| Thomas D. Lynch Lousiana State University |
.......... | Cynthia E. Lynch Southern University |
This paper postulates a way of thinking about our individual and collective being that the authors argue is essential for us as professionals in public administration for the twenty-first century. In spite of the use of the words "soul" and "spirit," this is not a paper about religion but it is about infusing public administration with ethics and morality. We call this approach the Theory of the Soul. In this theory, the human "soul" is at least an acquired consciousness of one or more sentient beings that guides our behavior.
For the twenty-first century, this paper postulates a way of thinking about our individual and collective being that we argue is essential for us as professionals in public administration.1 In spite of the use of the word "soul" and "spirit," this is not a paper about religion but it is about infusing public administration with ethics and morality. We call this approach the Theory of the Soul. In this theory, the human "soul" is at least an acquired consciousness of one or more sentient beings that guides our behavior.2 Thus, a human or a group of humans, that shares a consciousness, can have a soul. However, a group of humans does not have a soul if they have no consciousness or shared awareness. In contrast, the person, who acts with no consciousness, diminishes his or her soul to almost nothing. Soul is our intangible being. In our theory, we assume that the purpose of sentient life is to grow our consciousness positively with our free will.3
As humans, we have a choice. Either our biological make-up combined with our culture or our consciously self-developed souls can determine who and what we are to others and ourselves. Most of us are what we look like, our ancestors, or collection of genes, our experiences, our gender, and our personal history. In addition, we allow our ideologies and cultures, which are largely unconsciously acquired, to define our individual and collective behaviors. In stark contrast, we can exercise our free will to create our own compass or consciousness of the soul, which define us with character and virtue. Our souls, which do not have form, can give us identity that transcends substance.4
The Theory of the Soul is important to public administration because it gives meaning to us as professionals and answers why you are a professional in public administration. Due to the philosophy of modernity begun by Descartes, we think that a theory must define a cause and effect relationship of an existing phenomenon. In this theory, the cause and effect relationship is ours to make if we choose and only if we choose. This becomes both our individual and our collective choice. As our postmodern philosophers point out to us, we construct and live in our own paradigms. In the conclusion of this paper, we argue that in public administration we do not have any other reasonable choice but to adopt and use this Theory of the Soul, given the likely realities of the twenty-first century.5
This paper presents the fundamentals of our theory by citing three pairs of opposites. The first pair is ego and oneness. The second is body and spirit. The third is mind and heart. Each pair is an opposite negative and a positive learning opportunity for the individual or collective consciousness. For example, the negative learning experience of ego is seeing and realizing that when a person or given group acts only for its own benefit, then a negative harm eventually befalls the person or group. The positive learning experience is seeing and realizing that when a person or any given group acts for the benefit of others, then positive rewards eventually transpire for the individual or group giving the benefit. Society gives the name the "Golden Rule" to this lesson.6
The learning opportunities typically occur through life experiences but they can also occur with more formal education. In ascending order, the three negative learning opportunities are ego, body, and mind. In descending order, the three positive learning opportunities are oneness, spirit, and heart. Most of us learn better from the negative opportunities because they are often painful and very direct. In contrast, the positive learning opportunities are typically more subtle and require a more quiet contemplative learning environment. However, we typically can gain a greater depth of understanding from our positive learning opportunities.
Terms
Philosophers teach us the opposites of ego and oneness. If you approach philosophy by thinking the consciousness of people is essentially ego, then you believe that seeking only to benefit yourself is humankind's primarily motive. Hobbes argued that such is the nature of humankind. As a field of inquiry, economics adopts that perspective when it predicates its theories on the so-called "rational man." Besides being sexist, that assumption is on its face impossible to define and calculate fully but nevertheless quite consistent with much of modernist philosophic thought of such a great Western thinker as Adam Smith.7
The word "altruistic" captures much of the meaning of oneness as used in this paper. If you approach philosophy by thinking the consciousness of people is essentially altruistic, then you believe that seeking to help the larger society primarily motivates all of us. Locke is a good example of a philosopher who used this more positive assumption of humankind. As a field of inquiry, public administration adopts that perspective when it assumes that government is a means to serve the larger public good. The assumption is on its face naive but nevertheless quite consistent with ancient thought of such great Western thinkers as Plato and Eastern thinkers as Confucius.8
The Negative
On the continuum of learning opportunities, the most extreme negative phenomenon is the ego but it is often from this opportunity that we learn the first important lesson on our path to the fuller development of our soul. As a negative leaning opportunity, ego is much more than an attitude. If we only see and judge the world in term of "me, my, mine," then our peers and others call us selfish and "only able to think of ourselves."9 Normally, we cannot see ourselves when we act in that way or we simply do not care that we act in that manner. In the famous case of Marie Antoinette who was the wife of Louis XVI, this cavalier standard helped them lose not only their crowns but also their heads.10 Normally, we learn more from suffering as victims of this negative learning opportunity of ego; however, being an observer is sometimes sufficient. Our parents or someone, who cares for our larger development, can tell us not to be selfish; but often until we experience the negative consequences as a victim, we really do not fully comprehend why such behavior is wrong.11
When people within the organization think that the organization exists for its employees convince and performing services to the public is simply not important or worse is an intrusion to them, then the organization is without soul due to the overriding ego of the employees. The negativism of the word "bureaucratic" captures that meaning. It is when the public servant no longer considers him or herself a servant to the citizen customer or thinks being a servant is sub-human rather than being the noblest of callings. These people want their jobs, their promotions, and their pay increases not only first and foremost, but that is the only reason for the existence of the organization to them. These are the people that make you wait because they are on "their break" and think civil service is merely a set of regulations protecting their entitled rights.
