Trammwerk
15-04-2005, 19:39
Sure, I could post it... I have a really stuffy way of writing, and I didn't get a chance to edit it, though. I hope it fits:
How do the ethical principles and theories that human beings have developed and used for millennia apply to the freedom of speech and press that is so highly valued by the United States? In order to answer this question, we must first ask which theories will be used in our analysis; in this text, we shall examine how the ethical theories of Utilitarianism, Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Natural Law Theory, Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics and Symphonology apply to this question. In order to further contribute to our analysis of the question, we shall create a hypothetical situation with which we may more accurately explore how each ethical theory would deal with the question in a real-life setting. The hypothetical situation is this: A columnist on a college newspaper writes a column praising the American Nazi party and arguing that the security of the United States depends on the elimination of Jews, blacks, and Catholics from positions of importance and influence. Someone on the staff notifies the dean of student affairs that the column is scheduled for publication, and the dean forbids the editor to publish it. Using the ethical theories listed above, we shall examine what the right thing to do would have been if we had been the dean. Included in this analysis will be a brief summary of each ethical theory so that the reader will better understand with what standards we are analyzing the situation. I shall then include a summary of my own thoughts on the matter.
We shall begin with Utilitarianism. Developed by John Stuart Mill and later Jeremy Bentham in England, Utilitarianism seeks to maximize the “utility” and minimize that which contributes to suffering in society. “Utility” itself is an ambiguous term that has been reinterpreted through the centuries; however, it is generally agreed that Epicureanism’s goal of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is essentially what is meant by the concept of “utility” in Mill and Bentham’s philosophy. The Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson described Utilitarianism as “based on the principle of utility which proposes that if in a situation where one is faced with a moral choice one should do that which results in the greatest number’s happiness.” This is an accurate description. Utilitarianism itself is concerned with two types of actions: those which are positive and those which are negative. Positive Utilitarianism focuses on producing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number while Negative Utilitarianism focuses on encouraging the least amount of evil or harm, or at least preventing the greatest amount of harm for the greatest number of people. Another division, Rule Utilitarianism, which states that the best act is the one that, if used universally throughout society, would yield the most good for society, is generally applied to each Utilitarian act in order to promote universality.
If the dean of the college had applied the principles of Utilitarianism, he would not have taken action in the matter of the pro-Nazi article in the college newspaper. Instead, he would have allowed the article to be printed in the newspaper without any input on his part; the article does not cause pain, nor does it cause pleasure. It is an intellectual pursuit that an autonomous human being is free to consider or ignore as best pleases him; the actual content of the article, because its effect is entirely subject to the condition of the reader, is irrelevant. What is relevant is the utility of the writer of the article; this “utility,” or the happiness of the writer, would certainly be damaged by the restriction of his free speech imposed on him by the dean. Finally, when applying Rule Utilitarianism to this particular situation, we find that it is indeed wrong to suppress the legitimate exercise of free speech and the freedom of the press in situations in which you, who have the authority to do so, simply disagree with the content of the speech in question. If everyone with the authority to suppress the content of speech did so simply because those persons disagreed with the spirit of that speech, then free speech could not exist; authority would suppress anything perceived as seditious or objectionable, and speech would become a matter of aligning oneself with the thoughts and beliefs of authority, effectively destroying the very concept of Free Speech.
