Ethics Explainer: Critical thinking
In a world awash with spin, misinformation and AI slop, critical thinking has become an indispensable survival skill.
While scrolling through social media, you spot a post shared by a good friend. It’s from a popular (and attractive) influencer, who is claiming that sunscreen is toxic. The post resonates with you, especially since the last time you bought a new sunscreen, you broke out in a rash.
But how do you know if what they say is true? On the surface, their argument seems persuasive, but does it stack up? And what are the stakes if you get it wrong? If it turns out sunscreen isn’t toxic, then you could end up with nasty burns, or worse.
The modern world is an informational minefield. Every day we slog through hundreds of claims that purport to be true, but any one of them could end up being false or misleading. Influencers have been known to peddle misinformation. Activists, advertisers and politicians all put their spin on the facts to promote their interests. Artificial intelligence is further muddying the waters with hallucinations, deepfakes and so-called “AI slop”.
The cost of falling for falsehoods can be profound, both to us and to society as a whole. We need to be equipped to handle this epistemically hostile environment. This is where critical thinking becomes a key survival skill for the 21st century.
Not uncritical
One way to define critical thinking is to consider its opposite. An uncritical thinker will accept everything on face value. They will be prone to biases, like stereotyping or being swayed by someone’s appearance rather than the strength of their argument.
They will mistake subjective statements, such as “I don’t like pineapple on pizza” for objective statements, like “pineapple on pizza is bad”. They will overgeneralise from a few anecdotes or examples, like viewing a minority with suspicion because of one unpleasant encounter.
They will employ motivated reasoning, such as seeking out information that makes them feel (or look) good, rather than what is true. And they will latch on to the first explanation for some phenomenon, whether it’s the correct one or not.
A critical thinker, on the other hand, will be mindful of how biases and other irrational forces can sway their views, and will endeavour to avoid those and settle on beliefs rationally by drawing on good reasons and evidence.
They won’t just accept things at face value, but will ask questions, like: is the source reliable? Is the argument sound? Is the supporting evidence strong? After weighing up all these factors, they will hold their beliefs with a strength proportional to the reasons and evidence they can muster in their favour.
Misconceptions
Critical thinking is more than just being critical. The latter is about finding fault in someone or something. Critical thinking, on the other hand, is more about thinking carefully about what we hear.
It’s also not the same things as philosophical scepticism, which is the thesis that we cannot know what is and is not true. This kind of scepticism sets an impossibly high bar for knowledge. But critical thinking doesn’t go as far. Instead, it sets the bar at what we can demonstrate to be true by appealing to reason and evidence.
Critical thinking is also different from cynicism, which is just assuming the worst about what we see and hear. If you immediately assume that a politician is lying, or that a corporation’s environmental efforts are greenwashing, without looking at the evidence, then you’re being cynical. If you decide they are lying or greenwashing after you’ve carefully looked at the reasons and evidence supporting those beliefs, then you’re exercising critical thinking.
Finally, critical thinking is not the same as critical theory. The latter is a philosophical and social science project that seeks to improve society by revealing sources of oppression, and is associated with thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas.
Critical mass
So what about that social media post about sunscreen that seemed so appealing? A critical thinker would start by reflecting on any biases they might have when watching it. It was shared by a friend, and they know that they’re prone to weigh things more heavily when their friends endorse them. That’s a good reason to pause and ensure they’re not being overly credulous.
They would also know that they are more likely to assume an attractive or high-status speaker will be trustworthy – which is why coffee companies like to have handsome actors in their ads. So a critical thinker w0uld try to detach the message from the messenger, and scrutinise the former on its merits.
A critical thinker would also be mindful of the sources that the influencer cites. Are they reliable experts? Do they have any vested interests, like working for a company that sells a sunscreen alternative? Is their evidence high quality, such as the product of a double-blind clinical trial?
They would also be wary of allowing their subjective experience to flavour how they interpret the post. Just because they got a rash from the last sunscreen they bought doesn’t mean that all sunscreen is toxic. It’s possible that they just had an allergy, or something unrelated caused the rash, and it happened to coincide with them applying the sunscreen.
And they would be on the lookout for logical and argumentative fallacies, like an appeal to authority or popularity, or begging the question, which might undermine the soundness of the argument.
A critical thinker would weigh all these things, and come to a conclusion about the claims about sunscreen, acknowledging that they could always be wrong – so not allowing themselves to arrive at a point of unwarranted certainty.
Employing critical thinking takes some time and effort. However, if you care about not being duped by misinformation or falling for spin, then it’s an indispensable skill to cultivate.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Making the tough calls: Decisions in the boardroom
The scenario is familiar to us all. Company X is in crisis. A series of poor management decisions set in motion a sequence of events that lead to an avalanche of bad headlines and public outcry.
