When human rights complicate religious freedom and secular law
As the Commonwealth Government ponders its response to the Ruddock Religious Freedom Review, it’s worth considering what people of faith may be seeking to preserve and what limits society might justifiably seek to impose.
The term ‘religious freedom’ encompasses a number of distinct but related ideas. At the core, it’s freedom of belief – in a god, gods or a higher realm or being.
Many religions make absolute (and often mutually exclusive) claims to truth, most of which cannot be proven. Religions rely, instead, on acts of faith. Next comes freedom of worship – the freedom to perform, unhindered, the rituals of one’s faith. Then there is the freedom to act in good conscience – to give effect to one’s religious belief in the course of one’s daily life and, as a corollary, not to be forced to act in a manner that would violate one’s sacred obligations. Finally, there is the freedom to proselytise – to teach the tenets of one’s religion to the faithful and to those who might be persuaded.
In a secular, liberal democracy the four types of religious freedom outlined above – to believe, to worship, to act and to proselytise – attract different degrees of liberty. For example, people are generally free to believe whatever takes their fancy, no matter how ill-founded or bizarre. This is not so in all societies. Some theocracies will punish ‘heretics’ for holding unorthodox beliefs. Acting out of belief – in worship, deeds and proselytising – is often subject to some measure of restraint. For example, pious folk are not permitted to set up a pulpit (or equivalent) in the middle of a main road. They are not permitted to beat a woman, even if the teaching of their religion allows (or requires) her chastisement. They are not permitted to let a child die because of a religious objection to life-saving medical procedures. Nor are they able to teach that some people are ‘lesser beings’, lacking intrinsic dignity, simply because of their gender, sexuality, culture, religion, and so on. In other words, there are boundaries set for the expression of religious belief, whatever those beliefs might be.
It is precisely the setting of such ‘boundaries’ that has become a point of contention. Some Australian religious leaders claim they should be exempt from the application of Australian laws that they do not approve, like anti-discrimination legislation. This is nothing new. As it happens, in Australia, a number of religions have long denied the validity of secular law, even to the extent of running parallel legal systems.
The Roman Catholic Church regularly applies Canon Law in cases involving the status of divorcees, the sanctity of the confessional, and so on. The Government of Australia might recognise divorce, but the Church does not. The following text is taken from the official website of the Archdiocese of Sydney: A divorce is a civil act that claims to dissolve a valid marriage. From a civil legal perspective, a marriage existed and was then dissolved. The Catholic Church … does not recognise the ability of the State to dissolve a marriage. An annulment, on the other hand, is an official declaration by a Church Tribunal that what appeared to be a valid marriage was actually not one (i.e, that the marriage was in fact invalid) [my emphasis].
In a similar vein, the Jewish community maintains a separate legal system that oversees the application of Halakhic Law through the operation of special Jewish religious courts called Beth Din. Given the precedents set by Christians and Jews, it’s not surprising that adherents of other faith groups, notably Muslims, are seeking the same rights to apply religious laws within their own courts and to enjoy exemptions from the application of the secular law.
“Fundamental human rights come as a ‘bundle’. They are indivisible.”
Given all of the above, are there any principles that we might draw on when setting the boundaries to religious freedom?
Human rights
Fortunately, the proponents of freedom of religion have provided an excellent starting point for answering this question. It begins with the core of their argument – that freedom of belief (religion) is a fundamental human right. Their claim is well founded. However, those who invoke fundamental human rights cannot ‘cherry pick’ amongst those rights, only defending those that suit their preferences.
Fundamental human rights come as a ‘bundle’. They are indivisible. It follows from this that if people of faith are to assert their claim to religious freedom as a fundamental human right, then the exercise of that freedom should be consistent with the realisation of all other fundamental human rights. Religious freedom is but one. It follows from this that any legislative instrument designed to create a legal right to freedom of religion must circumscribe that right to the extent necessary to ensure that other human rights are not curtailed. For example, a legal right to religious freedom should not authorise violence against another person. Nor should it permit discrimination of a kind that would otherwise be considered unlawful under human rights legislation.
If there is to be Commonwealth legislation, then it should establish an unrestricted right of belief and a rebuttable presumption in favour of acting on those beliefs. The limits to action should be that the conduct (either by word or deed): does not constrain the liberty of another person, does not subject another person to any form of violence, does not deny the intrinsic dignity of another person and does not violate the human rights of another person. Finally, it is essential that as a liberal democracy any Australian legislation specify that the tenets of a religion only apply to those who have freely consented to adopt that religion.
So, what might this look like in practice – say, in relation to same sex marriage now that it is lawful?
Baking cakes
Nobody should be compelled to believe that same sex marriage is ‘moral’. That is a matter of personal belief unrelated to the law. Second, it should be permissible to teach, to members of one’s faith group, and to advocate, more generally, that same sex marriage is immoral (a view I do not hold). The fact that something is legal leaves open the question of its morality. Third, no person should be required to perform a marriage if to do so would violate the dictates of their conscience. Roman Catholic priests refuse to marry heterosexual divorcees. Such marriages are allowed by the state – yet no priest is forced to perform such a marriage because to do so would make them directly complicit is an act their religion forbids. Such an allowance should only extend to those at risk of becoming directly complicit in objectionable acts. For example, such an allowance should not be granted to a religious baker not wanting to provide a wedding cake to a gay couple. Cakes play no direct role in the formalities of a civil marriage. So, unlike a pharmaceutical company that might justifiably object to becoming complicit through the supply of drugs to an executioner, a baker is never going to be complicit in the performance of a marriage. As such, a baker should be bound by law to supply his or her goods on a non-discriminatory basis. Of course, there will always be some who feel obliged to put the requirements of their religion before the law.