Next, we shall examine the situation through the eyes of Immanuel Kant, the 18th century philosopher. Kant developed his philosophy in three separate works: the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, and the Metaphysics of Morals. In it, he described the concept of the Categorical Imperative, which to Kant could be thought of in three roughly similar fashions: 1. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” 2. “Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” 3. Because reason is the source of moral law, and all able-minded human beings possess the ability to reason, then all human beings have the ability to determine what moral law is without an external reference and to impose it on themselves willingly. Behind these three forms of the categorical imperative is Kant’s belief that the only morally good action is one which is motivated by “the good will.” This was the idea of a human doing something simply because it is the right thing to do; inclination – one’s tendency to commit certain acts for certain reasons, such as giving food to the poor because you pity them or being nice to the wealthy because you want them to think well of you – and self interest are two factors which, if calculated into the motivations for one’s actions, make those actions intrinsically immoral, or at least, not morally good. With these stringent standards in mind, one is tempted to say that Kant asks us to do nothing at all, for by eliminating inclination and self-interest, he seems to take away all motives for making any moral decision. He does, however, give us one absolute truth: human beings have intrinsic value by virtue of the fact that they are human. With this value in mind, we are then motivated to act in ways which respect and live up to the intrinsic value in ourselves and in everyone around us. This becomes our primary motivation, channeled through the three forms of the Categorical Imperative. The ultimate outlook of Kant’s Moral theory is a non-consequentialist one; he believed that we have control our motivations and our actions, but absolutely none over the results, or consequences, of those actions. Because of that, our moral worth can only be judged based on the motivation for our actions, as we have no responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
When examining the situation at hand, we are made to look at it through each of the three forms of the Categorical Imperative. The first form asks us to act in a fashion that we would will everyone else to act; this is in effect the same as Utilitarianism’s concept of universality. Here we must again ask whether or not we would will that everyone in a position of authority suppress speech based on the content of it, and again we must come to the conclusion that we cannot do so: free speech could not exist if those in authority – the government, your employers – exercised such tyrannical control over that speech. The second form of the categorical imperative demands that we never “use” another human being, but that instead we treat other human beings as “ends,” or beings who have value in and of themselves. The second form of the categorical imperative, in this case, is not being violated; the dean is not using the writer of the article in any real fashion, but is instead suppressing one of his activities. He is not being used in order to make a point or even to prevent the article from being distributed; the student no longer has anything to do with the article once it has been submitted to the paper. The third form of the categorical imperative is vague in regards to this matter, but it would appear as though the dean is violating it. The third form determines that all human beings are capable of divining moral law independently; if this is true [and by using Kantian ethics, we assume so] then the student who wrote the pro-Nazi article is capable of divining and following moral law on his own, and this article is a result of that. Thus, the dean is interfering with the student’s adherence to his interpretation of moral law, and is in turn violating the third form of the categorical imperative. Overall, the dean would not be able to justify his actions using Kantian ethics. The first and third forms of the categorical imperative prohibit him from taking the actions he has taken, and the second does not even apply to the situation at hand. The matter of value being intrinsically in human beings is irrelevant to the situation as well, as the subject at hand is the suppression of a piece of literature in a newspaper written by someone whom the dean has official authority over. In addition, the matter of judging the situation based on its motives and not its consequences is of little relevance, too, although it is arguable that the dean is violating this part of Kantian ethics by taking into consideration the negative impact such an article might have on the readership of the paper – something the writer has no control over – while ignoring the fact that the writer was writing what he believed was true and patriotic literature. In general, the dean is in the wrong with Kant.
The next ethical theory we shall examine our hypothetical situation through is Natural Law Theory, an ethical theory first proposed by Aristotle. Natural Law Theory is based on a single precept: Never interfere with human flourishing. This single rule is interpreted through three essential tenets: 1. Moral law is accessible to human reason. 2. Moral law is based on human nature. 3. Natural Law Theory is universally applicable. However, there are certain situations in which one cannot make a completely moral decision when applying Natural Law Theory – given one’s choices, one is forced to interfere with human flourishing, whether one acts or does not act. In order to deal with this contradiction inherent in Natural Law Theory, the Principle of Double Effect was developed. This solution begins by asserting that it is sometimes permissible to do that which Natural Law would condemn. In order to decide what the moral choice is, one must begin with a morally permissible effect, and then there must be an intended “good” and a foreseen “bad.” Then, in a classically Utilitarian fashion, one uses the principle of proportionality to determine if more good than bad will result from your action. If it will, then it is the right action.
The application of Natural Law Theory is relatively simple. The dean, if he were using Natural Law Theory, would ask himself the following question: am I interfering with human flourishing by censoring this article? To determine this, he must first keep in mind the three tenets we discussed above. First, moral law is accessible to human reason; because the author of the article is presumably a reasonable, intelligent, able-minded human being, then the dean must believe that the person is capable of discerning moral law and acting upon it. Second, moral law is based on human nature; because the author of the article was acting on his nature, he was acting in accordance with moral law. And finally, Natural Law Theory is universally applicable; as we have discussed, it is unreasonable to allow everyone with authority over other human beings to suppress their free speech while still valuing that liberty. With this in mind, the dean may then decide whether or not censorship, in this case, interferes with human flourishing. The conclusion is that it does indeed do so. In fact, he is doing this in two different ways. First, he is suppressing the flourishing of the literary and journalistic development of the author of the article, content aside. By preventing the author’s words from reaching the audience, the dean is effectively preventing any development on the author’s part. However, he is also preventing the flourishing of the readership of the newspaper. By preventing them from digesting information freely, the dean is preventing the development of intellectual and analytical flourishing in the would-be readers of the pro-Nazi article. Thus, the dean cannot adhere to the principles of Natural Law Theory and still censor the free speech on the parts of the author, the newspaper and the readership.
