Community and Ethics

For human beings to live together in harmony there must be some overall structure which unites us, some form of community. As a community is “regulated by mutual interest,” [i] a shared ethical system is imperative to sustaining this community. Within these shared cultural norms there must remain a certain level of tolerance as well as a necessary appreciation for individual differences and divergent views. However, there is a higher goal, a goal of unity, that the entire organization is striving, or even dying for, an end game which unites them, a unification developed and sustained by a shared ethical structure. Ethics can be looked at as a structure for interpersonal relations. Personal ethics are the same as community ethics in that intra-community relations eventually collapse without them; just as interpersonal relationships do. Community breaks down without ethics. Ethics and community are indispensable to each other. I shall employ selected quotations from John Dewey and Benjamin Franklin and several excerpts from classmates Canvas comments to assist in my discussion of the meaning of ethics, the meaning of community and the necessary relationship between the two.

Ethics are the “vital bonds which hold men together,” [ii] a behavioral structure for interaction among members of a community. They can be described as social ties, a method to regulate the wants and impulses, to indirectly control behavior, both productive and counterproductive, in accordance with the goals of the community. Based on common interests, their values must be in accord with a social consensus on agreed upon values, the behavioral rules that are “communicable and shared by all concerned.”[iii] The function of ethics is to “give direction to the conduct of each” [iv]  member of the community as managing social behavior is one the primary “means by which a scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests.”[v] When Dewey discusses “the search for conditions under which the Great Society may become the Great Community,”[vi] these conditions are described in the context of a common ethics that a society adheres to. Ethics are the “traditions, outlook and interests which characterize a community”[vii] with each member “participating according to need in the values which the groups sustain.” [viii]

A desirable member of a community is “one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods,”[ix] consisting of the socially transmitted ethical rules of engagement. Ethics as described in this manner brings to mind Thomas Hobbes’ concept of “the social contract,” an assumed common behavioral code shared by a community. Ethics maps what is considered right and wrong behavior to some form of repercussion or punishment, be it some type of physical, legal or social ostracization or even being banished from the community, for not adhering to the established behavioral norms. Dewey emphasizes how important these behavioral norms, these habits of both action and opinion, are to both individual and social human behavior, that “habits bind us to orderly and established ways of action.”[x] He further elaborates that “habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative influence. It alone is what keeps us within the bounds of culture.” [xi] He submits that the idea that man makes decisions based on reason alone is a fallacy, that personal desire and belief are mainly functions of custom. The proposition that man’s actions are dictated “by an intelligent and calculated regard for their own good is pure mythology.” [xii] Habitual behavior is ingrained upon us and we generally act according to custom and convention. As classmate Max Bell posted in a Canvas comment, “these codes give us a guideline to live life in a way which we will be appreciated by people, and act inherently good.”[xiii]

The goal is for the adherence of ethics to become habit, “the mainstream of human action” [xiv] which is “formed for the most part under the influence of the customs of a group.” [xv]  These habitual attitudes which affect human behavior are the shared ethics of a community. Dewey proclaimed that ethics “are habits acquired under the influence of the culture and institutions of society.”[xvi] They must be learned; they are not inherent to human nature. Ethical habits “instigate fear to walk in different ways,”[xvii]  thus abetting in individual compliance and “thinking itself becomes habitual along certain lines,” [xviii] ethical lines. Thus ethics is a form of social conditioning in that it shapes the way members of a society actually think and make decisions.

Benjamin Franklin would agree with Dewey’s assessment on the benefits of developing moral habits as evidenced by his goal for developing his own ethical structure, his “intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues.” [xix] As Franklin mentioned in his autobiography, “habit takes advantage of inattention and inclination sometimes too strong for reason.”[xx] This is similar to Dewey’s view that “men’s conscious life of opinion and judgement often proceeds on a superficial and trivial plane.” [xxi] These opinions and judgements are formed and established unconsciously via the shared ethical structure, thereby unknowingly affecting all decisions by the members of a society. Ethics forms the basis of “personal desire and belief functions of habit and custom”[xxii] and are formulated, created, “set by habits reflecting social customs.” [xxiii] Ethics involves “the perfecting of the means and ways of communication of meanings so that genuinely shared interest in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort and thereby direct action.”[xxiv] If an individual wants to be a member of a community, he has a responsibility to adhere to agreed ethical behavior associated with that society.

Ethics are not static, they must be continuously revaluated as “only continuous inquiry, continuous in the sense of being connected as well as persistent, can provide the material of enduring opinion about public matters.”[xxv] Ethics are not universal. Different society’s follow different ethical behaviors. Can societies that follow different ethical behaviors achieve sustained peaceful relationships? As Rousseau points out, the idea that “commercial exchange would bring about such an interdependence that harmony would automatically result” [xxvi] is a fallacy, in that the actual result is that “the stronger and abler to exploit others for their own ends, to keep others in a state of subjection.” [xxvii] Although Rosseau’s remedy for this negative outcome is isolation, which is not possible in a community environment, adherence to a shared ethical rule structure may mitigate this otherwise inevitable occurrence. In order to act flexibly with other communities, a common ethical structure must be adhered to.

