1 The Six Pillars and Making Ethical Decisions © 2007 Josephson Institute Citizenship PILLAR SIX.

1The Six Pillars and Making Ethical Decisions © 2007 Josephson Institute

Citizenship

PILLAR SIX

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”The Six Pillars and Making Ethical Decisions © 2007 Josephson Institute

The most important political office is that of private citizen.

— Louis BrandeisU.S. Supreme Court Justice


Citizenship

The duties, rights, conduct and responsibilities of the citizen of a state.


Citizenship

• Fulfill your civic duties.• Do your share.• Respect authority.• Pursue civic virtues.


Civic Duties

Civic duty implies obligations to contribute to the overall public good. It refers to ethical obligations and standards of conduct that establish minimal requirements of ethical citizenship.


Civic Duties Include:• Playing by the rules and obeying the

law.• Participating in the democratic process

by voting, voicing your opinion, paying taxes, serving on a jury, serving on committees, reporting crimes, and testifying as a witness.

• Doing one’s share to protect the environment by conserving resources, minimizing waste and pollution, and cleaning up after oneself.


Playing by the Rules

• Some rules are arbitrary (e.g., youth sports leagues that establish age standards). However, on the theory that the line has to be drawn somewhere, it is a reasonable standard and one that should and does apply to everyone.

• A good citizen follows rules even when they’re disadvantageous.


Obeying the Law

• The vital social contract that makes a democracy work is the agreement that we will be governed by laws.

• Each of us gives up some personal freedom to achieve collective benefits of orderliness, economic stability, personal safety, and justice.

• In a democracy we deal with unwise or unpleasant rules by changing them, not changing our standards of conduct.


Doing Your Share

• Be a good citizen and a good neighbor.

• Care about and pursue the common good.

• Be a volunteer. Help your school and community be better, cleaner, and safer.


Respecting Authority

• Obey those in authority.

• Observe just laws.

• Honor and respect principles of democracy.


Civic Virtues

Civic virtues refer to conduct that is desirable and praiseworthy but not morally mandated.


Civic Virtues Include:

• Running for office, accepting appointments to office, and working for candidates or issues.

• Giving time and/or money to charitable and other social causes.

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Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can

do for your country.

— John Fitzgerald Kennedy35th U.S. President


Breaking the Law

There are many reasons why we find it easy to break certain laws (especially when the chances of getting caught are low):

• We don’t understand the purpose behind it so we dismiss it as silly or petty.

• We understand the purpose but still think it’s dumb.

• We understand the purpose and agree it’s sensible, but we don’t want to pay the price of compliance.


Unenforced Laws

• Enforcement policies don’t determine a law’s validity.

• Lack of enforcement, however, lulls us into a sense of false security when we think “everybody does it.”

• Lack of enforcement may simply reflect a shortage of enforcement resources or a temporary shift in policy.


Ethical Legalism

A common source of ethical insensitivity is a legalistic attitude that says if an action is legal or within a set of rules, it’s acceptable and therefore ethical.

This explains why so many people accused of wrongdoing hide behind technical interpretations of the law. They boast that they weren’t indicted or convicted, as if that clears them of ethical impropriety.


Ethical Legalism

Although law abidance is one aspect of the ethical obligation to be a responsible citizen, laws and rules establish only minimal standards of propriety.

They tell us only what we’ll be punished for doing. They don’t describe what we ought to do.


Compliance Programs

Many company ethics programs are called compliance programs because they focus on the employee’s duty to comply with laws and organizational codes.

In most cases this produces a “do what you have to do” mentality that disregards the ethical implications of conduct and treats standards as obstacles to be overcome or avoided. Soon, doing “what we can get away with” becomes the goal.


Compliance Programs

• One can be dishonest, unprincipled, untrustworthy, unfair, and uncaring without breaking the law.

• Ethical people and companies measure their conduct by their adherence to core ethical values rather than to laws and rules. They don’t walk the line of propriety.

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Compliance is about what I must do. Ethics is about what I

should do.

— Michael Josephson


Civil Disobedience

As important as it is to a community that people honor and obey its laws, it is sometimes morally justified to break a law under the doctrine of civil disobedience.


Civil Disobedience

There’s a distinction between just and unjust laws. Under certain circumstances, willful defiance is morally justified in order to protest an unjust ordinance.

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One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly,

lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a

law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the

highest respect for the law.

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.“Letter from a Birmingham City Jail,” 1963

1 The Six Pillars and Making Ethical Decisions © 2007 Josephson Institute Citizenship PILLAR SIX.

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Transcript of 1 The Six Pillars and Making Ethical Decisions © 2007 Josephson Institute Citizenship PILLAR SIX.