An Ethic of Human Involvement PDF

# An Ethic of Human Involvement Our experience of morality is very complex. We find ourselves challenged by many types of moral obligations that arise from a wide variety of sources. There are values such as loyalty and courage which make demands of us. There is a natural law or pattern that we fin...

# An Ethic of Human Involvement Our experience of morality is very complex. We find ourselves challenged by many types of moral obligations that arise from a wide variety of sources. There are values such as loyalty and courage which make demands of us. There is a natural law or pattern that we find deep within us and which gives us guidance. There are goals in our lives which instill in us a sense of obligation. But besides all these moral demands there is the experience of a particular type of moral obligation which arises because of our involvements. As mature adults we tend to become involved in certain human situations and these situations make demands upon us. ## An example of human obligations An example of such an experience of moral demands can be found in a person's career. Let us say that you are a doctor and over many years you have given yourself to this profession, a profession that has filled your life with meaning and purpose. At this particular moment you feel obliged to study the medical literature which describes certain new medicines that have been developed. This sense of obligation does not come from any general moral principle. Rather, it is your personal career involvement that is making a demand of you at this particular time. ## Second example of human obligations A second example of an experience of obligation might be found in a political situation in a locality. You live in a particular municipality and have come to be concerned about the political situation there. At election time you feel obliged to participate in the efforts that are being made to ensure honest elections. Here you experience a moral obligation arising out of an involvement-a political involvement. ## Third example of human obligations A third example of such moral obligation might arise from your involvement in a school organization. You join a particular club in a school and take part in its activities. In preparation for a school fiesta the president of the club asks you to help prepare an exhibit. In such a situation you feel that you should give some of your time and effort to support this activity of your club. In these three examples we see how moral obligations arise from time to time out of personal involvements. A reflection on such involvements reveal a great deal of mystery. How do these involvements arise? To a certain extent they are under our control but not completely. Involvement with people, groups, careers, and causes gradually develops in our lives without our being fully aware of them. They fill our lives with rich meaning and we are grateful for them. But at the same time they can be very demanding. ## Involvement means a degree of loss of oneself Any involvement means a degree of loss of myself. I have allowed myself to be caught up in something outside of myself which controls me. My career, my community, and my clubs direct my life. In these involvements I am not living as an isolated person. I am involved in something bigger. ## The effect of change on involvements What is also mysterious is how these involvements change in the course of my life, growing either stronger or weaker. I cannot foresee how they will develop. Nor can I foresee the new demands that these involvements will bring into my life. As time goes by there will be new expectations of me, expectations which will surprise me. This can be seen very dramatically in one's family situation. The meaning of my family situation changes through the years as I move from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. My role in the family changes and I am expected to act in a different way. The result of all of these changes is that the moral demands arising out of this family situation will likewise be changing. ## Elements of the Ethics of Involvement ### 1. Prudent Evaluation There are certain peculiar characteristics in this type of moral experience. An ethic of involvement is distinctively different from the experience of "goal" morality or "law" morality. In morality that deals with goals the emphasis is on the goal or the good. The basic question that is asked is: What is the good? Or, what is the purpose of my life? Or, what is true human fulfillment? Once this goal is clarified then what we should do should also be clear. We should choose those means which bring us to that goal. In morality that enters on natural law or values, a different type of moral questioning is employed. We ask: What is the law? What is right? Thus we might ask what justice demands in a certain business transaction or what does courage require when we face something fearsome. We are not concerned with the goal of our activity but with the rules that guide us in what we do. This type of morality tries to clarify these rules and what they demand of us. The moral experience that is found in an ethic of involvement takes a different form. Here the questions are: What is the situation? What is really going on? What is the fitting response to this situation? In this sort of ethic there is emphasis on the need for a prudent evaluation of the concrete, changing situation. As a member of a family you may ask: What is going on in my family? What is really happening here? A doctor may ask: What is going on in my medical practice? A citizen may ask: What is the situation in my country? What is the need that has risen at this time? If we are to respond in a wise manner to a situation there is need of such an ongoing evaluation. Our response to the situation will not be guided merely by moral laws and goals of our lives. We are aware of these laws and goals but they do not give us precise directions as to how we should respond to our families, involvements, countries or, to the demands of our careers. Here we need prudent insight in order to judge "what is fitting" in the concrete situation. A teenager may ask: How should I deal with my parents? Here she is not asking about the moral laws which govern family life or about the overall purpose or goal of a family. Rather she is seeking to understand her parents at this particular time, what they are going through and what they are trying to do in the