When things go wrong for an organisation – so wrong that the carelessness or misdeeds revealed could be considered ethical failure – responsibility is shouldered by those who are the final decision makers. They are and should be held accountable.
Boards of organisations, and the individual directors that comprise them, collectively make decisions about strategy, governance and corporate performance. Decisions that involve the interests of shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and the wider community. They will also involve competing values, compromises and tradeoffs, information gaps and grey areas.
Research from The Governance Institute of Australia in 2021, surveyed a pool of directors, executives and high-level working groups to consider the most valued attributes for future board directors. Strategic and critical thinking were once ranked the highest, closely followed by the values of ethics and culture as the two most important areas that boards need to focus on to prevent corporate failure. A culture of accountability, transparency, trust and respect were viewed as a top factor determining a healthy dynamic between boards and management.
Ethics plays a central role in the decisions that face Boards and directors, such as:
- What constitutes a conflict of interest and how should it be managed?
- How aggressive should tax strategies be?
- What incentive structures and sales techniques will create a healthy and ethical organisational culture?
- What about investments in organisations that profit from arms and weaponry?
- How should organisations manage the effects technology has on their workforce?
- What obligation do organisations have to protect the environment and human rights?
Together, The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and The Ethics Centre have developed a decision making guide for directors.
Ethics in the Boardroom (2nd edition) provides directors with a simple decision-making framework which they can use to navigate the ethical dimensions of any decision. This guide is a vital resource for directors as a general reference, and should be utilised by boards to strengthen their capacity in ethics, and by individual directors and boards alike to inform conversations about the complex issues they encounter in their roles. Updated from the 2019 first edition, this second edition also reflects a changing landscape and responds to new questions emerging from the adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Through the insights of directors, academics and subject matter experts, the guide also provides four lenses to frame board conversations. These lenses give directors the best chance of viewing decisions from different perspectives. Rather than talking past each other, they will help directors pinpoint and resolve disagreement.
- Lens 1: General influences – Organisations are participants in society through the products and services they offer and their statuses as employers and influencers. The guide invites directors to seek out the broadest possible range of perspectives to enhance their choices and decisions. It also suggests that organisations should strive for leadership. What do you think about companies that take a stance on matters like climate change and same sex marriage?
- Lens 2: The board’s collective culture and character – In ethical decision making, directors are bound to apply the values and principles of their organisation. As custodians, they must ensure that culture and values are aligned. The guide invites directors to be aware that ethical decision-making in the boardroom must be tempered. Decision making shouldn’t be driven by: form over substance, passion over reason, collegiality over concurrence, the need to be right, or legacy. Just because a particular course of action is legal, does that make it right? Just because a company has always done it that way, should they continue?
- Lens 3: Interpersonal relationships and reasoning – Boards are collections of individuals who bring their own individual decision-making ‘style’ to the board table. Power dynamics exist in any group, with each person influencing and being influenced by others. Making room for diversity and constructive disagreement is vital. How can chairs and other directors empower every director to stand up for what is right? How do boards ensure that the person sitting quietly, with deep insights into ethical risk, has the courage to speak?
- Lens 4: The individual director – Directors bring their own wisdom and values to decision making. But they also might bring their own motivations that biases. The guide invites directors to self-reflect and bring the best of themselves to the board table. How can we all be more reflective in our own decision making?
This guide is a must-read for anyone who has an interest in the conduct of any board-led organisation. That includes schools, sports clubs, charities and family businesses as well as large corporations.
Behind each brand and each company, there are people making decisions that affect you as a consumer, employee and citizen. Wouldn’t you rather that those at the top had ethics at the front of their mind in the decisions that they make?
Click here to view or download a copy of the guide.
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BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Big Thinker: Marcus Aurelius
If you became a Roman Emperor, would you have maintained your humility? That’s one of the things Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE), the “Stoic philosopher king”, was known for.
Adopted by his uncle, the Emperor of Rome, when he was a young man, Marcus spent his adult life learning the business of government, including serving as consul (chief magistrate) for three separate years.
Prior to becoming Emperor, Marcus also began forming an interest in philosophy. In particular, the writings of the former slave Epictetus (55 BCE–135 CE), a renowned thinker of Stoic moral philosophy. This would turn out to be the influence of one of Marcus’ greatest legacies, the Meditations.
