'Moral clarity' and you

I took two weeks off over the holidays and did nothing. No traveling. No large gatherings, except for gathering my thoughts. For the first time in a long time, I was just able to lie around and think. For a philosophy buff like me, that's both a luxury and a danger.

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Sometimes, I tend to think too much and things that had appeared simple before just seem complicated. When I went to grad school, I had some pretty firm ideas on ethics and felt that I stood on solid ground. After I had finished my first year, I was frustrated because the things that had seemed so simple had become more complicated. I felt that instead of getting smarter, I was getting dumber.

It's at times like this that "moral clarity" begins to sound appealing. Moral clarity, as an attribute, has been thrown around lately and is quickly becoming one of the top 10 overused cliches of the decade. Politicians claim to have it. Some people think some preachers have it. The talking heads on the TV discussion shows act as if they have it. But no matter how appealing it seems and how prevalent it has become, I don't like it at all.

One of my favorite moments in teaching medical ethics was when a student in the front row slammed her book shut and moaned, "The trouble with this is that there isn't any black and white. It's all grey." She was near tears, but I was thrilled, because she had just had what psychotherapists would call "a breakthrough." She realized that simplistic formulas rarely do the hard work necessary for difficult cases.

My main problem with people who have "moral clarity" is that usually it means they have stopped thinking about the problem. They have reached a conclusion that fits nicely with their other preconceived conclusions and they ignore or rationalize away all the loose ends of their often untenable position. They don't want to think about it any more because if they start to chip away, they're afraid the whole house of cards will come down. At the core of this is laziness.

I taught for a while in Salem, Mass., and as I took a shortcut to school for class, I passed the place where the religious elders with their moral certainty hung hapless people as witches. They were certain of their moral imperative, but we now know that the trials and hangings had more to do with property disputes among townspeople than it did with witchcraft. Even though the city had built a playground on the spot, I still got a chill, thinking of those poor souls who were sacrificed there to "moral clarity."

I countered my students' own "moral clarity" by making them, when they were arguing a case, present the opposing viewpoint and then refute it. And I wouldn't let them shortchange the opposition either. There could be no "straw men," no caricature presentation of the other side's arguments. They had to present the other side as well as they presented their own.

Although at first they found this difficult, primarily because it meant more work, later on it helped them come to conclusions that they could more easily defend and with which they were more comfortable.

I often find that when people are in the grips of moral certainty they have trouble adapting their beliefs to situations that aren't cast in black and white, as most are not. In fact, the black-and-white situations are so few and far between that they're of little help at all.

One way I used to enlighten students (my view) or torment them (their view) was with the famous "trolley and transplant" cases that have a prominent place in the ethics literature. I didn't make these up but have freely adapted them from other authors, most notably the ethicist Judith Jarvis Thompson.

In the first case, imagine that you're a trolley driver. As you come over the crest of a hill, your brakes fail and, at that moment, you notice a group of five workers on the track ahead. Because of the steep walls where they are working, they can't escape. Nor can you stop. They are doomed. However, there is a siding onto which you can divert the trolley to save the five workers. The only problem is that there is one worker on that track and circumstances prevent his escape.

Would you turn the trolley to save the five workers, even if it meant the death of the one? Most people say they would. Some try to say they wouldn't, but it's not a popular or very supportable choice. The main argument is that it's better to minimize the number of deaths, what we call a consequentialist approach. Most people are pretty clear on this -- moral clarity.

In the second case, you are in a hospital in a remote location. There are five patients, all of whom require various organ transplants to survive. All are unconscious and will die by the end of the day. However, there is also one patient who has no family and who is currently unconscious and is expected to remain so for several days, at which time there is a 100 percent chance of recovery. Someone determines that he is a perfect match and can provide all the organs necessary to save the five others.

For sake of the argument, you are certain of all outcomes, and because of the remote location, there is no other chance of saving the five unconscious patients. You are the person who must make the decision. Would you authorize the transplants that will take the life of one person to save the five? Most people, as I assume you do, say they will not.

Their justification for this is that it's wrong to take the one person's organs -- and thereby kill him -- no matter how many lives you can save. This is called a deontological position, in which the rightness of the action, not the amount of good, determines the ethics.

Now I know I've constrained a lot of variables -- and some people complain about this -- but it's no different than any laboratory experiment in which you control most of the variables in order to focus on those you are studying.

The question is how you can reconcile the seeming disparity. The cases are disturbingly similar. In each case, there are five people who, through no fault of yours, are in danger of death. In each case, you can prevent the five deaths by killing one person. Yet, most people have completely different reactions, coming up with opposite answers in each case. What ever happened to the great "moral clarity" that seems to be afoot in the land.

If you have an answer, let me know. I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, I'll still continue to think and I'll still continue to be suspicious of those who claim to be in the thrall of self-described moral clarity.

Carlton Vogt is a senior editor at InfoWorld. Contact him at ethics_matters@infoworld.com and log on to his forum at www.infoworld.com/forums/ethics .