“Animal rights should trump human interests” – what’s the debate?

“Animal rights should trump human interests” – what’s the debate?
Opinion + AnalysisClimate + EnvironmentRelationships
BY The Ethics Centre 22 MAR 2016
Are the ways humans subject animals to our own needs and wants justified?
Humans regularly impose our own demands on the animal world, whether it’s eating meat, scientific testing, keeping pets, sport, entertainment or protecting ourselves. But is it reasonable and ethical to do so?
Humans and animals
We often talk about humans and animals as though they are two separate categories of being. But aren’t humans just another kind of animal?
Many would say “no”, claiming humans have greater moral value than other animals. Humans possess the ability to use reason while animals act only on instinct, they say. This ability to think this way is held up as the key factor that makes humans uniquely worthy of protection and having greater moral value than animals.
“Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as means to an end. That end is man.” – Immanuel Kant
Others argue that this is “speciesism” because it shows an unjustifiable bias for human beings. To prove this, they might point to cases where a particular animal shows more reason than a particular human being – for example, a chimpanzee might show more rational thought than a person in a coma. If we don’t grant greater moral value to the animal in these cases, it shows that our beliefs are prejudicial.
Some will go further and suggest that reason is not relevant to questions of moral value, because it measures the value of animals against human standards. In determining how a creature should be treated, philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote, “… the question is not ‘Can they reason?’, nor ‘Can they talk?’, but ‘Can they suffer?’”
So in determining whether animal rights should trump human interests, we first need to figure out how we measure the value of animals and humans.
Rights and interests
What are rights and how do they correspond to interests? Generally speaking, you have a right when you are entitled to do something or prevent someone else from doing something to you. If humans have the right to free speech, this is because they are entitled to speak freely without anyone stopping them. The right protects an activity or status you are entitled to.
Rights come in a range of forms – natural, moral, legal and so on – but violating someone’s right is always a serious ethical matter.
“Animals are my friends. I don’t eat my friends.” – George Bernard Shaw
Interests are broader than rights and less serious from an ethical perspective. We have an interest in something when we have something to gain or lose by its success or failure. Humans have interests in a range of different projects because our lives are diverse. We have interests in art, medical research, education, leisure, health…
When we ask whether animal rights should trump human interests, we are asking a few questions. Do animals have rights? What are they? And if animals do have rights, are they more or less important than the interests of humans? We know human rights will always trump human interests, but what about animal rights?
Animal rights vs animal welfare
A crucial point in this debate is understanding the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. Animal rights advocates believe animals deserve rights to prevent them from being treated in certain ways. The exploitation of animals who have rights is, they say, always morally wrong – just like it would be for a human.
Animal welfare advocates, on the other hand, believe using animals can be either ethical or, in practice, unavoidable. These people aim to reduce any suffering inflicted on animals, but don’t seek to end altogether what others regard as exploitative practices.
As one widely used quote puts it, “Animal rights advocates are campaigning for no cages, while animal welfarists are campaigning for bigger cages”.
Are they mutually exclusive? What does taking a welfarist approach say about the moral value of animals?
‘Animal rights should trump human interests’ took place on 3 May 2016 at the City Recital Hall in Sydney.
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Ethics Explainer: Naturalistic Fallacy

Ethics Explainer: Naturalistic Fallacy
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BY The Ethics Centre 15 MAR 2016
The naturalistic fallacy is an informal logical fallacy which argues that if something is ‘natural’ it must be good. It is closely related to the is/ought fallacy – when someone tries to infer what ‘ought’ to be done from what ‘is’.
The is/ought fallacy is when statements of fact (or ‘is’) jump to statements of value (or ‘ought’), without explanation. First discussed by Scottish philosopher, David Hume, he observed a range of different arguments where writers would be using the terms ‘is’ and ‘is not’ and suddenly, start saying ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’.
For Hume, it was inconceivable that philosophers could jump from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ without showing how the two concepts were connected. What were their justifications?
If this seems weird, consider the following example where someone might say:
- It is true that smoking is harmful to your health.
- Therefore, you ought not to smoke.
The claim that you ‘ought’ not to smoke is not just saying it would be unhealthy for you to smoke. It says it would be unethical. Why? Lots of ‘unhealthy’ things are perfectly ethical. The assumption that facts lead us directly to value claims is what makes the is/ought argument a fallacy.
As it is, the argument above is unsound – much more is needed. Hume thought no matter what you add to the argument, it would be impossible to make the leap from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ because ‘is’ is based on evidence (facts) and ‘ought’ is always a matter of reason (at best) and opinion or prejudice (at worst).