To act according to one’s conscience in an honourable choice. But only do this if you are willing to bear the penalty.
Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of The Ethics Centre: www.ethics.org.au
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
BY Simon Longstaff
After studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, Simon pursued postgraduate studies in philosophy as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1991, Simon commenced his work as the first Executive Director of The Ethics Centre. In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.”
Big Thinker: Germaine Greer
Feminist firebrand or second wave scourge? When The Female Eunuch was published to international success, it was obvious Germaine Greer (1939—present) had hit a nerve – something she continues to do.
This article contains language and content that may be offensive to some readers.
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer and public intellectual who rose to international influence with her book published in 1970, The Female Eunuch. It was a watershed text in second wave feminism, a bestseller around the world, and it made Greer a household name.
Greer’s infamously bold voice and sense of humour permeates throughout the book. Her strong character and take no prisoners approach to public debate saw her regularly contribute to panels and broadcast media. Greer was launched into the public eye as a young, bolshie feminist star.
Since then, Greer has written many books spanning literature, feminism and the environment. She has become one of Australia’s most ‘no-platformed’ thinkers. Almost five decades on, we take a look at her contributions to feminist philosophy.
Human freedom is intrinsically tied to sexual freedom
Greer is a liberation, rather than equality feminist. She believed achieving true freedom for women meant asserting their uniquely female difference and “insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination”.
Greer wanted to be certain about this female difference, and for her, this certainty started with the body.
You can think of Greer’s claims like this:
- Women are sexually repressed.
- Men are not sexually repressed.
- The difference between men and women is their biological sex.
- Biological sex determines if you’re sexually repressed or not.
The second part of her argument is as follows:
- Women are expected to be ‘feminine’.
- Women are sexually repressed.
- The expectation to be ‘feminine’ is sexually repressive.
Greer is scathing in her portrayal of ‘femininity’. She claimed it kept women docile, repressed, and weak. It stifled women’s sexual agency, hence the ‘eunuch’, which was intrinsically tied to their humanity.
Only by liberating women sexually could they remove this imposed submissiveness and embrace the freedom to live the way they wanted.
“The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, talk loudly and sit with your knees apart.” – Germaine Greer (1993)
A feminist utopia is an anarchist utopia first
In the London Review of Books 1999, Linda Colley wrote, “Properly and historically understood, Greer is not primarily a feminist. More than anything else, she should be viewed as a utopian.”
For Greer, the greatest danger of the widespread female eunuch is not an unfulfilling sex life. It is in her being so concerned with femininity that she is incapable of political action. Greer believed this social conditioning was dire and its enforcers so embedded that revolution rather than reform was required.
Greer called for this revolution to start in the home. She spoke openly about topics that at the time were taboo: menstruation, hormonal changes, pregnancy, menopause, sexual arousal and orgasm. She decried the agents of femininity that she felt kept women trapped: makeup, constricting clothing, feminine hygiene products, stifling marriages, misogynistic literature and female sexual competitiveness. She reserved her greatest fury for widespread consumerism, which she believed kept women dependent on the systems that forged their own oppression.
Like Mary Wollstonecraft before her, Greer argued neither men nor women benefited from this. She called upon women to rebel again these “dogmatists” and create a world of their own. But the solution she presents is exploratory instead of pragmatic. Perhaps women could live and raise their children together, making their own goods and growing their own food. It would be somewhere pleasant like the rolling landscapes of Italy, with local people to tend house and garden. (It’s unclear whether these local people would be liberated too.)
Intellectual criticisms
Greer’s celebration of non-monogamous sex in The Female Eunuch and her derision of Western society’s obsession with sex in Sex and Destiny led critics to label her ideas slipshod and too inconsistent for a public intellectual.
The root of most criticisms and controversies surrounding Greer, tend to stem from her view of the sexes. Like other second wave feminists, she suggested biological sex determined women’s oppression. This stands in stark contrast to the perspectives of third wave feminists and queer theorists, such as Judith Butler, for whom gender’s learned behaviours play the crucial role.
Greer and her contemporaries are often criticised by third and fourth wave feminists for predicating their philosophies on a male/female binary. A binary that does not account for the broad chromosomal spectrums found among intersex people or the many ways in which individuals feel and express their gender.
Infamous commentary
Greer is not the docile feminine woman she warned of in The Female Eunuch. She has long been celebrated for bucking trends and being refreshingly bold and frank. She is also heavily criticised for being rude, offensive and out of touch. She has been described as having “the self-awareness of a sweet potato”, a “misogynist”, and “a clever fool”.
After she extolled the work of Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard on an episode of ABC’s Q&A, she was slammed for criticising Gillard’s body and clothing:
“What I want her to do is get rid of those bloody jackets … They don’t fit. Every time she turns around you’ve got that strange horizontal crease which means they cut too narrow in the hips. You’ve got a big arse Julia…”
Social media lit up with calls for Greer to “shut up” after she linked rape and bad sex in the age of #MeToo:
“Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime – and some rapes are – think about it as non-consensual, that is, bad sex. Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love. We used to talk about lovemaking.”
