Does being ethical require obedience and adherence to the
law? Does being moral mean that you
never infringe on the rights and safety of others? Does compliance with the law
make you an honest person? And if any or all of these questions are to be answered
in the affirmative, does that mean that each of us should never break the law,
for fear of being immoral, dishonest or unethical?
It is estimated that ten percent of the population never
will knowingly break the law, 10% will often attempt to circumnavigate those
same rules, and the remaining 80% will, under the right circumstances, bend or
deviate from the law. Three decades ago, a survey in Ontario, Canada found that
nearly 82% of citizens would cheat on their taxes, if it were risk-free, and
38% admitted that they had already done so. That is an enormous amount of
deviance!
But does compliance with the rules make one honest? One individual that I know pushes the
envelope regarding the interpretation of the law routinely, justifying his
mistreatment of others and his habit of maximizing his personal gain at the
expense of others by saying, “If the government thought it was wrong, they
would create a law against it.” Yet, he
knows that his actions cause others to suffer.
One foreign student at the University of Manitoba approached
another student and asked her to write his ethics paper for him. It is difficult to refrain from laughing at
this too-obvious paradox! Yet, in his
culture, the political regime tacitly encourages such subterfuge, by intruding
so aggressively into one’s life that, in order to maintain a semblance of
personal power, people look for creative ways to hide their behaviours from the
government. In his view, the act of
cheating on an ethics course merely was a way to express power. He did not see it as a moral issue.
Then there is the question of whether there are
circumstances where to not break the rules is immoral or unethical.
Last week, my wife needed to be rushed to emergency care at
a nearby hospital. Her condition, as I
viewed it, was desperate, as she tenuously clung to consciousness, her
breathing was shallow, she was perspiring profusely, was pale, and had numbness
down her entire right side. As I sped
along the back roads, exceeding the speed limit, I called 911 on my cell
phone. I continued to use the cell phone
even after I had intercepted the ambulance.
I needed to notify her immediate family.
Using a cell phone while driving is against the law in our
jurisdiction. So is speeding. I potentially placed others at risk with my
aggressive driving, even if I was inside the letter of the law. Yet, if I had not reacted with such speed, my
wife may well have died. If she had
succumbed, and I had not given the family an opportunity to learn of and react
to her emergency, I would have caused them undue suffering.
I determined that, although I was choosing to break the law,
the law needed to be broken in this situation.
I viewed my actions neither as immoral nor unethical. How do you interpret supposedly necessary
breaches of the law? Now, give us an
honest answer, please!
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