of laying down elements allowing
to guide the action in the right direction, to do things right.
But as we saw with Paul Ricoeur
there are object and subjective components
in values.
That is, even if values are at least potentially collective
and shared, this is only a potentiality,
because it’s up to each individual to adhere to them or not.
Hence, once again, this subjective component.
No one can force someone else to adopt values and adhere to them,
because it isn’t a question of obeying values, but of sharing their meaning.
Conversely, a deontology that is written
often in the form of codes or charters, as we have just seen
among engineers, is an obligation.
As I said, ethics means
duties or obligations imposed on professionals.
So we can force someone
to respect the rules of ethics at the risk of sanctions,
and mechanisms are provided for this purpose
in every professional order.
It’s difficult to ensure that someone will adhere to values
and even more so to force a person to adhere to them.
After having gone through these different notions,
it’s interesting to see how they fit together
when we look through the different ethical theories.
Among these theories are the ethics of duty, or deontological ethics.
Now, the conjunction of these two terms
duty ethics or deontological ethics may now seem surprising.
We wanted to separate morals from ethics
by attaching morals to obligations,
to certain principles that must be respected, while ethics remained more flexible,
more open, and couldn't be reduced
to the framework provided by deontology.
Nevertheless, this is what is called deontological ethics.
They are theories that develop ethics based on principles.
One could say that the proponents
of deontological ethics reason in this way. They say to themselves
one shouldn’t judge the ethical character of an action by considering its
consequences, because good consequences can be
obtained by chance or even through bad intentions.
Therefore qualifying as ethical an evil, warlike,
or purely selfish simply because it led to positive consequences
by the person who carried out the action, is abusive.
So we should seek the source of ethics
elsewhere than in consequences,
in the fact that the person is bound to act in accordance with certain principles.
From this perspective, the right action
is the one that conforms to a principle, and not one that aims at certain goals.
This is how we bring ethics and morality closer together.
Other ethical theories are based on the consequences of action.
We can say that an action is good or fair if it leads to good consequences.
But then, these consequences
can be considered good from various points of view.
There is the individualistic point of view,
selfish, which judges an action favourably when it benefits the person who carries
it out.
On the other hand, altruism attributes value to
what benefits others, without giving much consideration
to the benefit to the person who carries out the action.
Finally, utilitarianism attributes
value to benefits for all stakeholders.
Among the 3 ways of appreciating what a good action is,
the values of a society seem to be
particularly important,
depending on whether they promote individualism
the common good, or the sense of sacrifice.
Without going farther on this ethical theory that we have merely touched on,
we can observe that once they are well defined,
the different key notions of ethics that we’ve described in this course
can be used as pieces of a puzzle, which can nevertheless be complex.
The distinctions pointed out by certain people
don’t exist for others, but there are still strong trends
for characterizing these notions, distinguishing them from one another,
and understanding the role they play in society.