Meditations and Stoicism
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is a series of twelve books containing personal notes and ideas for self-guidance and self-improvement. Scholars believe it’s unlikely that it was ever written to be seen, but rather that the books are akin to a journal, written in private for his own moral improvement, to reinforce in himself the Stoic doctrines that he aimed to live and rule by.
Marcus wrote these meditations during the second decade of his reign and last decade of his life, during which he was campaigning to take back and expand parts of his empire after enduring years of plague and invasion.
He saw the philosophy of Stoicism as the principal guidance for his life and writing, though quotes from many other philosophies can be found in his books.
Stoicism is an ancient philosophy whose ethics propose a focus on reason and happiness (flourishing). It says, like many philosophies at the time, that the rational person’s ultimate goal is to live happily.
Unique to Stoicism, though, is the idea that the only thing needed for happiness is virtue. To live perfectly virtuously is to be happy, regardless of external constraints or effects. This leads to a difficult conclusion, but one that the Stoics maintain: a virtuous person being tortured for example, is still maximally happy, since they still possess the one beneficial quality, virtue.
It follows from this, say the Stoics, that happiness is fully within our personal control. Marcus’ writing to himself reinforces this idea in various ways, supporting himself through the difficulties of Roman life, not to mention a ruler during conflict.
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
One of the main teachings of Stoicism is acceptance. This is where the common misunderstanding of Stoicism being restraint comes from. Many believe that it encourages the bottling or rejecting of emotion. Rather, it says that virtuous people are not overcome by impulsive and excessive emotion.
This is not because Stoics believed that we must restrain ourselves. Instead, they believed that we find virtue through knowledge. Then, once we properly obtain the knowledge that coincides with our rationality and nature, we will freely accept the reality of things that once may have caused us grief (or joy).
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus used these teachings to guide himself, as is evident in the many quotes that continue to circulate in pop culture. Some of these speak of the importance of endurance in the pursuit of virtue, believing that challenges are an opportunity to strengthen character. Others speak of the importance of gratitude in responding to the perceived highs and lows of life.
“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”
Marcus Aurelius left a legacy that has lingered across cultures and centuries to continue guiding people on their journeys of self-improvement.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Ethics Explainer: Ethical non-monogamy
Ethical non-monogamy (ENM), also known as consensual non-monogamy, describes practices that involve multiple concurrent romantic and/or sexual relationships.
What it’s not
First up, it’s important to distinguish the two types of non-monogamy that are often conflated with ENM:
Polygamy, the most prominent kind of culturally institutionalised non-monogamy, is the practice of having multiple marriages. It is a historically significant practice, with hundreds of societies around the world having practiced it at some point, while many still do.
Infidelity, or non-consensual non-monogamy, is something we colloquially refer to as cheating. That is, when one or both partners in a monogamous relationship engage in various forms of intimacy outside of the relationship without the knowledge or consent of the other.
All-party consent
So, what makes ethical non-monogamy, then?
One of the defining features of ethical non-monogamy is its focus on consent.
Polygamy, while it can be consensual in theory, more often occurs alongside arranged marriages, child marriages, dowries and other practices that revoke the autonomy of women and girls. Infidelity is of course inherently non-consensual, but the reasons and ways that it happens inversely influence ENM practices.
Consent needs to be informed, voluntary and active. This means that all people involved in ENM relationships need to understand the dynamics they’re involved in, are not being emotionally or physically coerced into agreement, and are explicitly assenting to the arrangement.
Open communication
There are a multitude of ways that ENM relationships can operate, but each of them relies on a foundation of honesty and effective communication (the basis of informed consent). This often means communicating openly about things that are seen as taboo or unusual in monogamous relationships – attraction to others, romantic or sexual plans with others, feelings of jealousy, vulnerability, or inadequacy.
While all ENM relationships require this commitment to open communication and consent, there can be variation in how that looks based on the kind of relationship dynamic. They’re often broken up into broad categories of polyamory, open relationships, and relationship anarchy.
Polyamory refers to having multiple romantic relationships concurrently. Maintaining ethical polyamorous relationships involves ongoing communication with all partners to ensure that everyone understands the boundaries and expectations of each relationship. Polyamory can look like a throuple, or five people all in a relationship with each other, or one person in a relationship with three separate people, or any other number of configurations that work for the people involved.
Open relationships are focused more on the sexual aspects, where usually one primary couple will maintain the sole romantic relationship but agree to having sexual experiences outside of the relationship. While many still rely on continued communication, there is a subset of open relationships that operate on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This usually involves consenting to seeking sexual partners outside of the relationship but agreeing to keep the details private. Swinging is also a popular form of open relationship, where monoamorous (romantically exclusive) couples have sexual relations with other couples.
