Professions and Ethics
Matt Levine wrote
this article
on the characteristics of professions like lawyers, journalists, data
scientists and bankers. About lawyers, he says, these are their ethics:
“Oversimplifying massively, the basic rule
for a lawyer is that your obligations are to your client, and you have to act
in her best interests, even if that is against the interests of accuracy; legal
ethics is then mostly a set of exceptions to this principle.”
Journalism, on the
other hand, has the opposite set of ethics:
“Oversimplifying massively, the basic rule
for a journalist is that your obligations are to the public, and you should be
accurate even if that is against the interests of the people you talk to;
journalistic ethics is then mostly a set of exceptions to this principle.”
If, like me, you
are wondering how any of this can be called “ethics”, then you’re not alone.
Levine clarifies:
“It is weird to think of them as
"ethics." They are both functional systems adapted to the work
of their professions.”
Bankers have
practices that can’t be considered ethical by any stretch of imagination.
Financial institutions, though, are so money’ed (and hence powerful) that they
ensure no laws ever get framed that make their practices illegal. At worst,
they only get fined by the regulators. And so, after paying the fine, “banks
continue to use it”. Sadly, this is how “ethics” are defined in the financial
sector:
“Ethics, in financial markets, are
not inherent facts of the world that are discoverable by introspection…
What everyone does -- what everyone agrees everyone should do -- is what is ethical.”
The disgust with
the financial sector and its actors is well known. To see the impact of that,
look at data scientists. They usually have 3 career options:
1)
Build
models for financial companies;
2)
Or
build models that might help “cure cancer or whatever”;
3)
Or
build models that help Internet companies sell ads on web pages.
Option #1 evokes
revulsion; #2 doesn’t pay as much; and so data scientists flock to option #3.
Of course, nobody likes to admit to the reason for rejecting #2, and so, says
Levine:
“One of the most incredible feats of
marketing of our century is that the internet companies have convinced a
lot of people that selling advertisements on web pages is basically the
same as curing cancer, while buying stocks and bonds is evil.”
Very interesting. This blog has touched upon ethics points relating to ethics has touched upon lawyers, journalism and finance. I can visualize extensions to practically all human transactions at social level. Finally, it boils down to the same approach that story teller Vyasa dealt with in his famous epic Mahabharata: there can never be dharma discussion without 'looking through the prism' of dharma-sankat! Dharma is a double edged weapon that hurts the holder, as much as it does damage to the 'other' whom on wishes to correct for not holding his dharma properly! Quite a difficult beast it is!
ReplyDeleteTherefore "There is no absolutes as far as morality goes" has been a kind of belief held by Hindu seers from age-old times. That is why the Indic religions never took to the way of the Semitic religions, where morality is all what could be written on rocks like what Moses saw and what became the Ten Commandments, if we were to believe the Bible story! :-)
However, there is one viscous circle in all this: Since everything has "the other side" and flexing every rule is not a possibility but actually the only way of dealing with regulations and ethics and moralities (all those could be given such tags), people seem to actually hold that "all ethics (and their equals) are pointless". Mad survival with the attitude of "anything goes" almost gets accepted; and those who speak of values can be suitably ridiculed to ensure their shutting up! Is that the finish-line then?
I don't think so. There is one fundamental which people are NOT questioning for their intrinsic merit: To give an example :- the purpose of governance is broadly that of ensuring that the needs of the people are addressed and met as far as possible. Further, security in various aspects are to be taken care of. Now, nowhere in the world politics has stopped being a dirty game of self-seeking people, who manipulate things to suit their own interests. Even that doesn't invalidate either the goal or the system and environs that build the checks to prevent the selfish rules getting away with all their wrongs. If media can provide a check against corrupt deeds through fear of public exposure, are we to side with people who want us to believe that media is "wholly untrustworthy and it is all evil and it deserves nothing other than decimation"? That kind of polarized expressions are much in the air these days, and yet, there is fallacy in that line of thought.
All systems, not just political, have the same problem actually: things can never be proper. Because the human mind is behind it all and human mind is the product of the "selfish gene" Nothing can be done about that of course! So, our aim should be to work towards building as good systems as possible within our capability, having in them built-in-checks to prevent or cure the ills. And also, keep it sustaining/growing-better against the odds. That requires systems undergoing changes from time to time.
I suppose all the discussions about ethics are about the same.