It is probably Greer’s public statements around transgender women that have attracted the most protest. In an interview after an intense no-platforming campaign to cancel a lecture Greer was scheduled to give at Cardiff University on women and power in the 20th century, she said, “Just because you lop off your penis and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a fucking woman”.
This sentiment probably links with Greer’s ideas on sexed bodies. A sympathetic reading of the comment might see it as one about being born into oppression – a rather second wave feminist sentiment that echoes the racial and queer politics of the same era. An idea that’s sometimes cited as analogous to Greer’s controversial comment is that you cannot understand what it is to be black, unless you were born black and experienced discriminations since the day of your birth. Perhaps she was suggesting we cannot understand the oppression experienced by women and girls unless we are born into a female body. Perhaps not. Either way, the comment was received as incredibly offensive and naive to transgender women’s experiences.
“People are hurtful to me all the time. Try being an old woman. I mean for goodness sake! People get hurt all the time. I’m not about to walk on eggshells.” – Germaine Greer, 2015
Greer and second wave feminists generally are at odds with intersectional feminism which is prominent today. Intersectional feminism holds that many factors beyond sex marginalise people – age, race, nationality, disability, class, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity… Different women will be oppressed to varying degrees.
Whether Greer is a trailblazer or tactless provocateur, it is doubtless her ideas have influenced the political and personal and landscapes of gender relations and feminist thinking.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
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.
BY Kym Middleton
Former Head of Editorial & Events at TEC, Kym Middleton is a freelance writer, artistic producer, and multi award winning journalist with a background in long form TV, breaking news and digital documentary. Twitter @kymmidd
BY Aisyah Shah Idil
Aisyah Shah Idil is a writer with a background in experimental poetry. After completing an undergraduate degree in cultural studies, she travelled overseas to study human rights and theology. A former producer at The Ethics Centre, Aisyah is currently a digital content producer with the LMA.
Ethics Explainer: Authenticity
Is the universe friendly? Is it fundamentally good? Peaceful? Created with a purpose in mind?
Or is it distant and impersonal? Indifferent to what you want? A never ending meaningless space? We all have ideas of how the world truly is. Maybe that’s been influenced by your religion, your school, your government, or even the video games you played as a kid.
Whatever the case is, how we think about ourselves and what we consider a life well spent, has a lot to do with the relationship we have with the world. And that brings us to this month’s Ethics Explainer.
Authenticity
To behave authentically means to behave in a way that responds to the world as it truly is, and not how we’d like it to be. What does this mean?
Well, this question takes us to two different schools of thought in philosophy, with two very different ideas of the nature of the world we live in. The first one is essentialism. Now, essentialism is a belief that find its roots in Ancient Greece, and in the writings of Socrates and Plato.
They took it as a given that everything that exists has its own essence. That is, a certain set of core properties that are necessary, or essential, for it to be what it is. Take a knife. It doesn’t matter if it has a wooden handle or a metal one. But once you take the blade away, it becomes not-a-knife. The blade is its essential property because it gives the knife its defining function.
Plato and Aristotle believed that people had essences as well, and that these existed before they did. This essence, or telos, was only acquired and expressed properly through virtuous action, a process that formed the ideal human. According to the Greeks, to be authentic was to live according to your essence. And you did that by living ethically in the choices you make and the character you express.
By developing intellectual virtues like curiosity or critical thinking, and character virtues like courage, wisdom, and patience, it’d get easier to tell what you should or shouldn’t do. This was the standard view of the world until the early 19th century, and is still the case for many people today.
The rise of existentialism
But some thinkers began to wonder, what if that wasn’t true? What if the universe has no inherent purpose? What if we don’t have one either? What if we exist first, then create our own purpose?
This belief was called existentialism. Existentialists believe that neither us nor the universe has an actual, predetermined purpose. We need to create it for ourselves. Because of this, nothing we do or are is actually inherently meaningful. We were free to do whatever we wanted – a fate Jean Paul-Sartre, French existential philosopher, found quite awful.
Being authentic meant facing the full weight of this shocking freedom, and staying strong. To simply follow what your religious leader, parent, school, or boss told you to do would be to act in “bad faith”. It’s like burying your head in the sand and pretending that something out there has meaning. Meaning that doesn’t exist.
By accepting that any meaning in life has to be given by you, and that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are just a matter of perspective, your choices become all you have. And ensuring that they are chosen by the values you accept to live by, instead of any predetermined ones etched in stone, makes them authentic.
This extends beyond the individual. If the world is going to have any of the things most of us value, like justice and order, we’re going to have to put it there ourselves.
Otherwise, they won’t exist.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
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.
New framework for trust and legitimacy
In our report The Trust, Legitimacy & the Ethical Foundations of the Market Economy, we outline why legitimacy is more important than trust to the success of Australian companies and must be underpinned by an ethical framework.
It’s a distinction between trust and legitimacy that must be understood by corporations today who are facing a precipitous decline in levels of public trust. Trust is wholly dependant on legitimacy, which can only be maintained when performance is linked to a legitimate purpose and guided by a core ethical framework. While trust in corporations, can be compensated for by increased surveillance, legitimacy once lost, cannot be recovered at any cost.
This report draws on philosophical thinking to identify a minimum threshold of four fundamental values and principles companies must meet to maintain legitimacy: respect people, do no harm, be responsible, and be transparent and honest.
Dr Simon Longstaff AO, The Ethics Centre’s Executive Director and co-author of the paper says “The privileges of incorporation and limited liability were justified by a broad appeal to the common good. If those privileges are to be preserved, then it may be time to establish a new, core ethical foundation for corporations.”
