Leadership and Ethics Lesson # 2 We haven’t taught you any real answers, we have only taught the skills you need better to seek your own answers.” Admiral.

Leadership and Ethics

Lesson # 2

We haven’t taught you any real answers, we have only taught the skills you need better to seek your

own answers.”Admiral James D. Watkins

Leadership and Ethics

A Leader is:

• A person that leads• A person who directs a military force• A person who has commanding authority or influence

Leadership and Ethics

Father of our Navy said a leader should be...

“ the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness, and charity.

No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention or be left to pass without its reward, even if the reward is only a word of approval.

Leadership and Ethics

He should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate, though, at the same time, he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetence, and well-meant shortcoming from incompetency, and well-meant shortcoming from heedless or stupid blunder.”

Father of our Navy John Paul Jones

Leadership and Ethics

“Moral means what is right”

“You cannot live in two different worlds, but rather must meet the same standards in both your personal and your professional life, for without a high sense of moral responsibility you may have achieved by your personal example in other areas.”Admiral de Cazanove

Leadership and Ethics

“Power can be delegated but responsibility cannot.”Admiral Nakamura

“An officer must consistently do the right thing, even if this is not always easy.”

“Moral responsibility and ethics can be viewed as a pyramid.”Admiral de Cazanove

Leadership and EthicsLegal & Moral Ethics

“What separates the moral person from the rest is that the

moral person makes those decisions based on his or her

conscience.”Admiral Watkins

•People may not agree on what is precisely meant by “good” and “evil”

•Laws are made to guide us

Leadership and Ethics Legal & Moral Ethics

We cannot live our lives as naval officers and be pacifists in the strict definition of the word.

Pope Paul the sixth:“As long as man remains the weak, changeable and even wicked being

he often show himself to be, defensive armaments will, alas, be

necessary.”

Leadership and Ethics Legal & Moral Ethics

• Roman Catholic Vatican II Council observed:

“All those who enter the military service in loyalty to their country should look upon themselves as custodians of the security and freedom of their fellow countrymen; and when they carry out their duty properly, they are contributing to the maintenance of peace.”

Leadership and EthicsMoral Reasoning

Every human being engages in moral reasoning.

Consequences for actionsBasis of felt obligations– Promises

– Oaths

Everyday morality is not systematic

– What do we value?– Why do we value it?

Leadership and EthicsMoral Theories

Attempts to more fully articulate our everyday moral thinking.

Moral Theories are somewhat abstract…Evaluate our current moral beliefsConsistence in our beliefsProvides guidance for complex issuesComplex decisionsValue conflicts

Leadership and EthicsMoral Philosophers

Traditionally they have three main categories

• Agents (persons) What makes a person vicious or virtuous?

• Actions Which actions are right, which wrong?

• Consequences which consequences are good, which bad?

Leadership and EthicsThe Ring of Gyges

Lets consider the story “The Ring of Gyges.”

Do you think that all people would act in the same way if given the

ring?

Leadership and EthicsThe Ring of Gyges

Why be Moral at all?

If we can lie and steal with impunity then why be moral?

If our deeds sometimes go unrewarded or even unrecognized, then why be moral?

Leadership and EthicsTrying Out One’s New Sword

• Moral isolationism– Strange cultures

• separate societies• sealed units

1. Does the isolating barrier between cultures block praise as well as blame?

2. What is involved in judging?

Leadership and EthicsCulture Relativism

Many people in contemporary society are inclined toward relativism - roughly, the view that there is no objective truth in morality, right and wrong are only matters of opinion that vary from culture to culture, and possibly, from person to person.

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

Descriptive relativism claims that members of different cultures have different moral beliefs.

Normative relativism claims that the truth of moral beliefs depends upon particular cultures, such that the belief that cannibalism is right can be true for culture A but false for culture B.

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

Normative relativism has some rather undesirable implications:– it prohibits us from ever morally

condemning another culture’s values and practices;

– it suggests that we need look no further that our own culture for moral guidance;

– it renders the notions of moral progress and moral reform incoherent.

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

Frame work for Ethical Decision-Making

1. Identify the problem.– Be alert; be sensitive to morally charged

situations.– Gather information and don't jump to

conclusions.– State the case briefly with as many of

the relevant facts and circumstances as you can gather with the decision time available.

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

2. Specify feasible alternatives.

– State the live options at each stage of decision-making for each decision-maker.

– You then should ask what are the likely consequences of various decisions.

– You should remember to take into account good or bad consequences not just for yourself, [your squad or company], but for all affected persons.

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

3. Use your ethical resources to identify morally significant factors in each alternative.– Principles

• Respect for autonomy• Don’t harm• Do good• Be fair• Moral models• Use ethically informed sources• Context• Personal judgments

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

4. Propose and test possible resolutions.

– Perform a sensitivity analysis. – Impact on others’ ethical performance? – Would a good person do this? – What if everyone in these

circumstances did this?…– Does it seem right? Are you still

satisfied with your choice?

Leadership and Ethics Culture Relativism

5. Make your Choice.

– Live with it

– Learn from it. This means accepting responsibility for your choice. It also means accepting the possibility that you might be wrong or that you will make a less than optimal decision. The object is to make a good choice with the information available, not to make a perfect choice. Learn from your failures and success.

Leadership and EthicsYour Moral Values

1. What are our own deepest moral values?

1a. What qualities do you look for in others

people as well as in yourself?1b. Are these values you think everyone

shares, or are some of your values ones that you feel are not always observed by our culture as a whole?

1c. How have your values changed, if at all?

1d. What influenced their development?

Leadership and Ethics2a. Why do you think people are

moral ?

2b. Is it because they fear punishment or ostracism?

2c. Is it because they believe that they should always do the right thing just because it is the right thing?

2d. Is it because they believe they are

following “higher” orders?

Leadership and EthicsIssues

3a. What is the moral issue that you are most undecided about?

3b. Describe the pro’s and con’s in regard to this issue.

3c. How do you go about arriving a decision when it is unavoidable?

Leadership and EthicsEthical Problems

4a. Is telling the truth more important than avoiding harm to others?

4b. Why or why not?

Leadership and EthicsEthical Problems

5a. Suppose you cold save one thousand people from certain death by killing a single innocent person.

5b. Would that be permissible?

5c. Why or why not?

Leadership and EthicsEthical Problems

6a. Imagine that 5 of our shipmates are ill and you own all of the drugs they need to be well. Are you obliged to give them the medicine?

6b. What if you only had enough to cure two of them?

6c. How would you decide what to do?

Leadership and EthicsConstitutional Ethics

Reading assignment:

Chapter two: Constitutional EthicsCases:

General Longstreet and the Constitutional Paradigm by Cdr. Larry Galvin

The First Principle by Dr. Aine DonovanA general; salutes by quitting by

Richard Newman