Relationship anarchy rejects most conventional labels and structures, including some of the ones that polyamorous relationships sometimes rely on, like hierarchy. Instead, these relationships are based on personal agreements between each individual partner.
What all of these have in common is a firm commitment to communicating needs, expectations, boundaries and emotions in a respectful way.
These are also the hallmarks of a good monogamous relationship, but the need for them in ethical non-monogamy is compounded by the extra variables that come with multiple relationship dynamics simultaneously.
There are many other aspects of ethical relationship development that are emphasised in ethical non-monogamy but equally important and applicable to monogamous ones. These includes things like understanding and managing emotions, especially jealousy, and practicing safe sex.
Outside the relationships
Unconventional relationships are unrecognised in the law in most countries. This poses ethical challenges to current laws, including things like marriage, inheritance, hospital visitation, and adoption.
If consenting adults are in a relationship that looks different to the monogamous ones most laws are set around, is it ethical to exclude them from the benefits that they would otherwise have? Given the difficultly that monogamous queer relationships have faced and continue to face under the law in many countries, non-monogamy seems to be a long way from legal recognition. But it’s worth asking, why?
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Big Thinker: Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his explanation of the role of government as an insurer of security, which has had an enduring influence on understandings of political philosophy.
Living through the displacement of the English Civil War (1642-1651), Hobbes was grappling with the question of how societies could keep peace and ensure stability, amid conflict and self-interest. The period was marked by social upheaval with the collapse of royal authority, clashes between the government and monarchy and insecurity, which led to him thinking about the manifestations of power, the human condition and the role of government.
His approach to understanding human behaviour was methodical and scientific, being deeply influenced by the scientific revolution of the time. Hobbes believed that human societies, like physical systems, could be understood through cause and effect and that understandings of order and stability were derived from the predictability of human behaviour and power structures.
The state of nature
It was from this historical and intellectual backdrop that Hobbes produced his most famous work, Leviathan (1651). His masterwork Leviathan: The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, garnered him fame for creating what would later become known as the Social Contract Theory, a framework that explains and justifies the exchange that free, equal and rational citizens make in surrendering certain freedoms in return for collective order and protection. This same contract also serves to provide legitimacy to governments and their use of power and authority over citizens.
In Leviathan and his other work, Hobbes disagrees with Aristotle that humans are naturally suited to life as citizens within a state. Hobbes instead argues that humans are not equipped to be rational citizens, as we are easily swayed, often short sighted and highly competitive. He believes these characteristics make humans more predisposed to violence and war rather than political order, with no natural self-restraint. Hobbes states that in this state of nature, without government and order, the life of man is “poor, nasty, brutish and short”, largely due to the insecurity and conflict. Everyone is free and equal, without any rules or restrictions to their actions and coupled with a self interested nature and limited resources, life in this state is a constant struggle.
The social contract
To escape this constant struggle in this state of nature, Hobbes argues that people, through reason, collectively agree to create a social contract. Hobbes believes that political order is only formed when human beings voluntarily give up some of their rights and freedoms, in exchange for order and security from a common authority, the leviathan (a ruler).
Hobbes uses the Leviathan as a metaphor for a powerful ruler or government that embodies the collective will of the people, possessing absolute authority to maintain peace and prevent society from descending back into chaos. Hobbes conception of a social contract and the role of the sovereign or leviathan, refers to these key characteristics:
- The sovereign or leviathan’s power must be absolute – only one authority, as divided power invites factionalism.
- The contract is driven by the purpose of security.
- Individuals cannot revoke the contract once it’s been made, as it would risk bringing back chaos.
- The contract is between the people and the sovereign is not party to this agreement. However, if the sovereign fails to maintain peace and security, the contract loses legitimacy and people return to the state of nature.
This framework for the social contract theory by Hobbes, was adopted by John Locke and Jean-Jaques Rousseau. However, they differed from Hobbes by offering a more optimistic view of human behaviour and the role of government. Critical responses tended to focus on a lack of accountability measures on the leviathan who has expansive absolute power. Locke for example took a liberal view, involving limited government and argued the leviathan was mutually obligated within a social contract, rather than subjects being expected to obey unconditionally to avoid the collapse of civil society.
Hobbes’s ideas continue to shape how government and authority is understood. While very few modern states reflect the vision of an absolute sovereign, the core principles of the social contract theory remain central to political thought. The consent of citizens to be governed in exchange for protection and the rule of law persists. However, in modern liberal democracies, the power of governments is placed under greater scrutiny through constitutions, elections and other checks and balances. Hobbes’s theory provides the foundation for understanding why societies form governments, even as modern democracies reinterpret his ideas to prioritise liberty, representation, and accountability alongside security and order.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Meet Aubrey Blanche: Shaping the future of responsible leadership
We’re thrilled to introduce Aubrey Blanche, our new Director of Ethical Advisory & Strategic Partnerships, who will lead our engagements with organisational partners looking to operate with the highest standards of ethical governance and leadership.