“This framework must enable agility and protect against the risks of poor decision-making. An alternative and complementary approach to more compliance is to establish a values and principles framework that guides rather than dictates decision-makers.”
The report includes threshold indicators for the four fundamental values and principles identified to help companies undertake a legitimacy self-assessment.
The full report can be accessed here: trustandlegitimacy.com.au
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
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.
How to break up with a friend
If your friendship is a battlefield, you’ve got to know when to wave the white flag. How do you break up with a friend – ethically?
It might’ve been a slow fade after leaving high school. A messy split over unpaid bills. Maybe it was an awkward part at the airport, or a text silence that lasted a few months longer than usual.
Though not as lamented as ending a romance, ending a friendship can be just as painful. Maybe even more. While some of that is because of the hurt and disappointment of any unfulfilling relationship, another part can be attributed to its ambiguity.
The due process owed to an ex (counselling, teary conversations, logical explanations to well-meaning buddies and family) doesn’t exist for the friendships in our lives. If we want to break up with a friend, how do we do it ethically?
If you’re keen to rip off the friendship band-aid, keep reading. Here are some questions our Ethi-call counsellors would ask to help you act in line with your morals and values.
1. What is the purpose of friendship?
Let’s get back to basics. Asking yourself what a good friendship looks like can help you see if there’s a disconnect between what you’d like it to be and what it really is.
A good friendship could be one where you:
- Love and accept each other
- Are role models for each other’s children
- Feel safe expressing your honest thoughts
- Feel grateful that you share each other’s lives
If any of these questions cause discomfort, maybe your friendship has crossed a line it shouldn’t have. What is your duty to yourself? Is it fair to expect these things?
2. How could you create the least harm and most benefit?
Owning that your needs aren’t being met is important. But equally as important are the needs your friend is owed in a reciprocal relationship.
- What are your obligations to your friend?
- Have you any part to play in this?
- What would a wise person suggest?
Every relationship takes effort. Part of loving someone, warts and all, is acknowledging the effort is worth it. But when that isn’t true, a breakup may not be the only way to deal with it. Consider if your actions are going to cause more benefit than harm – to all the people involved.
- What are the consequences (of a friendship breakup)?
- Is doing nothing an option? If so, what would be your tipping point?
- What will the lasting impact be?
A breakup isn’t the end of anyone’s story. People carry these formative experiences with them and may do so for the rest of their lives.
3. How can you preserve and prioritise dignity?
If you’ve considered all this and still think you need to end the friendship, remember to be kind. Considering why you were friends in the first place means this transition isn’t about kicking anyone when they’re down.
How will you break up? Does your friendship lend itself to a face-to-face conversation or is it better through email? Is one session or message enough or are more required?
Your friend might not agree with what you consider to be good and right, but handling such a delicate situation in a way that is in line with your moral character might be one of your greatest accomplishments.
Some positive outcomes might even eventuate, such as:
- Renewal of your friendship and commitment to each other
- Knowing that you both did your best
- Revelation in self-knowledge and commitment to personal growth
- Speaking well of each other to mutual friends (and meaning it)
- Shared sense of closure and grief
Friendships and relationships don’t exist in vacuums. Whether good or bad, a history of contact with each other comes with its own particular language, traditions and memories. None of us are the centre of the universe, and believing so runs counter to the reality of multiple subjective experiences. Continuing on that path can not only make it harder for you to be a friend, but for you to be fully human.
Even if it wasn’t love, you shared each other’s lives. And that’s always worth respecting.
If you or someone you know is at risk of harm or feeling suicidal, get help immediately. Call Lifeline 13 11 14 or 000 if life is in danger.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
BY Aisyah Shah Idil
Aisyah Shah Idil is a writer with a background in experimental poetry. After completing an undergraduate degree in cultural studies, she travelled overseas to study human rights and theology. A former producer at The Ethics Centre, Aisyah is currently a digital content producer with the LMA.
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.
When you hire a philosopher as your ethicist, you are getting a unicorn
If a tree falls on a philosopher in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does she make a sound? Probably not, because she is undercover.
Philosophers are working in business and are applying their disciplined thinking processes to complex commercial and ethical problems – but you won’t find them listed on the organisational chart as philosopher-in-chief and seldom as the designated “ethicist”.
“We are unicorns, we are a bit rare”, says business ethicist and philosopher, Dr Petrina Coventry, who says she has spent her career being called something else.
“I’ve always hidden behind the HR brand because it is easier for people to cope with”, she explains. “If it takes pretending to be a pony to get the message across – so be it. We leave our horns at the door.”
Ethics officers bring a philosophical approach to thinking, decision making, strategy, branding, and communications. They work with all functions (marketing, legal, human resources, finance and others) to find the right way to do business.
“They are not compliance officers and they are not lawyers”, she says. They may carry business cards that announce them as chiefs of staff, people and performance or, occasionally chief operating officer.
Coventry says ethicists operating under other descriptors are trying to not “frighten the horses”.
“Going out and proud and saying you are a chief ethics offer will not get you very far”, says Coventry, a senior partner at Singapore based private equity company COI Capital and non-executive director of Beston Global Goods. She is also an industry professor and director of development at the University of Adelaide.
“People are frightened of the word [ethics]. They think you are making moral judgements about their character, that you are analysing them into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on their character, decision making or what they represent. And so, I try to avoid using the word ‘ethics’ if I can, because you can over use it and people just switch off.