The Positive
The polar opposite to ego is oneness. Both terms should connote strong negative and positive emotions within a person. The positive sense of oneness is sometimes quietly held but is nevertheless an awareness that runs deep within the person. In contrast, ego is a negative emotion that is rarely quietly held but is also certainly deep within the person. When we use the word "oneness," we intend it to include the concept of altruism and reflect the depth of personnel feeling associated with the word "ego." Another interesting dimension to the word as used here is that it includes the notion of love of self in the traditional meaning. However, the love of oneness both supersedes and includes the love of self.12 The love of self extends in ever expanding concentric circles as explained by Emerson in one of his famous ninetieth century essays.13
We find the concept difficult to describe but we know it when we see it. Mahatma Gandhi showed it. Martin Luther King, Jr. showed it. We can see it in the actions of political leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. It is a remarkable unconditional love that sometimes limits itself to a nation or people but in its purest form has no limits. It is caring. It is the reciprocal tear in your eye and a large lump in your throat when you know that someone is acting out of pure love without reservation. It is so special that we cannot find words to express it but our heart overflows when we feel it. It defies meaning.14
In the context of society, a public servant is beautiful in the full splendor of the word "beauty" because of and only because of the concept of oneness. Under this concept, a public servant always serves more than "clients," although that word does capture some of the essence of public service. A deeply committed public servant defines him or herself in terms of the larger oneness of the society while acting out of altruism that may include, if necessary, what some call "tough love." It is a policeman arresting the drunk because he knows that the drunk not facing his problem is the problem for the drunk and for the larger society. It is a solider being ready to kill in order to keep peace in the world. Most of the time it is merely providing service with a smile that says you care. Sometimes, it is more such as staying an extra fifteen minutes to handle that last citizen, patient, student, or who ever are in need. It is the extra act that says without words that you care for them and every other person. It is the recognition that the environment is part of you just as you are part of the oneness of all.15
We cannot communicate the concept of oneness with words using rational thought, but we know it when we feel it. There is no test for it and we really cannot explain it to another who has not had a similar experience. Nevertheless, it is more real than any empirical theory that we cite or any stone that we hold. It transcends us. It is what makes public administration so meaningful because it is about "we" and why all meaning includes oneness.16
Terms
The opposites body and spirit also are learning opportunities, which can shape our soul. For the individual, the body is the physical being including our genes, race, gender, age, physical make-up or handicap, sexual orientation, and so on. However, it is also always our heritage that includes our ethnic group, our ancestors, and our fellow travelers in life. It is how we commonly identify or describe ourselves and often how others identify us.17 In the organizational sense, the body is the organization identification.
In contrast, the polar opposite spirit is a form of cognition that permits us to comprehend a transcendental truth. Like oneness, unless you feel this cognition at some time in your life, you cannot understand what spirit means but almost all of us have had such an experience. Often music, such as the blues, provides that experience as you sense the melancholy profound sadness, which are well beyond the words of the song. The best in the humanities and the arts communicates with spirit. It provides us depth, substance, and bold relief in what otherwise would be merely a normal, a common, or a mundane experience. Because we have spirit, life is significant; and without spirit, life seems boring, insignificant, and routine.18
At first consideration, body and spirit do not appear to be polar opposites. Only by reflecting on how each teaches us do we see them as opposites. Body is how we identify and the identification will always limits us. Spirit is how we experience beyond where we are and that understanding is always without limits. One is uplifting and the other holds us back like an anchor.