Aubrey is a responsible governance executive with 15 years of impact. An expert in issues of workplace fairness and the ethics of artificial intelligence, her experience spans HR, ESG, communications, and go-to-market strategy. She seeks to question and reimagine the systems that surround us to ensure that all can build a better world. A regular speaker and writer on issues of ethical business, finance, and technology, she has appeared on stages and in media outlets all over the world.
To better understand the work she’ll be doing with The Ethics Centre, we sat down with Aubrey to discuss her views on AI, corporate responsibility, and sustainability.
We’ve seen the proliferation of AI impact the way in which we work. What does responsible AI use look like to you – for both individuals and organisations?
I think that the first step to responsibility in AI is questioning whether we use it at all! While I believe it is and will be a transformative technology, there are major downsides I don’t think we talk about enough. We know that it’s not quite as effective as many people running frontier AI labs aim to make us believe, and it uses an incredible amount of natural resources for what can sometimes be mediocre returns.
Next, I think that to really achieve responsibility we need partnerships between the public and private sector. I think that we need to ensure that we’re applying existing regulation to this technology, whether that’s copyright law in the case of training, consumer protection in the case of chatbots interacting with children, or criminal prosecution regarding deepfake pornography. We also need business leaders to take ethics seriously, and to build safeguards into every stage from design to deployment. We need enterprises to refuse to buy from vendors that can’t show their investments in ensuring their products are safe.
And last, we need civil society to actively participate in incentivising those actors to behave in ways that are of benefit to all of society (not just shareholders or wealthy donors). That means voting for politicians that support policies that support collective wellbeing, boycotting companies complicit in harms, and having conversations within their communities about how these technologies can be used safely.
In a time where public trust is low in businesses, how can they operate fairly and responsibly?
I think the best way that businesses can build responsibility is to be more specific. I think people are tired of hearing “We’re committed to…”. There’s just been too much greenwashing, too much ethics washing, and too many “commitments” to diversity that haven’t been backed up by real investment or progress. The way through that is to define the specific objectives you have in relation to responsibility topics, publish your specific goals, and regularly report on your progress – even if it’s modest.
And most importantly, do this even when trust is low. In a time of disillusionment, you’ll need to have the moral courage to do the right thing even when there is less short-term “credit” for it.
How can we incentivise corporations to take responsible action on environmental issues?
I think that regulation can be a powerful motivator. I’m really excited that the Australian Accounting Standards Board is bringing new requirements into force that, at least for large companies, will force them to proactively manage climate risks and their impacts. While I don’t think it’s the whole answer, a regulatory “push” can be what’s needed for executives to see that actively thinking about climate in the context of their operations can be broadly beneficial to operations.
What are you most excited about sinking your teeth into at The Ethics Centre?
There’s so much to be excited about! But something that I’ve found wildly inspiring is working with our Young Ambassadors – early career professionals in banking and financial services who are working with us to develop their ethical leadership skills. While I have enjoyed working with our members – and have spent the last 15 years working with leaders in various areas of corporate responsibility – there nothing quite like the optimism you get when learning from people who care so much and who show us what future is possible.
Lastly – the big one, what does ethics mean to you?
A former boss of mine once told me that leadership is not about making the right choice when you have one: it’s about making the best choice you can when you have terrible ones and living with that choice. I think in many cases that’s what ethics is. It gives us a framework not to do the right thing when the answer is clear, but to align ourselves as closely as we can with our values and the greater good when our options are messy, complicated, or confusing.
Personally, I’ve spent a deep amount of time thinking about my values, and if I were forced to distill them down to two, I would wholeheartedly choose justice and compassion. I have found that when I consider choices through those frames, I both feel more like myself and like I’ve made choices that are a net good in the world. And I’ve been lucky enough to spend my career in roles where I got to live those values – that’s a privilege I don’t take for granted, and one of the reasons I’m so thrilled to be in this new role with The Ethics Centre.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Big Thinker: Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (born Alissa Rosenbaum, 1905-1982) was a Russian-born American writer & philosopher best known for her work on Objectivism, a philosophy she called “the virtue of selfishness”.
From a young age, Rand proved to be gifted, and after teaching herself to read at age 6, she decided she wanted to be a fiction writer by age 9.