“I don’t care what [title] I have to hide behind, whether it is ombuds or human resources. If it is not frightening, yet it helps them be a better person, be less stressed, be better thinkers … they are intrigued and they want more.” – Petrina Coventry
While being a company “ethicist” can be challenging to others, Philosophy has its own battle for acceptance in the corporate world.
Coventry, who has a doctorate in philosophy, says there is some suspicion in business circles that the discipline is esoteric, despite some of the world’s most successful executives and entrepreneurs having studied for philosophy degrees.
These people include activist investor Carl Icahn, hedge fund manager George Soros, former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Flickr cofounder and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Not too flaky then.
Given the predominance of Silicon Valley CEOs on that list, it is perhaps unsurprising that technology companies are at the forefront of embracing ethicists (outside of the research, medical, and pharmaceutical sectors, which have a long history with ethics committees).
At this stage, most of the ethicists in tech have backgrounds in other areas, such as computer science (like former Google in-house design ethicist, Tristan Harris).
Coventry sees the beginning of a shift towards ethics, and away from compliance. She says:
“Compliance is cure, ethics is prevention.”
“It is a bit like having a doctor in-house rather than having to cart everybody off to the hospital because we forgot to go to the doctor.”
Outside of Silicon Valley, CEOs and their organisations are increasingly interested in acquiring more ethics expertise, especially now that scandals and failures now appear so frequent they may still shock, but no longer surprise.
“Stakeholder expectations have changed in the last ten years, partly due to increased transparency around corporate actions, but also due to the corresponding decline in trust regarding corporations and their leaders”, says Coventry, who has worked at executive level in “HR” at Santos, General Electric, and the Coca Cola Company.
Her first ethics role was in the 1990s, when she headed GE’s “ombuds” area in Asia, dealing with breaches in compliance and policy and workplace issues.
“The ombuds person is called on to mediate, negotiate, analyse problems that occur, and provide wise counsel and judgement, which is really what ethicists do”, she says.
In a world where the rules are constantly changing, situations are often unclear and legislation is unable to keep up with advances in science and technology, people have to make their own judgement calls about what is the right thing to do.
This has generated an interest in people who have an arts or philosophy background and can help develop better leaders and companies, she says.
“They are seeking a less emotional, less stressful, more thoughtful, more mindful, more sustainable approach, culture and leadership – and philosophy is born out of that.”
The Ethics Alliance brings different sectors of business together to discuss topics of importance.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
BY Matthew Beard
Matt is a moral philosopher with a background in applied and military ethics. In 2016, Matt won the Australasian Association of Philosophy prize for media engagement. Formerly a fellow at The Ethics Centre, Matt is currently host on ABC’s Short & Curly podcast and the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship Program Director.
Are diversity and inclusion the bedrock of a sound culture?
We need to think about diversity in the workplace beyond gender, argues Alison Woolsey, Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Clayton Utz, a member of The Ethics Alliance.
In December 2017, Chartered Accountants Australia NZ, The Ethics Centre, Governance Institute of Australia, and Institute of Internal Auditors released a publication titled Managing Culture – A good practice guide.
Inspired by the discussion, I wondered how important the link between diversity and inclusion (“D&I”) and a sound culture in which ethical decision making is a given? Being able to point to clear evidence of a link could only advance the case for D&I in our organisations and help address any resistance to change.
A lot has changed in the Australian market. In spite of, and perhaps because of, the Hayne Royal Commission and its fallout, the connection is worth exploring. It’s a topic that has been investigated by others in the past – certainly with a gender diversity focus. For example:
- Professor Robert Wood of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Ethical Leadership, summarised several articles and studies linking more women on boards and in senior management with improved risk management and corporate governance
- The above paper references a study which found Fortune 500 companies with a higher percentage of women on their board of directors were more likely to be on Ethisphere Institute’s list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies.
- ‘The Lehman Sisters Hypothesis’, a study that concludes empirical literature backs the claim “more gender diversity in finance, and particularly at the top would help to reduce some of the behavioural drivers behind the crises”.
A little less on point, but worth noting as it often comes up in gender diversity discussions, is John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio’s 2013 book, The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future. It offered a global survey of 64,000 people and revealed that two thirds felt the “world would be a better place if men thought more like women”.
What I would like to focus on here, however, are two key and interrelated theses around diversity and inclusion and their role in driving workplace culture:
- Diverse teams drive better decision making.
- Inclusive workplaces inspire better team performance (as well as employee satisfaction, success and security).
If these theses hold true (and I consider each in more detail below), the unavoidable conclusion could be that D&I helps shape an organisation’s culture for the better, and will be increasingly valued – and even demanded – by boards and investors as corporate governance rules are strengthened and companies’ social licences to operate come under increased scrutiny.
Diversity is a trigger for better decision making
Much is written about the “value of diverse teams” and “diversity of thinking”. Many leaders and organisations use the expressions liberally when promoting their diversity policies. But do we really understand what these expressions mean?
In her book, Which Two Heads Are Better Than One, Australian author Juliet Bourke acknowledges the collective intelligence that diverse teams can offer, but debunks any theory that it’s easy to achieve through simple gender balance and diversity of background.
