The Community Course
Part 3 - Specific Community Interests
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21. Community Ethics

Christian Ethics

"’That which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has never failed from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh, whence the true religion, which was already in existence, began to be called Christian.’ So wrote Augustino (AD 427). . . This thought . . . belongs obviously to an evolutionary, not to a catastrophic, view of the world’s history, and for this reason, it took no firm root during the long period when the dominant philosophy was super-naturalistic dualism. We moderns may be glad to find that it has a recognized, though insecure, place in early Christian thought…The profoundest and most original of prophets still stands on the shoulders of those who went before them.”

--Dean We R. Inge, Christian Ethics and Modern Problems, p. 5

Origination of Ethical Standards
There is little doubt that ethical standards originated in primitive community life. People living together intimately in small groups found it necessary to be considerate of each other and of the general welfare. No matter how primitive the community, such codes always existed, and it is the fairly uniform testimony of those who have studied primitive communities that their ethical standards are quite thoroughly understood and agreed upon, and are very generally observed. While the primitive community enforced definite penalties for extreme violations of ethical usages, the most powerful enforcement was through the weight of general public disapproval of violations. The entire life of the community was ruled by these standards which everyone acknowledged, and which nearly everyone lived up to.

It seems that some of the finest ethical standards of the world today are survivals of pre-feudal community life. The ethics of Christianity, except for the element of persistent forgiveness of wrongdoers and of universal brotherhood beyond the limits of tribe or nation, came directly from the Hebrew prophets, and the earliest of them were rural small community people. The Christian teaching preserved to us just such pre-feudal community ethics as Stefansson and Kropotkin found among the Eskimos.

Such ethical codes grew up gradually through generations, though sometimes leaders refined and defined them. Just as primitive people often believed that their own origin was through some miraculous event, so they commonly attributed such miraculous origins to their ethical rules. Yet when we examine the nature of such codes we find them to be more or less practical standards of conduct which enable people to live together successfully. Sometimes such standards are capricious or without present value, as for instance the English rule which until recently prohibited a man from marrying his deceased wife’s sister. 

Developing Ethical Standards
Ethical standards originate in efforts to make rules for successful community living. (And as the community always has a real and deep stake in the individual and personal health and well-being of its members, personal ethics is really a part of social ethics. The idea that there are ethical principles which concern only the individual is an delusion.) Sometimes people have been successful in determining good patterns of conduct, and sometimes they have not. The Seminole Indians, apparently observing that bad results followed the marriage of close relatives, developed the standard that relatives should not marry, even if several degrees removed. In a small tribe the result was that marriage was so greatly restricted that sometimes a woman of sixty might marry a boy of sixteen, those being the only possibilities within the remnants of the tribe. Among certain New Guinea tribes, similar efforts to prevent inbreeding, or to eliminate feuds by requiring intermarriage, have led to similarly grotesque results.

Imperfect Ethical Codes
The customs of both primitive and civilized people have been cumbered with rules, prohibitions, and taboos which represent mistakes people have made in their effort to regulate behavior for the social good, or which - as in the doctrine of the divine right of kings or prelates - may represent the efforts of favored persons or classes to entrench their prestige by indoctrination. As in all other useful and necessary human undertakings, the development of ethical codes has been imperfect. Just as every automobile is imperfectly designed, but is justified because to a considerable degree it serves its purpose, so the justification of an ethical code is not that it is perfect, but that it is useful and necessary. It is the business of intelligence to critically examine and to develop ethical standards and to discover how best to make them serve the needs of men and women. However, such critical examination is very, very different from indifference.

Often the ethical habits of primitive people were of a very high order. So described by Stefansson as prevailing among the most remote Eskimos compare favorably with the best standards of civilized people, as for instance, the Christian code recorded in the "sermon on the mount." It may be that the period of feudal conquest, in which community life to a considerable degree was subjugated, tended to debase community ethics, and to displace them with a reliance on power, strategy, and dissimulation, just as might occur today if the Nazi or other regimes relying on force and deceit were to be generally successful. 

Influence on Social Unity
Throughout all human history one of the strongest influences toward social unity has been common ethical understanding and practice, and this has been especially true in community life. The result of such common ethics tends to be mutual respect and regard, mutual helpfulness, and a lack of internal strife and stress. Where such common standards are lacking there is inevitable conflict and alienation.

By and large people do not originate their own ethical standards. They take over the standards they see about them. They will not as a rule feel that standards have controlling value or authority unless the prevailing current of thought and feeling holds those standards to be important. Thus, the standards actually recognized in a community will largely determine what will be the standards of young people growing up in that community. 

The greater the range of agreement on ethical principles, the more will a real community exist. In a dictatorship, either political or ecclesiastical, ethical uniformity may be enforced by compulsion. In most American communities that kind of unity is, fortunately, out of the question. The agreements people reach on standards of conduct must be freely arrived at, and supported by the consensus of public opinion. 

Ethics as a Science
The fact that ethical usage must be freely considered and appraised does not mean that one person’s ethical judgment is as good as another. In the field of science there is free inquiry, and prevailing scientific beliefs are freely arrived at. Yet no one presumes that in science one person's opinion is as good as another’s. In scarcely any other field does thorough preparation and qualified authority weigh so heavily. But scientific recognition must not rest on any mystical authority. It must be based on open inquiry and on full disclosure of processes and results, so that any other qualified person by free critical inquiry can test and check the results obtained.