The Negative
As a negative learning opportunity, the body is only slightly less subtle than ego. Knowing our heritage and the accomplishment of others of our gender or race enriches us to comprehend better the experiences of others thus gaining for us a depth that enriches our ability to learn. However, once we allow ourselves to identify with that "body" as somehow separate from the larger oneness, then we begin to limit ourselves and negative consequences occur. The more extreme negative consequences of such identification are the beginning of riots, conflicts, and wars.19
Once we see others not as the richness and depth of the whole but rather as separate identities or groups, then the next step is to protect our own and put the others in their proper place. Experiencing discrimination AND transcending that actual experience are how some of us do learn from this negative learning opportunity. Unfortunately, only a few like Nelson Mandela of South Africa learn truly to transcend the experience, but they do become the beacons of light to teach others. If we experience discrimination and react in kind, then we fail to understand the lesson. Even worse if we become the oppressors ourselves, then we diminish our own soul through our own actions rather than those of our oppressor.
In the organizational context, we experience the body through organizational loyalty such as being a member of a clan, a gang, a church, a corporation, a nation, or some group. Learning this negative lesson is difficult because the lesson is often veiled in other diverting considerations. An association, which builds you and helps you give to others, is positive; but the experience becomes negative when that same association limits you by serving as a barrier to your learning and accomplishment. Because of the associated positive experiences, learning from the negative experience is commonly difficult for almost all of us. For example, some people tend to over look the negative aspects of a gang or group experience because of the comradeship and the sense of belonging it provides us. However, being bound to that group can mean not going to college or not accepting opportunities because it means leaving their neighborhood.
Identifying ourselves as our body is a mistake that we easily make. We may be born white or black, and that identification, whichever it is, is neither a positive nor a negative achievement. It just is the starting point for the learning accomplishments that we made once we begin trying. Organizations are bodies but they are merely the means through which we can realize some of our accomplishments. They are not you or your accomplishments. Instead, they are only conduits that can enhance or diminish us depending first and foremost on the extent we allow the group consciousness to influence us. Given the remarkable potential negative influence of the body on the soul even on those that understand its potential consequences, a wise person selects his or her organizations to enhance their individual soul and avoid to the extent possible associations that diminish it.20
Positive
Spirit is the uplifting learning opportunity that moves us to new levels that usually are just a little higher than our present place but are seemingly without limit. Each of us has spirit within us but some of us bury it very deeply or even refuse to allow it to manifest within us. Normally, spirit is quiet and speaks to us in soft tones through intuition. It makes the creative possible and permits our continual growth. Spirit is our vital link to the transcendent and defines us as being sentient. In its ultimate sense, the spirit can even temporarily possess us, be more dramatic than the largest explosion, and make us feel ripped apart as if by a wild animal. Although it is a force of infinite strength, we can usually sense it best in our quiet moments when we purge ourselves of all other thoughts.21
In organizations as it is for individuals, spirit is remarkable. People who live without spirit lead colorless lives; organizations that live without spirit are equally colorless. With spirit, being part of the organization is in itself motivation and often our inclusion is part of the reason the organization has spirit. Our accomplishments come faster and are more significant to us. We feel enriched by being part of the organization because there is dynamism, a style, a grace, and a harmony that can only exist if the organization has spirit. We do not capture spirit but we allow spirit to capture us by first allowing it to develop and grow and secondly freeing ourselves to the unlimited possibilities of others and ourselves.22 The expressions -- "Wasn't that spirit contagious? Or "Couldn't you just feel it?" - illustrate that spirit is not captured but we allow it to capture us.
The Terms
In the middle of the continuum from ego to oneness, lies the mind and heart opposite. Mind is the raw power the can greatly accelerate and deepen our learning but the heart is what provides us the direction for our learning. Unlike the other opposites, mind and heart must act together but heart must be the dominant partner as heart is by far the more important of the two. Both are learning opportunities, but heart is focused and therefore it is a positive learning opportunity. With an enhanced mind, we can learn but what we learn can both significantly benefit and harm us. With an enhanced heart by contrast, we can direct our strengths and mitigate our weaknesses in directions that always improve us. At first as the mind gains strength, it is likely to create powerful benefits; but as time moves forward and it gains in strength without the heart guiding it, great harm occurs.23
We do not "think" but we "know" with the heart; whereas, we can "think" but not "know" with the mind. Our modern philosophy teaches us knowledge is always temporary because our mind forever limits us to question cynically and doubts our findings and certainly our theories.24 In contrast the ancient wisdom from each civilization teaches us we must always exercise reason by feeling what our actions will mean in the larger context including others and the environment.25
According even to the postmodern philosophers, right and wrong exist at least within our own paradigms even though they substitute the terms "sense" and "non-sense" for right and wrong.26 Through dialogue, our hearts can discover the right and wrong actions because we direct our minds with our hearts.27 In this way we are able to feel the happiness and sadness of others. With heart, we transcend and actually walk in someone else's shoes; thus time, place, and circumstance are not permanent barriers to us. We can grasp frustration and comprehend the depths of emotions that define who they are, which in turn helps us comprehend who we are.