During her teenage years, she witnessed both the Kerensky Revolution in February of 1917, which saw Tsar Nicholas II removed from power, and the Bolshevik Revolution in October of 1917. The victory of the Communist party brought the confiscation of her father’s pharmacy, driving her family to near starvation and away from their home. These experiences likely laid the groundwork for her contempt for the idea of the collective good.
In 1924, Rand graduated from the University of Petrograd, studying history, literature and philosophy. She was approved for a visa to visit family in the US, and she decided to stay and pursue a career in play and fiction writing, using it as a medium to express her philosophical beliefs.
Objectivism
“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” – Appendix of Atlas Shrugged
Rand developed her core philosophical idea of Objectivism, which maintains that there is no greater moral goal than achieving one’s happiness. To achieve this happiness, however, we are required to be rational and logical about the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs.
Objectivism has four pillars:
- Objective reality – there is a world that exists independent of how we each perceive it
- Direct realism – the only way we can make sense of this objective world is through logic and rationality
- Ethical egoism – an action is morally right if it promotes our own self-interest (rejecting the altruistic beliefs that we should act in the interest of other people)
- Capitalism – a political system that respects the individual rights and interests of the individual person, rather than a collective.
Given her beliefs on individualism and the morality of selfishness, Rand found that the only political system that was compatible was Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Protecting individual freedom with as little regulation and government interference would ensure that people can be rationally selfish.
A person subscribing to Objectivism will make decisions based on what is rational to them, not out of obligation to friends or family or their community. Rand believes that these people end up contributing more to the world around them, because they are more creative, learned, and can challenge the status quo.
Writing
She explored these concepts in her most well-known pieces of fiction: The Fountainhead, published in 1943, and Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. The Fountainhead follows Howard Roark, an anti-establishment architect who refuses to conform to traditional styles and popular taste. She introduces the reader to the concept of “second-handedness”, which she defines living through others’ and their ideas, rather than through independent thought and reason.
The character Roark personifies Rand’s Objectivist ideals, of rational independence, productivity and integrity. Her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, builds on these ideas of rational, selfish, creative individuals as the “prime movers” of a society. Set in a dystopian America, where productivity, creativity, and entrepreneurship stagnate due to over-regulation and an “overly altruistic society”, the novel describes this as disincentivising ambitious, money-driven people.
Even though Atlas Shrugged quickly became a bestseller, its reception was controversial. It has tended to be applauded by conservatives, while dismissed as “silly,’ “rambling” and “philosophically flawed” by liberals.
Controversy
Ayn Rand remains a controversial figure, given her pro-capitalist, individual-centred definition of an ideal society. So much of how we understand ethics is around what we can do for other people and the societies we live in, using various frameworks to understand how we can maximise positive outcomes, or discern the best action. Objectivism turns this on its head, claiming that the best thing we can do for ourselves and the world is act within our own rational self-interest.
“Why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world–to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
Rand’s work remains hotly debated and contested, although today it is being read in a vastly different context. Tech billionaires and CEOs such as Peter Thiel and Steve Jobs are said to have used her philosophy as their “guiding stars,” and her work tends to gain traction during times of political and economic instability, such as during the 2008 financial crisis. Ultimately, whether embraced as inspiration or rejected as ideology, Rand’s legacy continues to grapple with the extent to which individual freedom drives a society forward.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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3 things we learnt from The Ethics of AI
As artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly accessible and integrated into our daily lives, what responsibilities do we bear when engaging with and designing this technology? Is it just a tool? Will it take our jobs? In The Ethics of AI, philosopher Dr Tim Dean and global ethicist and trailblazer in AI, Dr Catriona Wallace, sat down to explore the ethical challenges posed by this rapidly evolving technology and its costs on both a global and personal level.
Missed the session? No worries, we’ve got you covered. Here are 3 things we learnt from the event, The Ethics of AI:
We need to think about AI in a way we haven’t thought about other tools or technology
In 2023, The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai described AI as more important than the invention of fire, claiming it even surpassed great leaps in technology such as electricity. Catriona takes this further, calling AI “a new species”, because “we don’t really know where it’s all going”.
So is AI just another tool, or an entirely new entity?
When AI is designed, it’s programmed with algorithms and fed with data. But as Catriona explains, AI begins to mirror users’ inputs and make autonomous decisions – often in ways even the original coders can’t fully explain.
Tim points out that we tend to think of technology instrumentally, as a value neutral tool at our disposal. But drawing from German philosopher Martin Heidegger, he reminds us that we’re already underthinking tools and what they can do – tools have affordances, they shape our environment and steer our behaviour. So “when we add in this idea of agency and intentionality” Tim says, “it’s no longer the fusion of you and the tool having intentionality – the tool itself might have its own intentions, goals and interests”.
