Part 1
The foundations of ethical maturity
History, philosophy and science
Overview of Part 1
In Part 1 we review the ‘anchors’ on which our theory of ethical maturity rest. These anchors represent what we see as the seven most significant philosophical and research traditions in ethical development. They provide the foundations that underpin the six components of ethical maturity — the central tenet of the book, which we outline in Part 2.
In Chapter 1 we present an overview where we hope to engage the many themes that arise when we begin to unravel the meaning of ‘ethics’. We consider where ethical awareness comes from, and how we begin our journey as ethical beings. We lay out the underlying principles that will guide us on our ethical search, and the foundations on which we rest our understanding of ethical decision making.
A key question for exploration is why people behave unethically. Before exploring ethical maturity further, we want to identify and understand the factors that trip us up, tempt us and make us morally deaf and blind. There are many ways to transgress, whether by omission, ignorance, neglect or conscious planning. We have to understand our own capacity to transgress, and not assume this is always something other people do. In Chapter 3 we present seven traditions in ethical history and trace some of the eras in devising ethical codes of practice. These seven traditions weave their way throughout history, sometimes connecting, sometimes isolated. Each has a pedigree and illuminates some aspect of ethical maturity. All contribute to the bigger picture. You might note some traditions reflect your preferred ways of thinking, while others might offer you new areas to explore.
In Chapter 4 we undertake a detailed consideration of Socrates and Aristotle as ethical guides. Socrates has become our ‘guiding light’ on what it means to be ethically mature—the questioning and curious stance, the honest thinking and critical self analysis, the authenticity of practicing what he preached, the humble stance of ‘not knowing’ as the beginning of the journey to wisdom, and the ultimate in ethical maturity, being prepared to die for his beliefs. Socrates challenged us to think about what constitutes a ‘good life’. Aristotle also explored the territory of ‘the good life’ in relation to what constitutes happiness and flourishing. He argued that to lead a good life we need to be of good character, and that moral character is the basis for moral action. Moral character develops when we are able to work from a virtuous place, rather than from our vices. When it is tempting to keep evaluating the circumstances outside of ourselves — other people, events and situations — Aristotle argues that looking at ourselves is crucial. He moved the moral question from What ought I do? to What ought I be? He also argued that having a teacher guide us in moral development will be crucial as we traverse a life full of invitations to moral temptation. The work of Socrates and Aristotle is thousands of years old, yet their questions are relevant at whatever point in history they are asked.
Over the long tradition of moral philosophy, the roles of subjectivity, emotion and intuition were minimised, if not dismissed. However, feminist researchers from the 1980s onwards have turned our attention to relationships and ethics, and how much of ethics is concerned with being with others and taking them into account. Chapter 5 on relationship ethics concentrates on how ethics often only make sense when we place them within the context of relationships with ourselves, other humans, animals and our world. Relationships and emotions can guide us to better, more effective ethical decisions.
In Chapter 6 we review the current literature on neuroscience and present thoughts that connect ethics and our brain (or brains, as the case may be). We explore attachment theory as the neural basis of morality and ethics, and attempt to connect the ‘three brains’ as the focus of ethical maturity.
We conclude this section in Chapter 7 with an overview of our understanding of ethical maturity and review what maturity means, especially in the areas of ethics and morality.
The chapters do not need to be read in sequence, as you may have more interest in one area than another. In Part 2 we roll out the components that make up ethical maturity.
Chapter 1
Setting the scene
The moral landscape
‘The best way to teach ethics is to live ethically: the best way to teach ethics is to teach ethically: the best way to write about ethics is to write ethically... I believe I am teaching ethics ethically when I enter into a faithful and trusting relationship with you.’