Negative
In the secular culture of Western civilization, mind is foremost yet it is a negative learning opportunity. It is not as negative as ego or body, but it is also negative because it needs direction. The potential for harm to our environment and us due to the power of the mind is almost boundless, but we can learn important negative lessons from each of those experiences. However, the wiser among us will avoid those harms entirely if they allow the heart to guide them. Never before our era has a civilization so completely swept the world. Ironically, as education becomes more universal, we place less importance on developing character and acquiring virtue. Only the mind is important. The strength of the mind in and of itself is neutral, and there in lies the problem that provides us with the negative learning opportunities. Though the mind is neutral, it is powerful, and it can be used for evil purposes.28
Humankind has greatly multiplied its powers. To a certain extent in the ninetieth century and to a larger extent in the twentieth century, we took the machine and greatly expanded muscle power. If humans act as one, humankind can literally move mountains and lift themselves to the moon and beyond. In the twentieth century and more importantly in the twenty-first century, the computer and related information technology will radically expand human mental power. People can store more information, calculate faster in more complex ways, retrieve, and apply information when and where necessary to solve more problems in a seemingly endless variety of ways. One result is exponential growth of scientific knowledge so that almost anyone can use any knowledge for whatever purposes his or her mind desires.29
However, are all the purposes served desirable? Is someone creating knowledge that will harm humankind? Because we can do something due to our technology, should we morally do it? Are some people learning knowledge that will turn against all or a portion of us? In the unique Pandora's box of mind, there are many deadly problems and the only hope is the heart.30
In the twenty-first century, information is the key and increasingly we are learning to use that key. As a result, we are changing our organizations and management styles. In the beginning of the twentieth century, command and control due to the Progressive reforms meant strong executives who controlled large pyramid shaped organizational structures. At the end of the twentieth century due to the advantages of information age technology, entrepreneurial management means highly decentralized brokerage leadership with web like relationships redefining the very meaning of organizations. The need for decentralization means that throughout the new organizations a new higher level of ethics and morality based on heart must exist if civilization is to sustain itself.31
Positive
Reasoning with the heart is not logical or rational; nevertheless we acquire very positive learning lessons from it. Being able to hear even when people do not raise their voices is reasoning with the heart. Being able to sense anxiousness and a depth of despair or frustration are examples of reasoning with the heart. Being able to know the needs of others is reasoning with the heart. Being able to define who your neighbor is by their need is reasoning with the heart. In each case, reasoning with the heart is a positive learning opportunity. Reasoning with the heart is intuitive as it has with its own pattern and voice that decision-makers can learn.32 Unfortunately, we rarely teach such lessons in school and increasingly we rarely teach such lessons any place.
The best reasoning with the heart also uses the mind. The heart gives us direction, an understanding of intensity, and the complexity of the emotional web that is ruling the moment. The heart tells us what the mind should do. We use the analytical tools of the mind to survey people, to game play to see likely tactics and strategies, and simulate circumstances and perform what-if analyses. We can use these and other tools in harmony with guidance from the heart to understand and eventually decide what we as individuals or organizations should do in a given circumstance. Then we reflect, and from that reflection, we can learn our positive lessons.
Learning with the heart is not becoming emotional but it is about feeling. Whether an individual or organizational context, one important positive lesson of the heart is to realize that detachment is essential at the moment we make our decisions or perform our necessary actions. In its various forms, tough love is also part of this lesson. In tough love, love exists and it guides our actions but it exists with the critical emotional detachment of the action as we move toward our purpose. In other words, we allow the emotions of the moment to flow through us so that we recognize them and understand them but we do not allow them to control the moment.33
With organizations, heart is particularly important. Cold analytical analysis leads too often to cold analytical decisions that hurt and cause hardships that revisit negatively on everyone. We must reach out to understand often with the difficult process of dialogue to expose ourselves in frank and honest attempts to mutually understand. Opening ourselves to others is complex, difficult, and never easy. Yet, reasoning with the heart requires no less. In an organizational context, leaders must "listen", be patient, "listen", suggest solutions, "listen", revise, "listen", and move forward to insure that leaders keep not only their promises but their creditability. Above all leaders must "listen" while always recognizing that humanity includes the fallibility of us all regardless of our painstaking attempts to avoid mistakes in our work.34
Individually and organizationally, we do not avoid mistakes or escape making the hard decisions by reasoning with the heart. We cannot deny the very nature of life. We can only learn our lessons by participating in life and learning at every opportunity possible. However, reasoning with the heart can make those lessons infinitely more rewarding. Reasoning with the heart is communicating that you care and because you care your actions are different. Your mind literally thinks differently because you reason with your heart. This does not mean that decision-makers do not make hard choices such as re-engineer and down sizing whole organizations, as that might be the proper decision for the whole. Reasoning with the heart means you perform your job while listening with care to others and you try to reflect their concerns as much as possible within the constraints of your organizational situation and the direction given to you by your heart.
