Freedom and Ethics

As I mentioned in the email I sent out a couple of weeks ago, this and future meetings for the time being will be over zoom. You may need to have a zoom account to participate, and the meeting link will be posted 15 minutes before the start of the meeting. Also, spots are limited so if you RSVP, please be serious about attending.

In this discussion we will be talking about conflicts between ethics and personal freedom. These conflicts generally take the following forms:

1. We have or should have the freedom to do something which by general consensus may be viewed as ethically wrong, for example, one may argue one ought not be required to help a mugging victim during or after the crime if one witnesses it happening.

2. We don't have, but should have, the freedom to do something, which perhaps for technical or legal reasons we don't want to encourage, that is ethically right or neutral. Examples of this are whistleblower cases where either a manager may violate their fiduciary responsibility to a company or a state employee may endanger national security by reporting wrongdoing.

3. We should not have the freedom to do something that benefits some because it may have negative results for the rest or when everyone is allowed to do it. Although you can imagine real cases that fit this description, the example I will use is parking on the street. If a few people were allowed to park on the street in a neighborhood, there would be no problem, but if everyone did so then the streets would become congested with parked cars making it difficult to traverse, therefore, one may argue that no one should be allowed to park on the street.

So the question is, when freedom conflicts with widely-held ethical norms, which should take priority: one's freedom or what is ethical? How should we judge when ethics should limit freedom and when freedom becomes more important than ethics?

Word of caution: there is a difference between LEGAL and ETHICAL responsibility! Despite our desire for the law to comport to ethical norms, quite often it does not. What is legal is not always what is ethical, and what is unethical is not always illegal. So I can further ask:

Should we try to bridge the gap between ethics and law? Should we legally allow some instances of unethical behavior while attempting to restrict other actions that we otherwise would deem morally right?

There's a lot to discuss here and this should make for a very lively conversation. And as a reminder, the zoom link will be posted 15 minutes before the meeting. It's been too long, and I'm excited to resume meetings again! I hope to see many of you soon!