Later, another philosopher named G.E. Moore coined the term naturalistic fallacy. He said arguments that used nature, or natural terms like ‘pleasant’, ‘satisfying’ or ‘healthy’ to make ethical claims, were unsound.
The naturalistic fallacy looks like this:
- Breastfeeding is the natural way to feed children.
- Therefore, mothers ought to breastfeed their children and ought not to use baby formula (because it is unnatural).
This is a fallacy. We act against nature all the time – with vaccinations, electricity, medicine – many of which are ethical. Lots of things that are natural are good, but not all unnatural things are unethical. This is what the naturalistic fallacy argues.
Philosophers still debate this issue. For example, G. E. Moore believed in moral realism – that some things are objectively ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. This suggests there might be ‘ethical facts’ from which we can make value claims and which are different from ordinary facts. But that’s a whole new topic of discussion.
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Do Australia’s adoption policies act in the best interests of children?

Do Australia’s adoption policies act in the best interests of children?
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BY Jane Hunt The Ethics Centre 14 MAR 2016
During the last year, I have listened and talked with practitioners, policy makers, adoptees, adoptive parents, children and young people in care, and birth families.
I have heard of the best and worst of human beings. My heart has constricted hearing about the profound harm some have experienced, and it has swelled in joy at the love that human beings can have for each other.
Research shows unequivocally that multiple placements have a negative impact on children.
Adoption in Australia has become fraught in all aspects – politics, policy and practice. It is a complex social issue that presents ethical and moral dilemmas for Government, the NGOs working with vulnerable and at-risk children, and for the broader community. It is complex and nuanced, with no clear response that will work in all cases. And it is highly emotionally charged.
In Australia, there are more than 43,000 children in ‘out of home care’. These children are identified as being ‘at risk’ and cannot remain in the care of their biological parents. They have been removed by child protection practitioners and, depending on the child’s circumstances, have been placed in the care of extended family, or with a guardian, or in short-term foster care.
Once children have been removed, the efforts of the child protection workers and other support services are framed to support the birth parents and to help them to reunify with their children. And this is where one of many ethical dilemmas emerges for the practitioners, policy makers and legislators.
How many opportunities should biological parents be given to demonstrate they are able keep their children safe and parent them? What level of support and services should they receive? And in the meantime, how long should a child stay in temporary care? How many placements is it tolerable for a child to experience?
These are difficult decisions for practitioners to make – each child’s situation is different. One practitioner described weighing up whether to return a child to their birth family against the risk of harm to the child as one of his hardest challenges. Having worked overseas, he believed that in Australia, the scales have tipped toward ‘restoration’ with birth families at all costs. This is not appropriately counter-balanced with an assessment of the risk of harm to children in the process.
Adoption in Australia has become fraught in all aspects – politics, policy and practice.
Compounding the situation is the problem of the availability and quality of foster carers able to care for vulnerable children. One practitioner in a regional town told me of a situation where she had to make a decision not to remove a child from a harmful situation because they did not have an appropriate foster carer available. The fact the child remained in an abusive family environment weighed heavily on the practitioner’s conscience.
Adoption, child protection and out of home care policy and legislation are founded on the assumption that decisions must be made in the ‘best interests of the child’. There is, however, no universally agreed upon definition of what this means.
Foster care is, by nature, temporary. There is always the possibility for the child that their relationship with their carers will end. This means some children experience multiple placements in foster care.
Sometimes the reasons for a change of placement are compelling – to be nearer their school, with siblings or nearer extended family members. However, research shows unequivocally that multiple placements have a negative impact on children.
Lack of security and attachment can have profound impacts on development. I’ve been told that multiple moves teach children that adults ‘come and go’ and cannot be trusted – a view corroborated by some young people in foster care who report feeling they ‘don’t belong’ anywhere.
Even the ‘Permanent Care Orders’ preferred in Victoria, which enable a child to live with a family until they are 18, fall short of providing a child or young person with the psychological and legal security of a family forever.
Why in Australia do we continue to provide a system that fails to meet children’s long term needs?
At the heart of this discussion lies a paralysing ethical dilemma – when a decision needs to be made to remove a child from their biological parents due to harm, neglect or abuse or when it’s not been successful, whose rights should be protected?
The right of the parent to keep their children, or the rights of the children to the conditions that will help them feel safe, secure and loved? Whose pain takes precedence? The parents’ loss and grief or the child’s trauma and pain?