Larger Context
The Theory of Soul is not sufficient in itself without applying a larger strategy. As discussed in this paper, the Theory of Soul is an active intervention for the purpose of upgrading the moral development of a person or an organization. In an organizational context, the intervener brings together a small group of key people in the organization and explains the Theory of Soul to them. Then, the intervener asks each member of the group to address one facet of the theory and cite from their experience an example of learning from that facet. For example, the negative learning opportunity ego is a good starting point. Each person in the small group learning circle cites an example of that learning opportunity and what they learned from the experience. Group members discuss each person's experience for the purpose of bringing out the lesson as much as possible. At the end of the group session, the group leader summarizes what was learned and another session is scheduled.
Interveners do these sessions to slowly build the moral learning of the group to help foster what some called virtue ethics. Ethics is the study of good and bad for the purpose of guiding our individual and collective behavior. This paper focuses on how public administration professionals can develop and improve their ethics. Ethics involve reaching decisions that some might call justifications and others might call rationalizations for what are often the most important decisions of our lives.35 In this paper, we argue that the current approaches to ethics in public administration are inadequate and we are suggesting an alternative that will help us develop greater moral thinking in our organizations. Our suggested approach to ethics is not new; in fact, it builds on the common spiritual wisdom found in the five current largest religious traditions and it directly flows out of the work on ethics by Aristotle.
In discussing professional ethics, Windt and associates note there are three basic types of ethical theories. The first, "deontological", is based on fundamental principles of right and wrong with the moral person being asked to apply a rational process to those principles. The Ten Commandments and the common professional codes of ethics are examples of this approach to ethics. Immanuel Kant is a noted philosopher associated with this approach. The second set, "consequential" or "teleological", is based on asking the moral person to think though the consequences of his or her decision. Jeremy Bentham is one of the most noted philosophers associated with this approach. The best known version of "consequential ethics" is "utilitarianism" that largely underpins modern democratic thought and various well-known analytical methods such as cost benefit analysis. Utilitarians view human happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction, as "good;" and conversely human unhappiness, suffering, and dissatisfaction are considered "evil." 36
Windt and associates call this third basic type "virtue ethics". Thomas Donaldson and Patricia H. Werhave call it "human nature ethics".37 We call it "spiritual wisdom ethics". With this approach to ethics, the moral person must seek and develop an inward looking ethical view by cultivating virtuous character traits and conversely transforming non-virtuous character traits. Rather than asking the moral person to apply a rational reasoning process to moral decisions, this approach expects the moral person to not only intelligently apply reason to the moral problem but also exhibit a developed intuitive understanding of what is essentially right and wrong. Aristotle is the philosopher most associated with this set of theories. Professionals must cultivate a virtuous character within them and then exhibit that character in their everyday behavior. An example would be the U.S. military officer that observes the concepts of "duty, honor, and country" taught in the military academies. Each officer must bring those values into their very being and then exhibit them in their everyday work activities.
Although in this paper we argue in favor of the third approach, we quickly recognize the importance of the other two approaches especially in understanding how individuals and collective sets of people can and do go about justifying decisions in terms of right and wrong. We disagree with the use of "deontological theories" in many but not all normative decision making situations because rules or principles seem too often to not capture fully all the details and require multiple exceptions to seemingly sound principles. For example, few can argue with the principle of not killing people but our statute books are filled with exceptions and mitigating circumstances that never seem to fit quite every situation that arise in our life experience. We also disagree with "consequential theories" that evolved out of the enlightenment that placed humankind as our focus rather than God. Our reason for disagreement is simple. Humankind is not God and therefore any collection of people such as a legislature or a bureaucracy is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Thus any major decision of a group of humankind, regardless of what rational technique is used, is always impossibly flawed.