family. Only when she has clarified for herself what is going on with her parents can she take the next step of judging how she should deal with them. The present situation has to be evaluated and understood fully. This need for a prudent judgment of a situation is found not just in one's personal life but also in relationships between large groups. Labor leaders and company management decide how they should respond to each other on the basis of an understanding of where the other party stands. International diplomacy between two nations likewise requires full information about the situation in the other country and an evaluation of the intentions of that other country. The end, for instance, of the "cold war" between the East and West has forced foreign policy makers to undergo a thorough process of reevaluation of the international situation before they could propose paths of action. ### 2. The Ethical Demand Besides the prudent evaluation there is a second distinctive aspect found in an ethics of involvement. There are demands found in these situations of involvement which evoke a response. There seem to be a law of human life here: once you get involved there will be expectations. You cannot join a club without having to do something for the club. You cannot have a career without having responsibilities to that career. The only way to avoid such demands is to avoid all involvements. Moral demands found in these situations of involvement have certain characteristics. One of them is that they are always changing. The moral demands of a career, for instance, arise out of a changing situation and as a result those demands will change as that situation moves forward. New expectations arise in our human lives as we develop. This characteristic of "changeableness" is distinctive of this type of ethics since, by comparison, the moral demands arising from the natural law or from human values tend to be permanent. For instance, the natural law obligation to respect the life of other human beings is one that will be there at all times and in all situations. Another characteristic of this type of ethical demand is that it is individual or particular. It is not a universal obligation which applies to all human beings but it is something which applies only to that one person who is in the situation. What I feel obliged to do in my family is true only for me at this particular moment of my family life. It does not fit any other person. Because of the individuality of these obligations they make up a great portion of my sense of identity. I understand who I am largely in terms of the personal obligations which are "mine." Frequently this situational obligation can show itself in the form of being needed. In a particular situation I may discover that I am needed in some way. For example, I am walking down the street and an old woman falls down in front of me. Even though I may not know the woman I still feel obliged to help her since the situation demands it. I am needed. Usually, however, this experience of being needed is not so accidental but arises in the context of an explicit personal involvement. For instance, as a committed doctor I sense the need of sick people for my services, or as a dedicated teacher I feel obliged to help students who need my advice or aid. Being needed in life is frequently the source of rich meaning. I may sense, for example, that I have a reason to exist because my family needs me to help support them. Similarly, being with a friend in his time of need may be a deep experience for me. These obligations that arise from situations of being needed may appear to an outsider to be burdens but really are life-giving and meaning-giving for the person involved. We want to be needed even though this need may demand much from us. If we are not needed we feel empty, without anything to live for. We human beings are profoundly social creatures when we live fully. Society is not something outside of us which does not touch us. Rather, when we are involved with someone or some group, this social reality becomes part of the very fabric of our existence. We live, caught up in this involvement, moved by it and responding to it. ### 3. The Future Dimension The moral experience found in a situation of involvement is one that is immersed in all the historical dimensions-past, present, and future. The ethical demand comes to me out of a situation rooted in that past. All of my involvements have developed through time from the past up to the present moment, and I understand the present situation in terms of that development. For example, I live the present moment of a friendship with a sense of all that has led up to this moment. I will interpret the present demand of my friendship in the light of all that has gone before. At the same time any response to a situational demand must take the future into consideration. There is a historical process here that will not end with the present action. What I do now, for example, in a friendship will effect the state of my friendship in the future. Any action I perform now will lead to a further response on the part of my friend and I need to take that into consideration. I cannot just do the "right" thing and ignore the consequences. I have to take the consequences into consideration. If I choose, for instance, to give my friend a certain type of gift on her birthday I must consider how she will react to this gift. Will she like it or not? How will our friendship be affected by this gift? The example of a dialogue sheds light on this point. When I talk with another person in a dialogue my words respond to what has been said but at the same time they anticipate what is yet to come. I am guided in what I say by his expected reply. I may avoid saying certain things, for example, that will make him angry. My words are thus both stimulated by the past and guided by the future. An involvement in a situation can be considered as such a dialogue. I am not living as an independent being who is only concerned with my private welfare. There is a give-and-take in an involvement, a process which continues indefinitely into the future. As I live this give-and-take and respond to a situation, I need to take the future into consideration when I decide what is the fitting thing to do. ### 4. The Response A significant aspect of this ethic is the response. After a prudent evaluation of the situation, considering both what is demanded of me and the possible reactions