Bourke introduces several enablers of diversity of thinking. These include the composition of any group and the process they use to think and debate. Gender balance in a group, she says, “promotes psychological safety and more conversational turn-taking, thereby encouraging people to speak up, offer their views, and elaborate on the ideas of others”. Racial diversity “triggers curiosity, causing people to ask more questions, make fewer assumptions, listen more closely, and process information more deeply”. Age and geographic location also play a role.
In addition to this, we need to consider more direct factors – firstly, diversity of approach to problem solving. Bourke identifies six key individual approaches to problem solving but notes we tend to focus on two in particular. She says that by deliberately taking a more balanced approach, groups report they reduced blind spots and “were able to develop more robust solution” and moreover “followers report greater faith in the ultimate solution”.
The second direct influence on diversity of thinking comes from the mix of functional roles such as general counsel, chief risk officer, and chief HR officer. These executive positions expose members to different domains of knowledge and social networks, Bourke says.
This theory challenges the simplicity of the proposition that having women in a group mitigates risk. Australian academic Cordelia Fine similarly dismisses the existence of any gender gap in risk taking in her 2016 book, Testosterone Rex. So too does Elizabeth Sheedy, who concludes in a 2017 study that senior female bankers don’t conform to stereotypes and are just as ready to take risks.
This rich research linking gender diversity and improved business performance suggests organisations also need to consider a wider range of diversity forms beyond women to men ratios. When you begin to grasp the complexity of optimal diversity, you begin to realise the opportunities and value that teams can deliver or destroy.
Inclusion and workplace performance
Achieving the ideal diversity mix in any group is no mean feat. However, a group can still underperform if its members do not feel included.
According to the Diversity Council of Australia, inclusion occurs when a mix of people are respected, connected, progressing, and contributing to organisational success. Deloitte’s HR research body, Bersin, shows organisations with inclusive cultures are six times more likely to be innovative, anticipate change, and respond effectively, and twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets.
We see evidence that inclusion is associated with being treated fairly and respectfully, being valued for one’s uniqueness and sensing group belonging. The Deloitte Inclusion Maturity Model identifies the highest level of inclusion as being when people report feeling both psychologically safe and inspired to do their best work. At a more granular level, this is about people feeling (or leaders encouraging people to feel) they can contribute in a meeting, have a voice in decisions affecting them, and can disagree or challenge group decisions.
Leaders are instrumental in creating a culture of inclusion. Diversity commentators and practitioners largely agree on a common set of leadership capabilities including being collaborative, accountable, open and curious, a champion of diversity, and relational. A big piece in the discussion on inclusive leadership is the importance of counteracting biases and assumptions in decision making. In recent years, not only have we seen a growing level of awareness of unconscious biases but also a push to explore practical ways (policies, processes and structures) to mitigate against them.
Positive traits of an inclusive leader include being particularly mindful of personal and cultural biases like confirmation bias and groupthink. Juliet Bourke also highlights the importance of leaders being cognisant of the situations and factors such as time pressures and fatigue which can cause them to be vulnerable to such biases.
As several authors have argued, there was potential for diversity of thinking and good decision making in the Enron board, but the decisions “concerned matters of high complexity, difficulty and moral uncertainty” and ultimately it succumbed to groupthink, says Bourke.
Does diversity and inclusion lead to sound culture?
If we have ideal diversity in a team and have cultivated inclusion through good leadership, does a sound organisational culture necessarily follow?
Logically, yes. We’ve canvassed positive outcomes such as good decision making, effective team work, psychological safety, and innovation. We’ve considered the impact of leaders being more open and curious, conscious of biases, and accountable. In both the Managing Culture paper and APRA’s report on the Commonwealth Bank, we see references to the need for improved behaviours of boards and senior leadership along the lines of these themes. If D&I doesn’t at least influence ethical behaviour or underpin the concept of an ethical framework, it would be easy to argue inclusive leadership can facilitate embedding an ethical framework.
McKinsey in its 2018 update suggests that, for many companies, D&I is a “matter of license to operate”. This is a theme at the heart of proposed changes to the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendations. In a substantial redraft of principle 3, the current words of “act ethically and responsibly” become “instil and continually reinforce a culture across the organisation of acting lawfully, ethically and in a socially responsible manner”. The ASX says that “preserving an entity’s social licence to operate requires the board and management of a listed entity to have regard to the views and interests of a broader range of stakeholders than just its security holders, including employees”. It goes on to suggest this may include, by way of example, “offering employment to people with disability or from socially disadvantaged groups in society”.
On one view this could be saying good culture drives greater levels of diversity, and not vice versa. What’s interesting though is the earlier editions of the Principles and Recommendations also included diversity under principle 3. It was then relocated in 2014 to Principle 1: “lay solid foundations for management and oversight”. In my view, D&I sits comfortably under both principles – a recognition of it being business critical but also critical for ‘good’ or ‘right’ decisions.
More reflection on the point may be required but I think investors and our regulators should care about what organisations are doing to make D&I a priority in the way they conduct business and as employers. D&I may be an undervalued lever to promote positive change in business behaviours and workplace cultures in Australia. The world’s largest asset manager BlackRock has identified board diversity as a “stewardship priority”. Larry Fink recently wrote in his annual letter to CEOs:
“We also will continue to emphasize the importance of a diverse board. Boards with a diverse mix of genders, ethnicities, career experiences, and ways of thinking have, as a result, a more diverse and aware mindset. They are less likely to succumb to groupthink or miss new threats to a company’s business model. And they are better able to identify opportunities that promote long-term growth.” – Larry Fink
It makes sense to continue to make the case for diversity and inclusion as being a driver of positive change – for business, and for the community.