AI will force us to reevaluate our relationship with work
The 2025 Future of Jobs Report from The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2030, AI will replace 92 million current jobs but 170 million new jobs will be created. While we’ve already seen this kind of displacement during technological revolutions, Catriona warns that the unemployed workers most likely won’t be retrained into the new roles.
“We’re looking at mass unemployment for front line entry-level positions which is a real problem.”
A universal basic income might be necessary to alleviate the effects of automation-driven unemployment.
So if we all were to receive a foundational payment, what does the world look like when we’re liberated from work? Since many of us tie our identity to our jobs and what we do, who are we if we find fulfilment in other types of meaning?
Tim explains, “work is often viewed as paid employment, and we know – particularly women – that not all work is paid, recognised or acknowledged. Anyone who has a hobby knows that some work can be deeply meaningful, particularly if you have no expectation of being paid”.
Catriona agrees, “done well, AI could free us from the tie to labour that we’ve had for so long, and allow a freedom for leisure, philosophy, art, creativity, supporting others, caring for loving, and connection to nature”.
Tech companies have a responsibility to embed human-centred values at their core
From harmful health advice to fabricating vital information, the implications of AI hallucinations have been widely reported.
The Responsible AI Index reveals a huge disconnect between businesses leaders’ understanding of AI ethics, with only 30% of organisations knowing how to implement ethical and responsible AI. Catriona explains this is a problem because “if we can’t create an AI agent or tool that is always going to make ethical recommendations, then when an AI tool makes a decision, there will always be somebody who’s held accountable”.
She points out that within organisations, executives, investors, and directors often don’t understand ethics deeply and pass decision making down to engineers and coders — who then have to draw the ethical lines. “It can’t just be a top-down approach; we have to be training everybody in the organisation.”
So what can businesses do?
AI must be carefully designed with purpose, developed to be ethical and regulated responsibly. The Ethics Centre’s Ethical by Design framework can guide the development of any kind of technology to ensure it conforms to essential ethical standards. This framework can be used by those developing AI, by governments to guide AI regulation, and by the general public as a benchmark to assess whether AI conforms to the ethical standards they have every right to expect.
The Ethics of AI can be streamed On Demand until 25 September, book your ticket here. For a deeper dive into AI, visit our range of articles here.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Ethics Explainer: Moral Courage
Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Greta Thunberg, Vincent Lingiari, Malala Yousafzai.
For most, these names, and many more, evoke a sense of inspiration. They represent decades and centuries of steadfast moral conviction in the face of overwhelming national and global pressure.
Rosa Parks, risking the limited freedom she was afforded in 1955 America, refused to acquiesce to the transit segregation of the time and sparked an unprecedented boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr.
Frederick Douglass, risking his uncommon position of freedom and power as a Black man in pre-civil rights America, used his standing and skills to advocate for women’s suffrage.
There have always been people who have acted for what they think is right regardless of the risk to themselves.
This is moral courage. The ability to stand by our values and principles, even when it’s uncomfortable or risky.
Examples of this often seem to come in the form of very public declarations of moral conviction, potentially convincing us that this is the sort of platform we need to be truly morally courageous.
But we would be mistaken.
Speaking up doesn’t always mean speaking out
Having the courage to stand by our moral convictions does sometimes mean speaking out in public ways like protesting the government, but for most people, opportunities to speak up manifest in much smaller and more common ways almost every day.
This could look like speaking up for someone in front of your boss, questioning a bully at school, challenging a teacher you think has been unfair, preventing someone on the street from being harassed or even asking someone to pick up their litter.
In each case, an everyday occurrence forces us to confront discomfort, and potentially danger or loss, to live out our values and ideals. Do we have the courage to choose loyalty over comfort? Honesty over security? Justice over personal gain?
The truth is that sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we fail to take responsibility for our own inaction. Nothing shows this better than the bystander effect: functionally the direct opposite to moral courage, the bystander effect is a social phenomenon where individuals in group or public settings fail to act because of the presence of others. Being surrounded by people causes many of us to offload responsibility to those around us, thinking: “Someone else will handle it.”
This is where another kind of moral courage comes into play: the ability to reflect on ourselves. While it’s important to learn how and when to speak up, some internal work is often needed to get there.
Self-reflection is often underestimated. But it’s one of the hardest aspects of moral courage: the willingness to confront and interrogate our own thoughts, habits, and actions.
If someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, the first step of moral courage is acknowledging your discomfort. All too often, discomfort causes us to disengage, even when no one else is around to pass responsibility onto. Rather than reckon with a situation or person who is challenging our values or principles, we curl up into our shells and hope the moment passes.
This is because moral courage can be – it takes time and practice to build the habits and confidence to tolerate uncomfortable situations. And it takes even more time and practice to prioritise what we think is right with friends, family and colleagues instead of avoiding confrontation in relationships that are already often complicated.
It can get even more complicated once we consider all of our options because sometimes the right ways to act aren’t obvious. Sometimes, the morally courageous thing to do is actually to be silent, or to walk away, or to wait for a better opportunity to address the issue. These options can feel, in the moment, akin to giving up or letting someone else ‘win’ the interaction. But that is the true test of moral courage – being able to see the moral end goal and push through discomfort or challenge to get there.
The courage to be wrong
The flipside to self-reflection is the ability to recognise, acknowledge and reflect with grace when someone speaks up against us.
It’s hard to be told that we’re wrong. It’s even harder to avoid immediately placing walls in our own defence. Overcoming that is the stuff of moral courage too – not just being able to confront others, but being able to confront ourselves, to question our understanding of something, our actions or our beliefs when we are challenged by others.
Whether these changes are worldview-altering, or simply a swapping of word choice to reflect your respect for others, the important thing is that we learn to sit with discomfort and listen. Listen to criticism but also listen to our own thoughts and figure out why our defences are up.
Because in the end, moral courage isn’t just about bold public stands. It’s about showing up—in big moments and more mundane ones—for what’s right. And that begins with the courage to face ourselves.
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BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Thought experiment: The original position
If you were tasked with remaking society from scratch, how would you decide on the rules that should govern it?
This is the starting point of an influential thought experiment posed by the American 20th century political philosopher, John Rawls, that was intended to help us think about what a just society would look like.
Imagine you are at the very first gathering of people looking to create a society together. Rawls called this hypothetical gathering the “original position”. However, you also sit behind what Rawls called a “veil of ignorance”, so you have no idea who you will be in your society. This means you don’t know whether you will be rich, poor, male, female, able, disabled, religious, atheist, or even what your own idea of a good life looks like.
Rawls argued that these people in the original position, sitting behind a veil of ignorance, would be able to come up with a fair set of rules to run society because they would be truly impartial. And even though it’s impossible for anyone to actually “forget” who they are, the thought experiment has proven to be a highly influential tool for thinking about what a truly fair society might entail.
Social contract
Rawls’ thought experiment harkens back to a long philosophical tradition of thinking about how society – and the rules that govern it – emerged, and how they might be ethically justified. Centuries ago, thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Lock speculated that in the deep past, there were no societies as we understand them today. Instead, people lived in an anarchic “state of nature,” where each individual was governed only by their self-interest.
However, as people came together to cooperate for mutual benefit, they also got into destructive conflicts as their interests inevitably clashed. Hobbes painted a bleak picture of the state of nature as a “war of all against all” that persisted until people agreed to enter into a kind of “social contract,” where each person gives up some of their freedoms – such as the freedom to harm others – as long as everyone else in the contract does the same.
Hobbes argued that this would involve everyone outsourcing the rules of society to a monarch with absolute power – an idea that many more modern thinkers found to be unacceptably authoritarian. Locke, on the other hand, saw the social contract as a way to decide if a government had legitimacy. He argued that a government only has legitimacy if the people it governs could hypothetically come together to agree on how it’s run. This helped establish the basis of modern liberal democracy.
Rawls wanted to take the idea of a social contract further. He asked what kinds of rules people might come up with if they sat down in the original position with their peers and decided on them together.
Two principles
Rawls argued that two principles would emerge from the original position. The first principle is that each person in the society would have an equal right to the most expansive system of basic freedoms that are compatible with similar freedoms for everyone else. He believed these included things like political freedom, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of thought, the right to own property and freedom from arbitrary arrest.
The second principle, which he called the “difference principle”, referred to how power and wealth should be distributed in the society. He argued that everyone should have equal opportunity to hold positions of authority and power, and that wealth should be distributed in a way that benefits the least advantaged members of society.
This means there can be inequality, and some people can be vastly more wealthy than others, but only if that inequality benefits those with the least wealth and power. So a world where everyone has $100 is not as just as a world where some people have $10,000, but the poorest have at least $101.
Since Rawls published his idea of the original position in A Theory of Justice in 1972, it has sparked tremendous discussion and debate among philosophers and political theorists, and helped inform how we think about liberal society. To this day, Rawls’ idea of the original position is a useful tool to think about what kinds of rules ought to govern society.
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