Morality and Ethics

 Why is it said that the graveyard of politics is littered with principled men? …

Whatever forces may be in play to attempt to change a powerful and hardened status quo are typically compelled to proceed at their own peril.  President Eisenhower had resisted the change in the law integrating the nation's public schools, the 1954 US Supreme Court's landmark unanimous ruling, as not involving a great moral issue.  Sometimes, that is the way the issue of change is ultimately portrayed.  That is, does the particular situation involve a moral issue which is at stake, or not?  If so, typically, change may be more likely to occur than not.  Otherwise, forget about it.  But it is important to take note that the word is often used as a default argument, when one is trying to articulate the need for change.

We ordinary citizens have all heard the expression: “I can’t do that – it’s the principle of the matter!”  As a lawyer who spent a good deal of time in the courtroom arguing contested cases, if I had a dime for every time I had to defend someone’s principles, I’d be a rich man.

When one thinks of morality, one must also think of ethics.  And the definition of ethics must include the idea of obedience to the unenforceable.  Woodrow Wilson, the highly principled man that he was, once said that “there is a higher law than profit” and that people “should be broader-minded to see what was best for America.”

The political process involves compromise.  But the compromise of principle often comes at the expense of conscience.  Sometimes, particularly when the stakes are greatest, the choice is not pleasant.  For these reasons, it is said that the graveyard of politics is littered with principled men.  Who does that leave us with?

A revealing story about ethics involves the somewhat familiar tale of a man who finds a lost wallet on the sidewalk.  Like a majority of ordinary citizens, the man had a good job but had virtually nothing to spare, once all the bills were paid, until the next paycheck.

Picking up the wallet, he put it in his coat and continued on to work, examining its contents as soon as he got there.  At around $600 in cash, he stopped counting.  His first thought was that he had won a mini lottery.  But he quickly dismissed that foolish notion.  The man called the owner to tell him to come by to pick it up.  The owner spoke gruffly, however, unlike what one might expect from a man whose wallet had just been found.

The owner did come by later that afternoon, turning out to be an older, white man with a permanent scowl.  The man handed the owner his wallet, and the owner immediately began counting his money.  Audibly irritated, the man said it was all there.  The owner stopped counting, grudgingly pulled out a $5 bill and handed it toward the man, who refused to accept it, stating that he hoped the owner would return somebody else’s wallet someday.  The owner turned on his heel and stalked away without uttering another word.

The man learns two valuable lessons from that experience.  The first is as familiar as it is simple: Honesty is what you do when no one is looking.  The second is perhaps more important, and more relevant, described as the defining moment in the man’s ethical development: A need, however great it might be, does not convert wrong to right, or bad to good.  The owner’s wallet was not his, no matter how much the man needed the money, or how rude the owner happened to be.  The man later became a member of the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court.  The Hon. Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas often had occasion to remind himself in years to come that self-interest isn’t a principle --- it’s just self-interest.

One of Clarence Thomas’ heroes, the late Bobby Kennedy, had said that it was really a moral issue, the continued prosecution of the Vietnam War, against the increasingly violent street protests of the younger generation calling for its end.  The truth is that the US had expended more ordnance on the tiny Asian nation of North Vietnam than all the participants in World War II against each other, combined.  This inspired R.F.K. to pose the following question: “If we bomb every square inch of North Vietnam to rubble, then what exactly have we saved it from?”

Bobby Kennedy had been inspired by the message conveyed in Dante’s Inferno: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”  And so, using an argument inspired by morality, he changed his position on the Vietnam War.  Such can be the power of morality to nudge the immovable object.

-Michael D'Angelo