The next ethical theory we shall examine is Virtue Theory, another ethical standard first set forth by Aristotle. Virtue Theory is, compared to the ethical methods described above, almost entirely dependent on context. The primary principle the individual must adhere to when following Virtue Theory is that of the Golden Mean Virtue, in which one acts in a manner that is the mean of the extremes of deficiency and excess; or, the moderation of one’s actions. The Greeks valued moderation in all things, and this is reflected in this very Greek philosophy. Based on the idea that any extreme is a corruption of human character, Virtue Theory advises the individual to take the middle way, acting neither in excess nor in deficiency. In order to better define what one should be moderate in, exactly, Virtue Theory prescribes five human characteristics which are necessary for moral health and happiness: health, knowledge, wealth, friends, and virtue. While these things, on their face, appear to be things which every man wants as much of as he can, Virtue Theory tells us that one should not have an excess of any of them, for to do so would be to find oneself deficient in another; excessive or overzealous characteristics tend to, in turn, breed bad characteristics in the individual. The individual who is moderate in all things is then prepared to become an “ethical agent,” Aristotle’s ideal of the most ethical human being. The Ethical Agent, who abides by the Golden Mean, is someone who does the right thing to the right person in the right way, for the right reason, to the right extent and at the right time. In this way, Virtue Theory leaves the deliberation of what is ethical or unethical up to the individual, trusting that someone who abides by the Golden Mean will be capable of deciding on his own what is right or wrong in a given situation.
Applied to the situation at hand, Virtue Theory would concern itself primarily with the actions of the dean; the author is, essentially, unimportant in this matter. The question then becomes whether or not the dean is acting as an “ethical agent”; to discover this, we first ask if he is obeying the principle of the Golden Mean Virtue; Virtue Theory would say that he is not. It is excessive to completely censor the article by removing it from the newspaper, just as it would be excessive to permit the article to be printed verbatim. Instead, the moderate choice in this matter would be to censor the most objectionable portions of the article – the excessively racist and pro-Nazi sentiments – while leaving the overall structure and message of the article intact, so that the meaning of the author’s speech could still be inferred by the readership, though not in detail. By creatively deleting certain passages and simply altering others, the dean could effectively come to a compromise between the extremes of authority and freedom. Having established this, it is obvious that the dean cannot be the “ethical agent.” The ethical agent must obey the Golden Mean Virtue as a prerequisite; after that, we ask if the ethical agent is doing the right thing to the right person in the right way, for the right reason, to the right extent and at the right time. Having established that he does not follow the Golden Mean Virtue, however, precludes deciding on this issue; he cannot be doing one or more of those things if he does not obey the central tenet of moderation established by Virtue Theory.
Care Ethics is an ethical theory that developed, originally, as a psychological theory developed by Carol Gilligan in response to Kohlberg’s moral development theories, which established the moral development human beings generally go through, identifying each stage. Gilligan, and Care Ethics, is based on the idea that the moral development of human beings can be based on more than the traditional, abstract concepts of justice, equality, reason, fairness, liberty and human rights that have been developed over the course of European history. Instead, Care Ethics puts forth the idea that personal responsibility, individualism, and action based on who is hurt and who is harmed is a viable way of developing morally. Traditional philosophy asks that we adhere to an impersonal, universalistic method of ethics, whereas Care Ethics concerns itself with the ethics of one’s actions based on the personal connection one has to other human beings; a person living in Istanbul does not have the same ethical standing, for example, as your mother. The criteria of Care Ethics is a series of questions, the answers to which do not determine one’s actions so much as aid the individual in making a choice based on his personal convictions and feelings. These questions are as follows: Who is involved, what is the relationship between you (the person making the ethical decision) and those involved, who can be helped and who can be harmed?