The trauma caused by the historical practices of forced and closed adoptions has made many practitioners and politicians highly attuned to the needs of birth families. We need to learn from the profound hurt and trauma inflicted on many women who were coerced into relinquishing their children.
Adoption is not a panacea – it won’t be in the best interest of every child in long-term care.
The voices of adult adoptees who experienced secrecy, stigma and shame around their adoptions are deserving of understanding and compassion.
But considering or advocating for children to have access to adoption does not deny or ignore these experiences. It is important to learn from the impact of past practices and develop open adoption practices ensuring transparency and honesty for all involved, and provide support services that assist all parties involved in adoption.
It is also important to recognise that attempting to deal with an historical wrong – forced adoption – by loading the policy scales against adoption, creates a situation where everyone loses.
Adoption is not a panacea – it won’t be in the best interest of every child in long-term care, but it should be an option considered for all children that need permanent loving families. This then allows a decision to be made that is child focused and in their best interest.
There are many policy makers, practitioners, legislators, and families trying to acknowledge and navigate the ethical complexities of child protection, foster care and adoption. It is critical we continue in this direction, without being subsumed by the shame of our cultural past, to put the needs of vulnerable and at risk children first.
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Male suicide is a global health issue in need of understanding

Male suicide is a global health issue in need of understanding
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BY Brian Draper The Ethics Centre 9 MAR 2016
“This is a worldwide phenomenon in which men die at four times the rate of women. The four to one ratio gets closer to six or seven to one as people get older.”
That’s Professor Brian Draper, describing one of the most common causes of death among men: Suicide.
Suicide is the cause of death with the highest gender disparity in Australia – an experience replicated in most places around the world, according to Draper.
So what is going on? Draper is keen to avoid debased speculation – there are a lot of theories but not much we can say with certainty. “We can describe it, but we can’t understand it,” he says. One thing that seems clear to Draper is it’s not a coincidence so many more men die by suicide than women.
If you are raised by damaged parents, it could be damaging to you.
“It comes back to masculinity – it seems to be something about being male,” he says.
“I think every country has its own way of expressing masculinity. In the Australian context not talking about feelings and emotions, not connecting with intimate partners are factors…”
The issue of social connection is also thought to be connected in some way. “There is broad reluctance by many men to connect emotionally or build relationships outside their intimate partners – women have several intimate relationships, men have a handful at most,” Draper says.
You hear this reflection fairly often. Peter Munro’s feature in the most recent edition of Good Weekend on suicide deaths among trade workers tells a similar story.
Mark, an interviewee, describes writing a suicide note and feeling completely alone until a Facebook conversation with his girlfriend “took the weight of his shoulders”. What would have happened if Mark had lost Alex? Did he have anyone else?
None of this, Draper cautions, means we can reduce the problem to idiosyncrasies of Aussie masculinity – toughness, ‘sucking it up’, alcohol… It’s a global issue.
“I’m a strong believer in looking at things globally and not in isolation. Every country will do it differently, but you’ll see these issues in the way men interact – I think it’s more about masculinity and the way men interact.”
Another piece of the puzzle might – Draper suggests – be early childhood. If your parents have suffered severe trauma, it’s likely to have an effect.
“If you are raised by damaged parents, it could be damaging to you. Children of survivors of concentration camps, horrendous experiences like the killing fields in Cambodia or in Australia the Stolen Generations…”
It comes back to masculinity – it seems to be something about being male.
There is research backing this up. For instance, between 1988 and 1996 the children of Vietnam War veterans died by suicide at over three times the national average.
Draper is careful not to overstate it – there’s still so much we don’t know, but he does believe there’s something to early childhood experiences. “Sexual abuse in childhood still conveys suicide risk in your 70s and 80s … but there’s also emotional trauma from living with a person who’s not coping with their own demons.”
“I’m not sure we fully understand these processes.” The amount we still need to understand is becoming a theme.
What we don’t know is a source of optimism for Draper. “We’ve talked a lot about factors that might increase your risk but there’s a reverse side to that story.”
“A lot of our research is focussed predominantly on risk rather than protection. We don’t look at why things have changed for the better … For example, there’s been a massive reduction in suicides in men between 45-70 in the last 50 years.”
“Understanding what’s happened in those age groups would help.”
It’s pretty clear we need to keep talking – researchers, family, friends, support workers and those in need of support can’t act on what they don’t know.