In the field of ethics, illiteracy, lack of disciplined competence, lack of critical, discriminating observation and reliance on current popular impressions are no more admirable than in the field of science. Leadership in ethics is just as necessary and just as valuable as in science. The feeling so general at present that ethical standards are a personal matter, and that one person’s judgment in that field is as worthy of respect as another’s, is an expression of illiteracy.

Questioning Ethical Standards
One of the reasons why ethical standards have come into disrepute is that very commonly they rested, not on the results of open critical inquiry, but on supernatural or mystical authority - a kind of authority which is not subject to critical inquiry, but must be accepted on faith, which, in the minds of many people, is synonymous with credulity. When such authoritarian systems of ethics compete with each other for loyalty they do not appeal to a process of critical inquiry by which they can be tested and compared. The fading of belief in divine revelation of ethical codes, unless followed by ethical principles developed by critical inquiry, will leave people with a feeling that all ethical rules are arbitrary, and that every person should be free to do as he individually sees fit.

When a community undertakes to arrive at a common basis of ethics, there will be unfortunate confusion and conflict if adherents to authoritarian systems of ethics compete with each other in trying to force the acceptance of their systems. It is partly because of such efforts to influence the adoption of authoritarian systems, and because of the resulting disrepute of ethical principles in general, that a community may hesitate to try to develop a common code of conduct. The people may feel that nothing but confusion and conflict can result from such effort.

Developing Common Standards
The development of a common standard for ethical conduct in a community should be on the basis of open inquiry, with the help of competent, open-minded, critical leadership. Only those elements of conduct that have general acceptance for their sound reasonableness should be included in a community code of ethics. It is better to have substantial agreement on a simple and limited code of behavior, with a nearly universal feeling that good citizenship requires the observance of those standards, than to get superficial agreement on more elaborate standards which many people feel are impracticable or unreasonable and which therefore do not have wholehearted support. Sometimes agreement can be had only on specific points, and not on fundamental principles.

The believer in a revealed code of ethics may be faithful himself to that code, but he or she should not try to force it on the community. An orthodox Mohammedan believes that the Ten Commandments constitute an authoritative code of ethics, and because they command that “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” he or she feels that sculpture and painting are sinful. He or she has small respect for the sophistry by which some people who profess to be bound by that code explain away this commandment. If there were Mohammedans in a community they should be free to live by that code themselves, but they should not try to force it on the community because of its supposed divine authority.

Ethical Pioneers
Ethical pioneers are desirable and necessary - men who have more discriminating and exacting standards than the general population. They blaze the trails and demonstrate the value of a finer management of life. Little by little the general public comes to recognize the value of finer standards, and gradually incorporates them into the accepted ethical code. Always there will be a twilight zone between what is fully accepted and what is coming to be seen as excellent as a result of the more discriminating living of ethical pioneers. It is concerning that twilight zone that much of the community discussion of ethical standards will take place. A live community will gradually adopt more discriminating standards as the public becomes aware of them and is convinced of their value. That is, it will improve in its manners and its morals.

Community ethical standards should be looked on as guides to conduct, not as inflexible rules. It is a good standard of action not to borrow a neighbor’s property without asking him or her for it. However, if your small child were caught in a tree and you needed the neighbor's ladder that propriety might well be dispensed with. Ethical standards will be better respected if their reasonableness is apparent.

Agreeing on Ethical Standards
What methods can be used effectively for bringing about general community agreement on ethical standards? In a community organization it might be well to have a committee on community standards. At first it might be well to develop only the rudiments of an ethical code, which should include what are commonly called both manners and morals. Universally accepted standards would be assumed almost without mention, such as those against murder and forgery. Emphasis could be placed on standards which, while morally recognized, are not well supported. For instance, gossip or tale-bearing is one of the dominant evils of the small community. A recognized habit might be developed which would lead people, either separately or in groups, to protest directly against that habit wherever it appeared, and to request the talebearer to desist. If there should be active support of such a standard in the community, little offense would be taken by offenders who should be asked to desist. Considerable effort might be required to secure general acceptance and support for a standard which would lead people to refuse to make a living by any work which is a harm to the community, such as operating low grade amusement places, or stimulating gambling for the sake of an income.

Sometimes a community ethical code can best be developed by informal education and personal influence. Sometimes, where suitable leadership is available, a definite community code may be developed, publicized in the local press, and perhaps printed in a small pocket-size pamphlet. Probably no items should be included in such a code if even as much as a quarter of the population should definitely disapprove of them. 

Need for Ethical Codes
One of the deepest cravings of people is for respect and approval of their fellows. Unified community opinion is very powerful, especially when it is supporting standards which have been arrived at by free, critical inquiry, with the help of competent leadership, and which have been consciously and very generally accepted by the community. In the lack of such clearly defined standards, conduct is controlled largely by vague impressions of what is desirable or undesirable. The conflict between different ethical codes leads people to feel that they are free from responsibility to any, and can go their own way. In the flux of modern life the old family and neighborhood standards tend to fade until very little control of conduct is left except crude animal impulse or the fear of the law. Throughout the history of mankind the finest qualities of society have been maintained by community standards, often, but not always, supported by definite institutions such as the church, the school, the lodge or the guild. Without fairly definite standards society will disintegrate. The small community is the best place, almost the only place, for stabilizing and transmitting the finest of those ethical standards which concern the intimate relations of its members.