Cainanite (imported) wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2011 3:20 am
Hi Elizabeth,
I don't presume to speak for janekane, but as janekane and I have had dialog on this subject at some length, and I have read his Thesis work paper on this subject, I'll attempt to respond as I understand his theory, not as he would himself (clearly).
janekane's process involves looking into the past to determine what have been, as the subject defines, "mistakes", and if these events could have been prevented with the knowledge and experience one had at the time. If they could not have been prevented because knowledge and experience had not yet taught us how to avoid said mistake, then it was not a mistake.
For my explanation, I'm going to, instead of using the word "mistake", use the word "harm", because I agree with janekane that the idea of a mistake is itself a fallacy. Though "harm" is subjective, it can and does exist, though in many different forms.
The fact that the information existed to avoid a harmful situation, does not necessarily allow that the people involved, had all the information. There may be an expectation for someone to have enough information to avoid harm, but that expectation does not mean that it was so. The person involved may have had the information about avoiding harm, but not the knowledge of how to use that information. Only when one learns all that is necessary to avoid harm, can one successfully avoid it.
This is where free will comes in. If you have all the information to avoid harm, know how to use that information, and understand the consequences, but choose to act anyhow, regardless of the known outcome, one is making a choice, or a gamble. It is therefore an intent, not a mistake. I took up smoking at the age of twenty-two, knowing it was addictive, knowing what health problems it could cause me. I was aware of the possible outcome of my actions, but acted anyway, accepting the possible harm. I chose to do so to try and lower my voice, or give it a more masculine tone, and to try to use it as a way to control my moods. This was not a mistake, it was a choice and a gamble.
When you worked with your company to reduce workplace incidents that you knew could be harmful, you had to know the most common ways that harm could come to pass, and protect against it. You successfully used your knowledge, and your ability to communicate that knowledge to your employees to prevent harm.
An ethical dilemma might come of that. If you, with all your knowledge and training, and all your efforts to communicate that position to your employees, still had an employee who (for his own reasons) dismissed your ideas, and refused to do what was required of him to act safely and avoid harm, do you continue to employ him? He is making a choice/gamble based on his own life experience and knowledge (perhaps his experience tells him the job won't get finished if he listens to higher-ups, and it is best to do his own thing). If you allow him to continue, you will risk the harm you wish to avoid coming to pass. If you fire him, you cause a harm to this man's livelihood, and possibly his career. If you don't fire him you risk the harm of being liable for his injuries, or the injuries of others, the harm of financial loss to your company, should his disregard of safety be allowed to continue.
In that example you are weighing risk versus reward. But you are also weighing which action will cause the least harm to all involved. I assume you would choose the lesser harm of firing the non-conforming worker, over the greater potential harm to your other employees, as well as the harm to your business, and the profits it would generate, not to mention the potential physical harm to the non-conforming employee himself.
I differ from janekane's overall view, when looking at the justice system. Though flawed in many respects, I view the justice system as society's attempt to minimize harm. The justice system tries to function in several ways.
It attempts to function as a deterrent by adding an additional penalty to any decision, if that decision goes contrary to society's wishes. In theory, if a person knows that a decision could have the potential harm of the decider going to jail, or facing a penalty should the outcome go contrary to society's wishes, then the decider may choose to avoid that outcome. This would be called the deterrent.
Justice also attempts to educate the offender, that they might avoid the same harm or similar harms in the future. This would be called rehabilitation.
Justice also attempts to seek to reduce harm after the fact. Financial compensation to those affected by a crime, protection of a vulnerable person's identity. You get the idea.
Where justice has difficulty is where the deciding person did not have the knowledge of the outcome. In an attempt to keep things fair and reduce the greater harm of all people accused of a crime claiming ignorance, it is a general tenant of law that ignorance of the outcome is no excuse. (I know janekane has more to say on this topic, I hope he stops back to respond.)
In my opinion, Laws exist as society's ethical choice to reduce harm, or have the least harm occur to the least amount of people. Society may choose the harm of sending a person to jail, fining a person, or executing a person, as the lesser harm. The greater harm being to allow the offender to continue to harm society as a whole. They may simply choose to punish (harm) a person, as an example to others in society, to cause others to evaluate their own actions, and change an individual's own risk/reward evaluation against the possible harm of ending up like the punished person.
You might have made a similar choice in your business, if you had the non-conforming worker I spoke about. You might fire the non-conformist as an example to the others, to give them an example of a harm they'd wish to avoid... being fired for not following safety procedures.
All ethical choices produce harm in some level. All choices produce harm on some level, even if we choose to overlook that harm. Even the act of choosing to brush my teeth or not, has harm on one side or another. If I don't brush my teeth, they could get cavities, or fall out, or simply leave me with bad breath. If I do brush my teeth, I waste water, deplete resources, and create waste (empty package of baking soda, used floss, chemicals in toothpaste polluting the water supply, plastic bottle for mouthwash in the landfill.)
Ethics are a conscious way humans elevate simple choices into a decision of choosing the least harm. Ethics are something we do consciously.
One can never decide on a single principle of ethics, this is right, that is wrong, because the term harm is so subjective. Harm can be interpreted as physical, mental, spiritual, financial.
In a more childlike tongue, harm is all the things we call "bad". That, which to us, causes the least amount of harm, is what we call "good".
Leaving aside ethics, take this example. A child is born. This is good. The pain the mother feels during labor is bad. The overall event of a birth is viewed as good, when the good outweighs the bad. If mother and child are healthy and happy after the event, the birth was good, despite the bad of the pain involved.
If everything that is good has some bad in it, then what is good is the result of the greatest reward coming from the least harm.
Ethics = a choice between options, good and bad. Therefore, Ethics = a choice between options which both contain harm, and choosing the one that has the least amount of harm.
Again, harm is subjective, and changes depending on who is observing. To accurately assess harm, one must know the sample size of those affected, and know the consensus among that sample size as to what constitutes harm to them.
There are no mistakes, and there are no accidents, but we can and do choose to avoid what we view as bad. Because our memory only goes into the past, we use our knowledge to imagine the future, and make decisions based on what we desire, or think is good. Or more basically, how we can best avoid the greater harms, based not just on what we know as facts, but also how we know to use those facts.
Free will exists. We can use what we know to minimize harm if we choose. You did with your business. We all make choices all the time. Even deciding not to act, is a choice. We can only do that with the knowledge and experience we have. We cannot be expected to know what we have not learned. When we learn something, we use that knowledge to make our decisions.
Your prevention of "accidents" or "mistakes" is measurable by the harm you did cause, minimal though it may be, and the benefits you received from those harms. Those "harms" were you being forced to take extra time (a harm to perceived speed), purchasing extra safety equipment ( a harm to your daily operating budget), training and education of staff ( a harm to their daily routine). By performing these small acts of harm, you avoided the potential greater harm of someone being injured on the job. You achieved your goal of a safe and profitable workplace. Your efforts were not in vain.
As we can only look to the past in our evaluations, your success is measurable. How did your company perform before you made your changes, and how did it perform after? How does your company compare to another of similar size and composition, that does not employ your safety standards? You can easily determine how much harm you prevented. I outright reject the notion of "luck". What you did took skill and foresight.
You chose something that caused the least amount of harm, and created the greatest amount of benefit. This is how good decisions get made. It seems to me you already have a pretty good grasp of what is ethical, and what is not, even if we don't define it in the same way. You've demonstrated your mastery of it pretty clearly.