If you or someone you know needs support, contact:
-
Lifeline 13 11 14
-
Men’s Line 1300 78 99 78
-
beyondblue 1300 224 636
-
Kids Helpline 1800 551 800
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Ozi Batla: Fatherhood is the hardest work I’ve ever done

Ozi Batla: Fatherhood is the hardest work I’ve ever done
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BY Shannon Kennedy The Ethics Centre 4 MAR 2016
On his interest in ‘Mankind – Deconstructing Masculinity’:
Masculinity is something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately. I’ve been raising my boy for the past year and a half and having your first kid makes you wonder about the things you’ve learned and the things you want to pass on.
There are a lot of things I learned that I don’t want to pass on, and even more stuff I never really considered before I became a dad – things I don’t have the answers for.
On being a full-time dad:
I’ve had to come to grips with the challenges of being a stay-at-home dad.
Support and network groups are almost entirely set up for mums. Our entire parenting language is set up around mums. We have ‘mothers’ groups’ or in my case ‘mums’ surfers groups’ so someone could watch my son while I went for a surf. I felt really excluded from a lot of these activities.
It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done but it’s still not considered a man’s work.
There’s a patronising assumption about men in parenting roles. My boy had a meltdown at swimming the other day and other parents looked at me as though I wasn’t used to it. They said things like “Oh, you’re doing so well”, and I thought “Thanks, I’ve been doing this full time for a year and a half”. It felt pretty patronising.
Like a lot of men, I defined myself by my work, which has taken a back seat lately. I’ve been dealing with the shifting definitions of my own identity. It’s weird, because it’s the hardest work I’ve ever done but it’s still not considered a man’s work.
On the pressure fathers face to teach their sons ‘what it means to be a man’:
I think it’s probably the same for most men. I’m assuming it was for my dad – he didn’t have those answers for me when I was growing up. A lot of it gets left to outside sources to inform you.
I didn’t really take much of that on board. I just tried to keep my head down at school and get out of there. The way the school approached masculinity was completely at odds with the way my parents were trying to raise me and my brothers.
I’ve only recently realised the influence of all this. In a few years’ time my son is going to get picked on, get into fights, and ask me the same kind of questions.
On his journey toward hip hop:
The school I went to was very sort of ‘jock’, and I wasn’t like that at all. My journey into hip hop was a way of dealing with that and overcoming the trauma. It was a defensive mechanism – my parents didn’t instil this in me – but you do need to fight in one way or another. Words became my weapons. It’s only recently that I’ve realised that was a big influence in leading me into hip hop.
On masculinity and sexism in Australian hip hop:
Like a lot of the music industry, hip hop has been male dominated, although it hasn’t been part of my experience – aside from a few years of battle rapping, which was part of my journey to establish some boundaries. Battling was a way to make up for my time at school and I wish I’d been able to use those skills to create space around me.
There is a lot of very macho and sexist culture around hip hop music, but I don’t think it’s exclusively that way, and I think it’s been changing, in lots of ways, The Herd was a challenge to that whole notion of hip hop.
On The Herd’s re-imagination of Redgum’s ‘I Was Only 19’:
War is an extension of those more negative aspects of masculinity. It’s almost the biggest manifestation of them. There was a lot of anger around the Vietnam War – seeing these patterns repeated. I think the original is quite angry in its own folksy way.
I know from hanging out with John Schumann that the people he was writing about, and writing for, were certainly angry about the way they’d been treated.
War is an extension of those negative aspects of masculinity.
On veterans:
There’s a notion, especially in Australia – it probably comes from the Anglo tradition – that you should just “suck it up and get on with it”. I think it’s one of the most damaging parts of male identity in this country and a big contribution to high youth suicide rates, drug abuse and mental health issues.
There have been big campaigns to move that along, but generally men are still supposed to cop it on the chin and move on. I think that’s a major issue for a lot of returned soldiers and other men. It’s still considered fairly awkward to delve into your feelings with other men.
On radicalisation and alcohol violence among young people:
It’s all part of the same thing. I think a lot of kids involved with radical organisations are pretty stupid, but kids tend to be.
You do need to fight in one way or another. For me, words became my weapons.
These kids are caught between two worlds. Being a young male, I think feeling anger, learning to deal with it, and finding an outlet for it is really important. Anger does express itself in different ways, but not having a culture where it’s acceptable to show anger non-physically leads to a number of issues.
Combine all this with the fact that the one space where it is acceptable to be emotional is when you’re pissed, and it’s not surprising to see the problems we do.
For me, hip hop – when I was a teenager – was my angry refuge. The sort of stuff I listened to when I was a teenager isn’t stuff I listen to these days. The music is still nostalgic, but kind of embarrassing. It’s the stuff that attracts young men though. It resonates with something inside them or gives them a bit of an outlet.