When Care Ethics is applied to our hypothetical situation, the solution is not quite as clear as in the ethical theories presented above. The dean must first examine the criteria for Care Ethics and decide on the answers to them; we shall do this for him. First, who is involved? The dean, the author, the journalists and administration of the school paper and finally the readership of that paper are all affected; however. Next, we ask what the relationship is between yourself and those involved. The dean is obviously in a position of direct authority over the paper, and to a lesser degree, over the author; he also has authority over the readership of the paper, if we assume that they are all students of the same school. The author is affiliated as a student-contributor to the newspaper, and the newspaper provides a free service to its readership. None of these is personal, and the one that is most important – the one between the dean and the newspaper – is impersonal. Finally, we must ask who can be helped, and who can be harmed? The dean is in the position of being able to help the readership by preventing a number of them from growing upset [as they inevitably would] over the article. He is, however, also in the position of being able to harm the newspaper and the author by virtue of exercising perhaps undue authority and restricting their exercise of speech and creativity. After these different factors have been assessed, the decision is left up to the dean; however, due to the impersonal nature of the relationship between the dean and the parties involved, I think the dean could safely choose to censor the article without feeling he has violated any of the principles of Care Ethics.
The final ethical philosophy we will examine will be that of Symphonology. Symphonology is a philosophy based on the idea that each individual human being is inherently autonomous, and so to make any decisions regarding them – that directly or indirectly affect them – one must first strike an agreement about this action with those affected. This agreement between human beings which allows them to make ethical decisions regarding one another is based on several principles which establish when one can and cannot ethically act, and how one can do so. These are called the Bioethical Standards, and are as follows: Fidelity, Beneficence, Privacy [or self-assertion], Objectivity, Freedom and Autonomy. Fidelity, in Symphonology, can be best defined as adherence to the terms of the agreement; it could also be called trustworthiness. When one observes Fidelity, one persists in seeking to gain benefit or avoid harm. Objectivity is a person’s capacity to be aware of things as they are and to be able to act on this awareness; through Objectivity, we make certain that individuals are acting on reason and logic, rather than emotion and inclination. Beneficence requires that the person acting does good or, at least, does no harm; or rather, it is the individual’s capacity to seek benefit and avoid harm. Freedom involves a person’s capacity to take independent action, or to determine their own fate; this is integrally linked to the concept of Autonomy. Privacy might better be named Self-Assertion; it too is linked to controlling one’s own destiny, and involves the control a person has over his own time and effort. If a person does not have control over these things, he cannot adhere to the agreement properly. Finally, the coup de grace of Symphonology, we come to Autonomy. This is a vague concept, but generally involves what makes each of us different human beings, and thus makes it so that each ethical choice we are faced we can have a different result for each different human being; Autonomy makes us unique human beings, but it is also a quality we all share, and so links us as well, making it so that Symphonology applies to all human beings. Symphonology asks that after we have come to understand the agreement, as defined by the Bioethical Standards, that we then analyze the specific situation at hand; this recognizes the autonomous and unique nature of every human being and the ethical decisions he is faced with daily. Next, we are asked to understand people; that is, we are asked to understand the reason, desires and nature of the human beings involved in the agreement that will be affected by our ethical decisions; in doing so, we respect their autonomy. Once these factors are considered, we resolve the dilemma by applying the Bioethical Standards and asking if making a specific decision would adhere to them properly. If not, then we cannot ethically make that decision; however, if so, then we can proceed with a clear conscience.
When applied to our hypothetical situation, we must first ask ourselves if the dean is adhering to the Bioethical Standards by examining each one individually as they pertain to the dean’s actions. First, we shall consider Fidelity, and my assessment is that he is fairly discharging his part of the agreement as pertains to Fidelity; as the dean, the newspaper agreed to acquiesce to his authority whenever he chooses to exercise it as an arbitrary editor and producer. Because the dean is acting through the paper in order to block the author’s article – and the author has an agreement with the paper in which the authority is entirely on the paper’s side – he is fully within his jurisdiction of trustworthiness; he has cross no lines and broken no rules. Next, we examine Objectivity; because it is presumed that the dean has no special affiliation with the author, nor the groups that the author is writing about beyond casual acquaintance or a closer relationship that goes beyond ethnicity, religion or politics, it is assumed that he is capable of making decisions regarding the paper based purely on the responsibility he considers his. He is also in keeping with the concept of Beneficence, as the dean is seeking to avoid all harm – he does no direct harm to the author or the paper by suppressing this particular article, and prevents any emotional harm from being inflicted on the readership. The dean is, however, violating the concept of Freedom on the part of the author; by preventing the author from submitting his