Alison Woolsey is director of Diversity & Inclusion at Clayton Utz, a member of The Ethics Alliance.
This article was originally written for The Ethics Alliance. Find out more about this corporate membership program. Already a member? Log in to the membership portal for more content and tools here.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
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.
Why do good people do bad things?
Why do good people do bad things? When we know someone to be a fine and moral person in other respects, we are flabbergasted when they get caught for dodging their taxes, fiddling their expenses, or abusing their positions of power.
Social psychologist Daniel Effron says traditional assumptions about why good people transgress are “naive”.
We may think they go through a logical progression of weighing the costs and benefits. Can they get away with it? How much can they gain from cheating? How severe is the punishment?
“This is not nuanced enough”, counters Effron.
“In fact, the average person cares a lot about feeling – and appearing – virtuous.”
Rather than asking themselves if they can get away with it, they instead ask if they can do it without feeling like a bad person, says Effron, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School.
Effron’s research examines how people act in ethically questionable ways without feeling unethical. He was speaking an Ethics Alliance panel on Embedding Values & Principles in June.
People cheat less than they can get away with
Experiments which involve people rolling a die in private, where no one can see them, find that people cheat (but only a little bit) when they are told the higher the number they roll, the more money they will get.
“They want to get something good for themselves, even if it means being dishonest, but they don’t want to feel like a terrible human being, so they don’t cheat as much as they could”, says Effron.
This finding implies that monitoring an organisation to ensure no one is dishonest can be a very costly and impractical exercise. Netflix, instead, decided to stop policing its expense reports.
Former Netflix chief talent officer Patty McCord explains, “In talking that through with employees, we said we expected them to spend company money frugally, as if it were their own. Eliminating a formal policy and forgoing expense account police shifted responsibility to frontline managers, where it belongs.
“It also reduced costs: Many large companies still use travel agents (and pay their fees) to book trips, as a way to enforce travel policies. They could save money by letting employees book their own trips online”, McCord writes in the Harvard Business Review.
People cheat more if they can maintain a positive self view
Effron says his research shows people look to their moral track records, to spot evidence they are a good person.
If they can point to some good deeds, they feel they have some “moral credentials”, or moral licence, when they engage in “ambiguous behaviours”.
For instance, a study shows that when people express a preference to buy environmentally friendly products (which makes them feel more ethical) they are also more likely to lie, cheat, and steal money from the experimenter.
Effron says this implies it may be effective for organisations to remind people of their ethical commitments. “When people make public commitments, they feel obligated to follow through with them”, he says.
It does not work so well just to emphasise the good things people have done. “If you emphasise ethical achievements, people feel they have ticked the box and they may be more likely to relax their striving for ethical goals.”
People cheat less when ethics are top of mind
People may know where the ethical “line in the sand is” but, as they edge closer, the line fades and, whoops, before they know it, they find themselves on the other side.
“What can we do to stop this ethical fading? Keep ethics top of mind” – Daniel Effron
A study at the London Business School finds people are more honest in filling out forms if they have to sign at the top that everything they are about to say is true, rather than signing at the bottom that everything they just said is true.
This is because they have been prompted to think about ethics before they give their answers, rather than afterwards.
This suggests organisations should routinely discuss ethics in decision making, with reminders in the workplace to keep ethics top of mind.
People may admit the deed, but not the motivation
The executive director of Corruption Prevention at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) Lewis Rangott, says people rarely see themselves as immoral.
Very few people will admit they have been “the bad guy”, says Rangott, speaking at the Ethics Alliance event in Sydney.
“We will put them in the box, they will have to swear on the Bible and we will show them the evidence of them engaging in criminal behaviour – like a film or video – and eventually, they will admit to the deed, but very rarely will they admit to the corrupt intent. They always have a little excuse for themselves”, says Rangott.
“Giving yourself this little mental permission slip, even for the very serious stuff, seems to have something in common with regular dishonesty and also very serious misconduct and white collar crime.”
Rangott says that while the threat of an ICAC investigation may be a useful tactic to keep people honest, fear is the wrong motivation for the right behaviour. People should be intrinsically motivated to do the right thing.
Organisations can use workplace stories to encourage honesty and integrity. When someone gets fired for bullying, or the CEO thanks a whistleblower in public, that gives people the right role-modelling.
“A nice cheap and easy way to get ethics in your organisation is, without faking it, get some of these stories going in your organisation. Something people will talk about in the pub is where the real embedding happens”, says Rangott.
However, all the time, money and effort spent on embedding values gets sucked down the drain as soon as a “jerk” gets promoted. “You have to be careful who you promote. People are so good at spotting the tiniest bit of hypocrisy.”
This article was originally written for The Ethics Alliance. Find out more about this corporate membership program. Already a member? Log in to the membership portal for more content and tools here.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
BY Daniel Effron
Daniel Effron is Social Psychologist and associate professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.
BY ethics
Why your new year's resolution needs military ethics
Weight loss goals and the laws of armed conflict seem pretty far removed. But stick with us! Military ethics provide useful principles to test the worth of our new year’s resolutions.
The ethics of war are based on making sure the inevitable harm, pain and suffering caused by violence is minimised as much as possible. Most resolutions also involve some pain and suffering. After all, we don’t need resolve to do what’s easy! So let’s apply these principles of warfare to the hardships of our resolutions and check if they’re are morally justified.