(adapted from Nash, 2002, p. 33)
There are numerous codes of ethics and ethical1 frameworks throughout the helping professions and beyond. In fact, one of the signs of advancement and coming of age in relation to ethics is that professions, and more recently organisations, devise codes of ethics to support and guide their practitioners in doing what is good and avoiding what is harmful in their work. These codes and frameworks usually contain principles to support members to make ethical decisions and, at times, articulate clear, unambiguous directives on what should or should not be done in certain circumstances. However, being paid up members of a profession and subscribing to their code of ethics does not ensure automatic ethical behaviour — all of us are aware of how often we know what we should do without actually doing it. There are also times when we know what we shouldn’t do, and still do it. Furthermore, there are times when we are confused morally and don’t know what to do. Even when we behave ethically, there are times when we are not able to articulate why we did what we did, or provide a coherent explanation of the processes that went into our decision making that resulted in action. We cannot always justify, defend or explain our ethical actions. Even when we can explain what we did and connect it to the guidelines and principles, we may still not be sure we did the right thing—we are not always at peace with the moral decision/s we made. Hindsight, after-action reviews and occasional rumination keep our previous ethical decisions alive for us—it is easy for us to replay them obsessively. From a positive perspective, recall enables retrospective insight that assists us to learn from ethical decisions already made.
In summary, six components are needed if we are to look beyond decision making in ethics to what we call ethical maturity:
1. To foster ethical sensitivity and watchfulness: the creation of ethical antennae that keep us alert to when ethical issues/dilemmas are present. This results in a moral compass/moral character.
2. The ability to make an ethical decision aligned to our ethical principles and our values.
3. To implement ethical decision/s made.
4. The ability to articulate and justify to stakeholders the reasons why ethical decisions were made and implemented.
5. To achieve closure on the event, even when other possible decisions or ‘better’ decisions could have been made. The ability to live peacefully with the consequences of ethical decision making is crucial to ongoing well-being.
6. To learn from what has happened and ‘test’ the decision through reflection. The integration of what we have learned into our lives develops our moral character and extends our ethical wisdom and capacity. Part of the process of developing ethical maturity is learning from experience.
In our view, these six components result in ethical maturity. The development of ethical maturity is the central focus of this book.
We define/describe ethical maturity as: ‘the reflective, rational, emotional and intuitive capacity to decide actions are right and wrong, or good and better; the resilience and courage to implement those decisions; the willingness to be accountable for ethical decisions made (publicly or privately); and, the ability to learn from and live with the experience.’
This conscious learning is undertaken in the service of developing our moral character and capacity, and lays the foundations for future decision making and leadership in ethical action.
We will return to this definition/description later. However, we want to make the point early that ethical maturity is not a ‘done-deal’, a definitive endpoint in a journey, but is an ever-unfolding process. Ethical maturity is not a destination to be arrived at, but involves conscious attention to ethical reflection and the accumulation of ethical wisdom. It is a process of continual lifelong learning.
Drawing on these six components, we will present a model of ethical maturity. Our belief is that this model can be applied in professional fields such as counselling, life and executive coaching, organisational development and supervision. It may have wider uses in other areas where individuals, couples, teams and organisations face issues of right and wrong, good and bad, and good and better such as human resources, business ethics, and even life decisions. We have subtitled this book as—Making Difficult Life and Work Decisions — since discerning the right, the better, or the good action is a part of our everyday lives, and such decisions are based on our abilities to ‘suss out’ the best decision we can make in complex situations. Often we do not have compasses to help guide us in the right ethical direction. Not only do we live complicated lives, but we have to make difficult and complex decisions almost on a daily basis—decisions that require us to have some guidelines to ensure we are on the right moral track. Having said that ‘a considerable body of evidence indicates that people have little, if any, insight into the processes underlying their judgements and decisions. people’s reports on their own behaviour are essentially rationalisations’ (Hardman, 2009, p. 186).
Ethics at arm’s length
Ethics is one of those areas, a bit like research, where most of us know we should have an interest in it, feel guilty about not being more interested in it, and still keep it at arm’s length. For many of us, the topic of ethics was taught as a one-off lecture at the end of a semester’s work, despite the assumption ever after that ethics is crucial in almost every professional step we take. Ultimately, we are informed more implicitly about ethics than we are through explicit dialogue about it (Pope and Vasquez, 2007). Even when provided with opportunities to take the learning further, we do not feel the urgency or the attraction to do so in the face of pressing clinical needs and interests. Allan, Passmore and Mortimer (2011) recount experiences similar to our own: ‘over the past few years one of us has presented several conference papers on the topic (of ethics), while at the same event running workshops on other topics including mindfulness. While the ethics event struggled to draw a dozen participants, the session on mindfulness was so popular it was difficult for the presenter to get in the room’ (p. 161). Ethics and ethical thinking remain som...