to what I might do, I respond. Since the word "response" is connected in our minds with the word "stimulus" we may tend to think of this response as something automatic, forced by the stimulus and the situation. But the response in an ethic of involvement is by no means a mere faceless action, automatically performed. The response is first of all an expression of one's true personality. I put myself into my response. I take responsibility for it and all that it might affect. Through it I assume responsibility for the total involvement of which this action is a part. Thus I live that involvement through my response. If it is a matter of a response to a career demand then my act means that I identify myself with my career. "I am a doctor"; "I am an artist"; "I am a teacher." If it is a matter of a response to a social situation then my response means that I identify myself with the social involvement. "I am a friend"; "I am an active citizen." The response in this situation is secondly an act of "dangerous" freedom. I freely choose a particular response when many possibilities are open to me, and I walk forward on a path whose final destination is not clear to me. It is not a question of a simple moral issue which I can judge exactly. I am caught up, rather, in a movement into life where I struggle to find what is the most appropriate response in a particular situation. Neither now nor at some time in the future will there ever be an absolutely clear vision of what the most fitting response should be. So it is that I must dare to live the insecurity of this moment of decision, accepting the responsibility that my choice may not be the best one. Thirdly, the response in this ethics is a way of living and expresses one's spirit. It goes beyond a mere intellectual judgment which seeks correctness and certitude. A prudent and wise action is desired here, of course, but what is sought above all is a generous and full giving of oneself to life. A fully human person is not merely a wise person but someone who lives deeply and with passion. The "spirit" of one's response to the moral demands of one's involvements is all-important since it imparts much of life's humanness and meaning. I can respond in a generous, loving, trusting, courageous way or I can respond in a grudging, timid, cold way. The attitude of one's response determines so much. It is because of the importance of the response in this ethics that it has frequently been called an ethic of responsibility. ## Suffering and Responsibility There seem to be certain major areas of human life where this ethics of involvement shows itself in a prominent way. One such area is that of suffering. When confronted with the experience of suffering we feel ourselves challenged in a very personal way and we face the very real question of how we should cope with this suffering. It is an important moment of truth where we are faced with a moral decision that will determine the meaning of our lives. In such a situation the other ethical approaches do not give much assistance. There are no clear rules to guide us when we suffer, there is no goal to be achieved through suffering. Suffering presents itself simply as a moral challenge for us here and now. As persons we are faced with the real question of how we should respond to it. The various elements of an ethics of involvement are present here. There is need for an evaluation or interpretation. We need to figure out: What is going on here? Why is this suffering in our lives? Is this suffering absurd or meaningful? What is it asking of us? Is it an ugly thing or a blessing in disguise? Depending on how we interpret our suffering, our response will take different forms. There are many possible responses to suffering. We can fight against it, seeking to eliminate it from our lives. We can accept it passively. We can try to ignore it, denying its existence. We can try to escape from it. Similarly, there are many different attitudes that we can assume when we respond to suffering. We can get angry and be impatient with it. We can face it with stoic firmness. We can make friends with it, seeing it as a challenge or blessing. We can blame others and God for its presence. We can face it with hope and trust. We can live through it with faith, believing that our suffering is achieving something. Our lives will be deeply influenced by the way that we respond to suffering, the attitude that we take toward it. ## Conclusion The ethics of involvement is a description of one way that morality presents itself in human experience. When we are involved in a situation we face moral demands that call for evaluation and response. There is a challenge here for a person to evaluate the situation wisely and to respond in a fully responsible and human way. This ethic presents a particular vision of human life-a humanism. It sees us as basically responders who form our lives and our situations by the distinctive way that we respond. This ethic exhorts us to live fully by daring to become involved and by responding wholeheartedly to the challenges that such involvements bring. ## Exercise Reflection on the ethical obligations found in a situation of involvement: **Background.** Moral obligations sometimes appear in the challenges of a concrete situation. We find ourselves challenged and we feel called upon to respond. It is the situation itself and our role in it which calls forth a certain fitting response. **For instance.** * I may have a particular involvement. I may belong to a certain organization. I may be caught up in a particular career. I may be concerned about a particular cause. In such an involvement there are certain things that I feel I should do. This obligation is not there for anyone else. It arises out of my own personal involvement. * I may find myself needed as an individual. Another person may need me in some way; a certain project may require my personal assistance; I may encounter a problem in my community which cries out to me for a solution. In each of these cases I experience a concrete challenge to me as an individual. Something is expected of me. I should respond to this expectation. 1. Give two situations in your life where you feel yourself challenged and called upon to respond. 2. Describe those situations and the sense of moral obligation found in each. 3. Why are these obligations there? Where did they come from? 4. Do these obligations change? Explain. Are these obligations confining or liberating?