Just war theory, the most common approach to the ethics of war, says war is justified only if it satisfies a set of conditions. These include:
Just cause
War is only just when it is fought in response to a serious violation of state or human rights (basically, because war causes death and destruction it has to be responding to a grievous offence).
Right intention
The declaration of war is not motivated by private, self-interested or vicious intentions but out of a desire to bring about a just outcome.
Legitimate authority
Only the leader or leaders of a political community have the right to declare war.
(Macro) proportionality
The peace the war aims to create has to be preferable to the way the world would be if no war was fought (a nuclear war will almost always be disproportionate).
Last resort
Are there less harmful measures than war which might bring about peace?
Probability of success
Do not undertake the pain and suffering of war if there is no chance of winning, otherwise lives are wasted in vain.
(Micro) proportionality
The benefits gained from a military operation must outweigh the harms it inflicts.
Discrimination
Only combatants may be targeted by military attacks. Civilians are off limits.
Good goal
An ethical resolution will aim to achieve something good (health, travel, education). Don’t aim to do something you know to be bad (“This year I resolve to make profits at any cost”).
Right intention
Is your resolution motivated by a genuine desire for self-improvement? Or is it motivated by shame, peer pressure, greed, vanity or fear? If the latter is true, it might be worth considering whether it’s really a resolution worth making.
Is your resolution motivated by a genuine desire for self-improvement? Or is it motivated by shame, peer pressure, greed, vanity or fear?
Accept your limits
You only have the ‘authority’ to make resolutions for things within your control. Don’t resolve to get a promotion at work. Instead, resolve to reinvigorate your attitude at work so your application for promotion has the best chance of success. But remember, getting the promotion is outside your control.
Holistic improvement
Make sure you will be a better person overall after succeeding in your resolution. You might be able to run a marathon, but make sure it isn’t so detrimental to your health, relationships, work or other interests that you’re worse-off overall.
Avoid drastic measures
Have you tried less intense measures to achieve your goals? Maybe before you sign up for a 10 day silent yoga retreat you could try signing up for a weekly class and see if it helps.
Probability of success
Set realistic goals you can actually achieve. If you and your partner aim to spend more time together after three date nights in the last year, resolving to have a weekend away once a fortnight might be a bit extreme. Be honest to avoid setting yourself up for failure and making the effort and sacrifices you make futile.
Cost/benefit analysis
Is the inconvenience, expense or pain of your resolution worth it for the goal you are trying to achieve? Trying to have a body like Chris Hemsworth might be more trouble than it’s worth.
Own your resolution
Your resolution is your resolution – everyone except you is an innocent bystander! If you’ve decided to go vegetarian, that’s fine. Insisting everyone in your share house skips on meat to suit your new diet isn’t.
So there you have it – your guide to an ethical new year’s resolution with help from military ethics. These steps won’t guarantee your resolution is successful but they will guarantee it’s a resolution worth making. For tips on how to form the resolve, perseverance and courage it takes to stick to your new commitment, you might want to talk to a soldier.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
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.
This tool will help you make good decisions
The Ethics Centre has developed an online Quality Decision Making tool, due to be launched to Ethics Alliance members by the end of this year, to guide and support quality decision making for any member of an organisation.
Co-head of advice and education, John Neil, explains how the tool will help you in your business:
1. What is the Quality Decision Making tool?
The online platform guides users through a framework for ethical decision making, especially when those decisions are challenging and difficult. It provides personal insight, knowledge, awareness, case studies, tips, and hacks.
Ethics Alliance members are invited to be part of the testing and refining of the platform before its full roll out in November. Funded by The Ethics Centre, it has been custom designed for our corporate Alliance members and will be made available to all employees of Alliance members.
2. What kind of decisions can the tool tackle?
The platform is designed for difficult decisions – personal or professional – where there is no clear right or wrong answer. It will help discern:
• What is important
• What is at stake
• What matters most
• Who is involved
• Impacts and implications
• Possible options
• How to evaluate options
• What principles might apply to assess options
While helping solve a specific dilemma, the platform helps users develop core decision making capabilities, such as intention, context mapping, judgement, bias minimisation, root cause analysis, innovation, communication, wisdom, and courage.
3. What is the process like?
It takes about 45 minutes for first time users and, after that, return users will spend around 10 to 20 minutes on specific decision making challenges.
4. What is unique about this platform?
There are a number of decision making tools on the market, ranging from apps to analogue models, however the Quality Decision Making Platform is the first of its kind to combine skills development with help to make specific decisions.
5. Can you give me a scenario where it would help?
Troublesome rainmaker: You are a line manager in the finance sector. One of your key staff is excellent at her job and generates a lot of income for the company – no other team member comes close to her results. She has rejected overtures from competitor companies, much to your relief because your department is heavily reliant upon her abilities and your bonuses depend on your department’s profitability. Unfortunately, she has also been reported to HR and you about repeated inappropriate behaviour. What should you do?
Disaster warning: You work for the director of human resources and have access to confidential information about a coming restructure, including the names of those about to be made redundant.
At lunch, a colleague mentions her boss is about to take on a heavy debt to buy a new house, in preparation for the birth of his third child. You know that man is about to be made redundant. What should you do?
This article was originally written for The Ethics Alliance. Find out more about this corporate membership program. Already a member? Log in to the membership portal for more content and tools here.
Ethics in your inbox.
Get the latest inspiration, intelligence, events & more.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy
