“We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.” Plato
I’m returning to the topic of ethics with a deep sense of curiosity about what it means to discuss ‘how we ought to live’.
Many of us will baulk at the idea of the word ‘ought’ in that it immediately curtails, or at least seems to, our freedoms – and in particular our freedom to choose. And yet, if we play out a scenario where everyone simply lived for themselves, we would undoubtedly experience anarchy, chaos and eventual self-destruction as a race.
What, though, if the word ‘ought’ is really about a higher standard, a collective higher standard to which we all subscribe. How might that scenario play out? Here again if we look at Humanity’s journey over the millennia, we can see that the achievement of a greater level of ‘civilisation’ has involved more definition of the principles (laws) by which our societies – national and international – have decided to live. So, by freely adopting the idea of a higher standard we can come together to work out how we achieve that – and what is acceptable to all of us and what isn’t.
The word ‘ought’ also opens the question about some sort of higher authority. Who or what is the authority imposing an ‘ought’ onto our free will? We know from childhood that parents and teachers are excellent at helping us navigate the rights and wrongs (usually). They may use the word ought/must quite a lot to set up the guardrails for our choices.
As free-thinking adults though, where might that higher authority reside? Our conscience. For sure. Our consciousness – yes if we have access to it. Our heart – ideally. The point being that as adults, as leaders, we are called to be in contact with something ‘more’, higher, to help us use our free will in a way that moves us from selfish, self-serving choices to an emphasis on the Common Good – the ‘we’ in the quote above.
So now, as we consider the ‘ought’ we see that we have a point of reference which is ‘me’, and ‘me in relationship with everyone and everything’.
Ethics is the compass, the living fire, the pure light which, if we are open to it, helps us to stay connected to something bigger, often more abstract. Ethics is a sense of what is ‘right’ and the acceptance that our free will is, in reality, the choice between doing what is right and doing something that serves only oneself (potentially at the expense of others).
So, in describing ethics as no small matter Plato is inviting us to see that by opening ourselves to discussions, debates and exchanges about how we best achieve the Common Good we enter the true politics in which we are being asked to go beyond party politics and passive compliance and into stretching and active thinking.
Open minded thinking and debate is vital especially about the things that really matter. Done well it helps us advance ‘how we live’ because we wrestle with the seemingly irreconcilable until a higher point is found – a new point of understanding and a new point of collective agreement.
Yes, ethics can seem to be an old-fashioned topic but in truth it is of the moment – a gateway to defining a new world order that reflects the beauty of humanity and not its worst traits. A gateway sorely needed in our current world.