Is globalization even possible without common agreement on the structure of ethical behavior? Can individuals that follow different ethical behavioral structures achieve sustained peaceful relationships? If the answer is no, why should we expect societies to do so? Which is why Dewey suggests that “the problem is a moral one.” [xxviii] The answer to this moral problem is “dependent on the intelligence and education” [xxix] of the community in the adherence of a shared ethical structure. Franklin would agree with Dewey on the importance of moral principles. In fact Franklin developed his own ethical system which can be found in his autobiography. As classmate Dustin Hampton explained, “Benjamin Franklin describes an ethical code that involves thirteen principles which are to be approached successively.” [xxx] Franklin developed this list of moral virtues, ethical instructions for himself to adhere to as an alternative to those dictated by the dogma of religion, which he found non-applicable to his purported utilitarian life view. He mentioned that he found the ethics of religious dogma “very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforc'd, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens." [xxxi] The ‘good citizens’ that Franklin refers to are those individuals that make up a community.

Dewey thinks that man is not just an isolated and passive participant in nature, man is a social creature in a common cultural environment in a “manifold association with others.” [xxxii] He proclaims that acquired habitual behavior is what allows us to interact, communicate and cooperate as an integrated organism, a community. Dewey provides a somewhat lengthy definition of community as a “conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and where the realization of the good is such as to effect an energetic desire and effort to sustain it in being just because it is a good shared by all.” Communities are able to “develop into societies in a human sense only as their consequences being known, are esteemed and sought for,” [xxxiii] these consequences defined by the ethical rules of behavior. The “perception and communication of consequences” [xxxiv] of not following the ethical behavior must be severe enough any prevent individual actions that have negative implications for the community as a whole. A direct result of adhering to these ethical rules of behavior is that “community life is moral.” [xxxv] and that ethics is a constituent element of community, "the clear consciousness of a communal life.” [xxxvi]

Community and ethics are inextricably linked as the existence of shared ethical systems are “some of the conditions which must be fulfilled if it is to exist,”[xxxvii]  ‘it’ being community. You cannot have community without ethics, with the delineation that community is defined as a human community. The concepts of ethical behavior when dealing with nature and other living things is not a subject for this essay, hence will not be discussed. If ethics are confined to human interaction then they are absolutely and inextricably linked. The concept of ethics is meaningless without community…if there are no ethical interactions, there are no ethics, unless one can be ethical to oneself…does this even make sense? Ethics are more than sentimental ideation; they are an indispensable component of community.

Moral virtues, ethical habits are acquired, established and maintained in alignment with the common goals of a group that share similar values. Social and cultural norms in the form of an ethical structure and are indispensable to the concept of community. I concur with classmate Raul Trevino’s assertion that “utopia can't be born in a day either, but nothing can be built without a plan.” [xxxviii]  This plan is the shared ethical structure that is the principal defining characteristic of a community. The positive results of community, of social interdependence, are undeniable for the human race and “what takes place is wholly describable in terms of energy, or, as we say in the case of human interactions, of force.”[xxxix] This resulting concept of interactive ethical force is a concept of emergence in that the resulting coherence and value of the whole community is much more than simply a combination of the individual constituents as “participating in activities and sharing in results are additive concerns.” [xl]  Ethics is a method of controlling, of directing this emergent force in order to achieve a mutually agreed upon communal outcome. As Dewey concluded, “unless ascertained specifications are realized, the community cannot be recognized as a democratically effective public”[xli] …these ascertained specifications referring to a communal ethical system. Without community and ethics, we likely would have perished as a species long ago.

Works Cited

[i] John Dewey, “Search for The Great Community” p. 507

[ii] Ibid., p. 505

[iii] Ibid., p. 507

[iv] Ibid., p. 505

[v] Ibid., p. 504

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid. p. 507

[viii] Ibid., p. 505

[ix] Ibid., p. 507

[x] Ibid., p. 508

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Canvas, “M4, Discussion 1”, Max Bell,  March 30

[xiv] John Dewey, “Search for The Great Community” p. 508

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Ibid., p. 505

[xvii] Ibid., p. 509

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Benjamin Franklin, “ The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” p. 67

[xx] Ibid., p. 65

[xxi] John Dewey, “Search for The Great Community” p. 517

[xxii] Ibid., p. 509

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid., p. 507

[xxv] Ibid., p. 515

[xxvi] Ibid., p. 507

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] Ibid.

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Canvas, “M4, Discussion 1”, Dustin Hampton,  March 28

[xxxi] Benjamin Franklin, “ The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” p. 65

[xxxii] John Dewey, “Search for The Great Community” p. 505

[xxxiii] Ibid., p. 506

[xxxiv] Ibid., p. 507

[xxxv] Ibid., p. 506

[xxxvi] Ibid., p. 505

[xxxvii] Ibid., p. 511

[xxxviii] Canvas, “M4, Discussion 1”, Raul Trevino,  March 31

[xxxix] John Dewey, “Search for The Great Community” p. 506

[xl] Ibid.

[xli] Ibid., p. 508