The way scholars treat "consequential theories" points out the failure of the "consequential theories". For example, Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon advocates the sub-optimizing or "settling" decision making theory called "satisficing".38 This theory accepts the inherent impossibility of a utilitarian rational model to make the "correct" decision in a practical environment and says you should just settle for the best decision you can make within the given time constraint. The impossibility of "consequential theories" leads to impossible professional processes like Planning Programming and Budgeting and political systems such as communism that assume rational planning can correctly direct a whole human society. As a result of these theories being used well beyond their practical limitations, policy makers advocate and put in place reforms that cannot work and professionals and political leaders must face the consequences of trying to do the impossible. The result in society is massive frustration, disillusionment, and cynicism as professional and political leaders discover the realities of applying finite reasoning processes to infinite challenges.
With "spiritual wisdom ethics", life is seen as a stream of learning opportunities to move us toward and eventually gain in spiritual wisdom within the individual and the organization. As the individual grows, they manifest their new insight in their actions and deeds within the organization. Thus the professional administrators should become more and more balanced and harmonious as they learn from each life situation gaining greater virtue within them. In turn, the gained virtue is merely a reflection of the gained spirituality within the person that is being manifested in their deeds and actions. With these ethical theories, each individual is able to exercise free choice in their professional decision making. Certainly such individuals have more choice options than the deontologicalist with their rules and principles and the consequentialist with their endless calculations of results.39 A "spiritual wisdom ethics" creates a professional who has a special consciousness that is always growing and guiding their professional life.
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.E.) wrote two treatises on ethics called Eudeman and Nicomachean after his first editor and pupil, Eudeman, and his son, Nicomachean. The Nichomachean Ethics was probably written when Aristotle was in his fifties or sixties. He directed his inquiry towards discovering how we can achieve our highest ideal of a fulfilled life. His answer was the virtue of the soul achieved by deliberate choice of action based on a worked out plan using his famous Golden Mean.40
Aristotle viewed individuals achieving ethics not so much though intellectual reasoning but by the character of their person. He said, "the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well." 41 Achieving a high morality is no easy task because it requires a person to live the Golden Mean between excess and deficiency. Like the Buddha, Aristotle said we should aim at what is intermediate or the middle path in our passions and actions. The aim is to perform the right action, with the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, and in the right way. Although this is the objective, Aristotle considered achieving this goodness as rare, laudable, and noble.42
Aristotle saw two potentials for humankind. We can let our passions and desires rule us or we can be free from them by acting with our ethics and morality. He said, "we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or involve choice."43. The more developed our virtues the more choices we in fact have because we are able to apply a wider range of tools in making our choices. Virtues have nothing to do with passions or faculties but rather they are a state of character. Morality is a state of mind or consciousness that each of us must developed with effort and perseverance.44
To be moral, you must exercise your morality in your daily life like you exercise to develop your muscles. It is not something that we easily comprehend and then apply with logic or reason. It is something that we must live spontaneously. He said, "without these no one would have ever a prospect of becoming good." 45 Aristotle believed we can all be moral but most of us fail because we believe that simply and merely knowing about ethics will result in our being good. There is a wide gulf between knowing and being. We can know in our minds but we can only BE if we change our souls. He argued this self-delusion is much like the physician's patient that listens carefully to the doctor but follows none of the advice. He says, "As the latter will not be made well in body by such course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy." 46
Aristotle believed we must each create morality within ourselves. Leading a life pursuing pleasure or avoiding pain is a fundamental mistake. Morality comes from the avoidance and abstention from excess indulgences and bravely confronting life's difficulties. He said, "it is by reason of pleasures and pain that men become bad."47 The road to morality involves life long learning beginning with early childhood education and continuing throughout our lives. He said, "Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education."48
Unlike "deontological and teleological theorists", Aristotle saw no predictable clear moral answer that we can generalize before a situation requires our moral judgment. On the contrary he believed that, "matters concerned with conduct and question of what is good for us have no fixity."49 He went on to say, "the account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or precept, but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion". He continued, "matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely."50
For us to achieve the ability to be moral in our actions, we must develop the proper character. To develop the proper character requires developing virtues. To develop virtue based on knowledge, we must first become aware of the larger spiritual wisdom lessons that we can learn by means of the Theory of the Soul. Once we start learning, establishing and living them for ourselves by programming ourselves with moral habits is our next step that will develop virtue within us.51 Aristotle said, "so too is it with the virtues: by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them"52. What begins as a great effort to give up in time and with effort and practice becomes quite normal and is no effort at all. He also said, "we learn by doing them . . . states of character arise out of like activities. . . It makes no small difference, then, we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference."53 If we learn by doing as children or as adults, then our behavior is the result of our repeated actions. We become our habits. Therefore, they might as well develop good ones rather than let our background, genes, and history shape bad ones within us.
We must develop moral virtue within ourselves, but intellectual virtue can help us develop moral virtue. Intellectual virtue comes from being taught. Moral virtue results from developing proper habits. Neither arises without our active intervention and participation over nature. Aristotle said, "we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity."54 We develop virtues by practicing them much like we learn the arts and music. We learn by doing them repeatedly and forming the correct habits then by exercising them like a young musician learning a new instrument. To Aristotle, the soul is where virtue exists. The body is what moves us astray from virtue.55
God was a central part of Aristotle's vision of ethics because to him proper morality was considered divine and highly prized.56 Aristotle reasoned the "best" things are described as blessed and happy because this was the status of God and the most god-like men.57 Animals cannot attain this status but humans only can achieve that status if they properly develop their souls.58
Aristotle felt that happiness was not a state of feeling, enjoyment or pleasure; but rather it was the definition of that which is the most desirable and satisfying of life. Aristotle did not believe that God provided us with such a life but rather we had to earn it as a result of our good actions. Our good actions were the result of our acquired virtues we developed though learning, training, and cultivation of proper habits. If this were done, he believed we had acquired the most god-like blessed prize that humans can achieve in the world. To Aristotle, study and care rather than chance is how virtue, which was the greatest and most noble accomplishment of all, is won.59
Human good is the activity of exhibiting excellence. To Aristotle, the good man is one who performs nobly.60 Good is to be sought because it is desirable in and of itself and never for the sake of something else.61 He said, "The Phythagoreans seem to give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the One in the column of good."62 He argued that we should pursue the universal good in spite of how difficult it is for us to achieve.63 Aristotle believed the masses of humankind are slaves to their senses and desires, which makes their lives essentially beast-like. He recognized some led superficial lives that many people describe as "sophisticated and noble" but that they really are no better than their beast-like counterparts.64 His ethics calls us to be truly noble because the potential exists within us. If successful, we would reach the universal divine good that would be the highest of any life.
Spiritual Wisdom Ethics
"Spiritual wisdom ethics" is not based on a set of deontological rules or reasoning about consequences but rather on a state of being that is a transformational consciousness. A person using "spiritual wisdom ethics" is in a constant dialogue between the mind and the intuitive conscious that we label here the EGO self and the SELF. The EGO is a perceptually sentient being that is a system of habitual reflexes that we so commonly address in the behavioral sciences. The environment, culture, history, economics, desires, genetic make-up, and other factors, which social scientist call interacting independent variables, push, pull, and govern the EGO, which social scientist call the dependent variable. In other words, the EGO may think it has freedom of choice but it totally lacks freedom.65 SELF is our conscious consideration, our "gut" feeling, and our intuitive awareness. The SELF gives us guidance but it is rarely more than a whispered suggestion.
With "spiritual wisdom ethics", we can have freedom by invoking our choice created by a dialogue between the EGO and the SELF. The first step in freedom is understanding the EGO or the "me, my, mine." This is possible because each of us has a SELF that can observe the EGO as it takes possession of us. The second step in freedom is restraining the EGO. These are the simple two steps that constitute the beginning of "spiritual wisdom ethics" in each of us. The individual soul is the user of spiritual wisdom because that is where the individual waking consciousness exists.66 To develop and advance the soul's spiritual wisdom, each of us must look simultaneously to the balanced tension between our SELF that provides our inner gyroscope and our outer experiences. Each is constantly challenging us and even trying to reprogram our inner gyroscope. With "spiritual wisdom ethics", we must realize that often this tension is not in balance with the result we ignore developing the soul and have our lives dominated by the EGO. We must force ourselves to wake up out of our dream-like ignorance and assert our potential freedom over the independent influencing variables in our lives.67
In "spiritual wisdom ethics", the goal is to uncover the complete soul and then develop and sustain that condition through the person's actions and deeds. The challenge is to free the person's soul from the bonds of the EGO consciousness that normally blinds each of us from seeing what proper human behavior really means. This is an ethics based on awareness, freedom from desires, and controlling our wayward emotions. This ethical theory intentionally brings to bear the SELF's heightened awareness into every moment of our existence. We see ourselves existing both as a perceived part of the universe but also as a complex and meaningful interrelationship to the oneness which is often beyond our ability to understand.68
Human development is the struggle for self-actualization or more accurately allowing the inherent perfect divine nature to exist in spite of the various influencing independent behavioral variables. The goal of each of us is to let the soul become completely free. Using this theory, humankind is seen as a mixture of good and bad much like James Madison, who wrote the U.S. Constitution, observed. Inherent in each of us is the good or the so-called divine. The challenge is to reach that good that is sometimes buried deep within and to free it to direct our decisions and actions rather than those many variables describes by modern behavioral science. By using the SELF to develop the individual soul in a manner consistent with what we intuitively call a person of "good heart," we develop within ourselves "spiritual wisdom ethics". If we properly develop the "heart" so that it cares for the oneness, then spiritual wisdom will enhance the soul. When that occurs, the SELF can first restrain the harmful desires and emotional reactions of the EGO and secondly cultivate beneficial habits and traits that further gives us true free choice.69
