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Volume 4 Number 11 May
5, 2006 |
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Think inside the box There are some times when you just have to confront
the issues head-on "Think outside the box," we're told -- until we hear the phrase in our sleep. Some of us even get to go to seminars and workshops where we're challenged to do such things as connect rows of dots in a certain way, a task that seems to be impossible until the instructor shows us how to do it in a way none of us had imagined. Then, we go back to our daily grind and find that even when the bosses tell us to "think outside the box," they really mean that they want us to look inside the box for things they haven't thought of yet. There is always a box, and we're expected to stay within its confines. After all, organizations are made up of boxes, and those who run the organization got where they are by managing the boxes. The only new ones they want are ones they can manage to their advantage, and that is what creates an even larger box. We are expected to stay within that box. But this is only my observation -- over many years of observing boxes -- and is a management or organizational problem, not an ethical one. So, I'll leave its discussion to those who deal with these things. My concern with staying within the lines comes from my little example in the last column, where I posed a situation in which you were faced with the choice of killing one person or allowing three people to die. It was a made-up scenario and was designed to confront you with an ethical dilemma, forcing you to try to construct a principle on which you could act. One reader -- not unexpectedly, I might add -- came up with a scenario in which he would seem to go along, but get the gang leader's gun, hold him at gunpoint, disarm his fellow gang members, and allow the potential victims to escape. He ended his scenario with the query "Or do I watch too many movies?" My answer, as succinct as it was quick, was "Way too many movies." First, on a practical level, a gang leader doesn't get to be a gang leader by letting some rube get the drop on him with his own gun. Success in the streets means you're much smarter than that. Second, I'm guessing that most, if not all, of my readers don't have the "killer instinct." What I mean by that is that the gang members would kill you without a moment's hesitation or a millisecond of regret. They've done it before. It's old hat. You would hesitate, if only for an instant -- probably because you've never killed anyone in cold blood before -- and that hesitation would spell your demise. But, more important, I designed the dilemma in order to focus on the principles at hand. The fact that some people want to wiggle out through a loophole is neither novel nor unexpected. Fortunately -- and much to the chagrin of hundreds of students over the years -- because I designed the problem, I can also constrain it any way I want. So, consider the loopholes closed. Long story short: you have only the two choices. The lesson here isn't so much about the dilemma I constructed, but about life in general. We are often faced with situations in which either -- or any -- course of action is unpleasant. What determines the core of our moral life is how we decide, and the method we use to arrive at the decision. Taking the shortcut, wiggling out through some "creative" solution, instead of tackling the issues head-on may solve the immediate discomfort, but is rarely productive in a moral sense, and can often lead to an even worse situation. Sometimes, you just need to do what has to be done. "Not to decide," as the old chestnut goes, "is to decide." |
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© Copyright 2006 Carlton Vogt |