article to the paper, he is using his authority to prevent the author – and the paper, as well – from determining his own destiny. The restriction of any action or expression through the use of arbitrary authority is inherently an offense against the exercise of freedom. In effect, the author is no longer capable of taking independent action, as the dean has control over part of his own deeds. Next, we examine the concept of Privacy in the context of our hypothetical situation; here, again, the dean is violating the Privacy, or Self-Assertion, of the article’s author. By exercising his authority over the destiny of the author’s literary work, he has effectively taken control of the outcome of the time and effort that the author spent on the article and, for its purposes, made it void. Because the actions we take are ultimately concerned with the ultimate outcome they will produce, then the dean has indirectly prevented the author from the full exercise of his ability to carry out actions and see them resolved as he intended, at least in this regard. Finally, we come to Autonomy. While the dean has essentially restricted the destiny of the author’s work, he has not restricted the author himself in any direct fashion, and so has essentially preserved the individual autonomy of the author by only seizing control of the destiny of a literary work of his; a minor infraction, but not one that violates the author’s autonomy in any gross fashion. The dean has not exercised his authority (and probably cannot, in this regard) to prevent the author from writing more articles of this kind or submitting them to the paper, nor has he prevented him from desiring those things that he wrote about, nor has he prevented him from trying to live out the message he preached. The dean has only taken control of a piece of literature willingly placed into his jurisdiction by the author. The conclusion, then, is that with the exceptions of Freedom and Privacy, the dean has respected all of the Bioethical Standards, most notably the key Standard of Autonomy. With this in mind, we can safely proceed to the criteria of Symphonology; that is, the dean must now analyze the situation at hand using his personal judgment. Because we cannot know the personal inclinations of the dean, we can only speculate; however, based on human reason and common sense, it is not unreasonable to assume that the dean would find himself completely in the right in this matter. The paper is publicly known to be under his authority, and he has the final say over what makes it into the final print and what does not; if the author did not know this, it was a lack of knowledge that constitutes flagrant ignorance, and the dean is not responsible for this. In essence, the dean has every right to exercise his authority when he thinks it prudent, and in an extreme case such as this, it seems to be just that. Next, the dean must consider those involved in his decision, for as human beings, they deserve to be accorded the respect due to intrinsically valuable beings. He must ask himself if the unique autonomy of the author is being respected here; and in some sense, it is not. The dean is presuming that the author’s words and ideas, as expressed in the article, are somehow offensive and either do not deserve or simply cannot be distributed in his college newspaper. This is a matter of inclination and bias, and carries with it an inherent disrespect for the author’s ideas. In addition, the ability and of the readership of the newspaper to deal with mere words as just that, words, is being disregarded; the dean appears to think the readership has thin skin, or is easily swayed by radical rhetoric in a college newspaper. It is apparent that the dean, thought he ought to be if following Symphonology, is not considering the unique and autonomous nature of all of the human beings involved. Finally, the dean must come to a conclusion in his dilemma; the ultimate conclusion, using Symphonology, is that he is perfectly in the right when censoring pro-Nazi article in the college newspaper. He is respecting all of the Bioethical Standards except Freedom and Privacy, and both of these Standards were willingly surrendered by the author in regards to his article when he submitted it to the dean’s authority. He appears to have considered (if not well, at least he did so) the situation as well as those involved, and he has come to a conclusive decision as to how to execute his part of the agreement between himself and the newspaper and the agreement between the newspaper, the author and the readership.
My own opinion of the matter is based entirely on universalistic principles, similar in many ways to Kant’s first form of the Categorical Imperative. Regardless of the rhetoric contained in the author’s article – and I would note that I have no Nazi sympathies – it is the principle of censorship that I disagree with. Free speech is a natural right, one that every human being is born with and thus should be free to exercise so long as it does not infringe upon others’ liberty; or rather, their flourishing as human beings. The idea that simply because you disagree with certain rhetoric and have the authority to censor it, you have the right to do so, seems a dangerous idea; what if the dean found the advocacy of democratic and liberal ideas to be bigoted and hostile rhetoric? Using the logic that the dean in our example used, it would be perfectly acceptable for him to censor such an article, and while it is unlikely that in America anyone in a position of power in an institution such as a public college would possess such sentiments, it is not completely outside the realm of possibility. Instead, if we are to be able to decide on the truth of a person’s words and become informed human beings, speech and press must be permitted to flourish without laboring under the watchful eye of a moralistic authority. If we sacrifice our liberty on the altar of intellectual emptiness, we could eventually become a people who allow others to decide what is right or wrong for us before we ever have a chance to consider it; and how can we develop as moral, ethical beings if that right is withheld from us?