Learning "spiritual wisdom ethics" is waking up to our freedom and recognizing that some emotions masquerade as feelings (e.g., sexual desires) and some compulsive behaviors masquerade as our conscious mind (e.g., smoking). When we wake up and stay awake, we defeat the dream-like influence of the EGO and our decisions become based on our free will because we are no longer at the mercy of our desires channeled through our EGO. With this freedom comes an increased awareness of the soul and the fact that it is merely a part of the larger oneness of everything. This in turn leads us to a better understanding of why loving one's neighbor is wise and even helps us to comprehend the true meaning of the word "neighbor." The core problem of humankind is the submerged awareness of SELF and its inherent non-association with the larger meaning of oneness. "Spiritual wisdom ethics" is a process of waking up to the core problem.70
"Spiritual wisdom ethics" is meant to be a life transforming process. For example, it teaches the professional public administrator about the abrasive effect of holding in anger and resentment. We should not boil inside ourselves and bottle-up our emotions. However, neither should we indulge our egos by engaging in wild emotional outbursts. At a minimum, we should allow the pain to be felt through consulting with others (e.g., talking a problem out with a friend) but better yet we should allow such feeling to pass through us without affect (e.g., not let someone "get to us.") Above all "spiritual wisdom ethics" teaches us not to let such emotions that are masquerading as feelings control our movements and thoughts. We must allow ourselves to be free. If we do, we transform ourselves and morality serves intelligence, attention, awareness, and change. "Spiritual wisdom ethics" is real growth and development of real substance. It is not stoic indifference or self-congratulatory perfection.71
"Spiritual wisdom ethics" is freeing the possibilities and escaping the imprisonment of the EGO forces.72 This is not just knowing the SELF, but it is engaging us in bare bones self-realization.73 "Spiritual wisdom ethics" is being what you can be.
With the radically enhanced power of the muscle and mind in the twenty-first century, humankind needs to radically enhance its soul with heart, spirit and oneness. Ethics and morality are no longer important; they are essential. We need to move to a higher level of ethics and morality that can inform each of us how to conduct our lives for the growth of organizations, ourselves, and the betterment of all. The Theory of the Soul is a step in that direction.74
Today, two or three people of less than average intelligence can rent a truck, buy some fertilizer and other common household products at a very affordable price, rig a bomb, and park it where remarkable damage will result. Today, one person of more than average intelligence can go to the world-wide-web or local library, read, design a very powerful destruction device, and place it where they can easily harm thousands and maybe even millions of people. Tomorrow, the possibilities are worse as we exponentially expand knowledge and make it easily available to everyone. This is not an argument against the expansion and decentralization of knowledge as our civilization depends on it, but it is an argument for enhancing our understanding and application of it through ethics and morality.
First, the Theory of the Soul simply calls on us to understand the two triangles that interrelate as polar pairs that we called learning opportunities to enhance our individual and group consciousness. A Theory of the Soul diagram would show two over lapping triangles with each of the six points in opposite polar positions with consciousness represented as a circle within the star. Each of the points represent a learning opportunity to enhance the consciousness but effort including free will is necessary to learn from each of the points on the star. We learn positive lessons from three points and we learn negative lessons from the other three points. If we learn, the individual or group consciousness expands in every growing concentric circles with the points of the star also moving out to provide even more sophisticated lessons for us to learn in the future.75
Second, the Theory of the Soul enhances our character and virtue in the tradition of virtue ethics as explained by Aristotle. Individually and professionally, our purpose is to enhance the existing soul by means of developing within each person and each organization virtue ethics. By asking each person to take advantage of the continuing learning opportunities that life affords us, we endlessly grow within our organizations and ourselves the ethics taught by Aristotle. This requires self-reflection, group discussion, and self-examination.76
Certainly, professional facilitators or helpers are important and even necessary for this type of moral and ethical development. Physiologist, psychologist and organization development specialist provides parallel professional help for other purposes. In this situation, the key for the professional is to allow each person and group to grow themselves with their own free will. The professional provides the conceptual structure and guidance but the individual or group does the learning based on their own experiences and thoughts. The role of the facilitator is first to create a conscious awareness of the six life learning opportunities and secondly help each to participate using that awareness to enhance their own soul. Each person must search out the moral and ethical lessons for him or herself and travel their own path, but a facilitator can light the way.
|