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Ethics Explainer: Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is arguably the oldest ethical theory in the world, with origins in Ancient Greece.
It defines good actions as ones that display embody virtuous character traits, like courage, loyalty, or wisdom. A virtue itself is a disposition to act, think and feel in certain ways. Bad actions display the opposite and are informed by vices, such as cowardice, treachery, and ignorance.
For Aristotle, ethics was a key element of human flourishing because it taught people how to differentiate between virtues and vices. By encouraging examination, more people could live a life dedicated to developing virtues.
It’s one thing to know what’s right, but it’s another to actually do it. How did Aristotle advise us to live our virtues?
By acting as though we already have them.
Excellence as habit
Aristotle explained that both virtues and vices are acquired by repetition. If we routinely overindulge a sweet tooth, we develop a vice — gluttony. If we repeatedly allow others to serve themselves dinner before us, we develop a virtue – selflessness.
Virtue ethics suggests treating our character as a lifelong project, one that has the capacity to truly change who we are. The goal is not to form virtues that mean we act ethically without thinking, but to form virtues that help us see the world clearly and make better judgments as a result.
In a pinch, remember: vices distort, virtues examine.
A quote most of the internet attributes to Aristotle succinctly reads: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”.
Though he didn’t actually say this, it’s a good indication of what virtue ethics stands for. We can thank American philosopher, Will Durant, for the neat summary.
Aim for in between
There are two practical principles that virtue ethics encourages us to use in ethical dilemmas. The first is called The Golden Mean. When we’re trying to work out what the virtuous thing to do in a particular situation is, look to what lies in the middle between two extreme forms of behaviour. The mean will be the virtue, and the extremes at either end, vices.
Here’s an example. Imagine your friend is wearing a horrendous outfit and asks you how they look. What are the extreme responses you could take? You could a) burst out laughing or b) tell them they look wonderful when they don’t.
These two extremes are vices – the first response is malicious, the second is dishonest. The virtuous response is between these two. In this case, that would be gently — but honestly — telling your friend you think they’d look nicer in another outfit.
Imagination
The second is to use our imagination. What would we do if we were already a virtuous person? By imagining the kind of person we’d like to be and how we would want to respond we can start to close the gap between our aspirational identity and who we are at the moment.
Virtue ethics can remind us of the importance of role models. If you want someone to learn ethics, show them an ethical person.
Some argue virtue ethics is overly vague in guiding actions. They say its principles aren’t specific enough to help us overcome difficult ethical conundrums. “Be virtuous” is hard to conceptualise. Others have expressed concern that virtues or vices aren’t agreed on by everybody. Stoicism or sexual openness can be a virtue to some, a vice to others.
Finally, some people think virtue ethics breeds ‘moral narcissism’, where we are so obsessed with our own ethical character that we value it above anyone or anything else.
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Ethics Explainer: Consequentialism

Consequentialism is a theory that says whether something is good or bad depends on its outcomes.
An action that brings about more benefit than harm is good, while an action that causes more harm than benefit is not. The most famous version of this theory is utilitarianism.
Although there are references to this idea in the works of ancient philosopher Epicurus, it’s closely associated with English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism focussed on which actions were most likely to make people happy. If happiness was the experience of pleasure without pain, the most ethical actions were ones that caused the most possible happiness and the least possible pain.
He even developed a calculator to work out which actions were better or worse – the ‘felicific calculus’. Because it counted every person’s pleasure or pain as the same, regardless of age, wealth, race, etc. utilitarianism could be seen as a radically egalitarian philosophy.
Bentham’s views are most closely aligned with act utilitarianism. This basic form of consequentialism holds an action as ethical if and only if it produces more beneficial/pleasure-causing outcomes than negative/pain-causing ones. Whenever we are faced with a decision, an act consequentialist will expect us to ask that question.
John Stuart Mill, a student of Bentham’s, disagreed. He believed it was too difficult for a society to run if it had to consider the specific costs/benefits of every single action. How could we have speeding laws, for example, if it would sometimes be ethical to break the speed limit?
Instead, Mill believed we should figure out which set of rules would create the most happiness over an extended period of time and then apply those in every situation. This was his theory of rule utilitarianism.
According to this theory, it would be unethical for you to speed on an empty street at two o’clock in the morning. Even if nobody would be hurt, our speeding laws mean less people are harmed overall. Keeping to those rules ensures that.
Consequentialism is an attractive ethical approach because it provides clear and practical guidance – at least in situations where outcomes are easy to predict. The theory is also impartial. By asking us to maximise benefit for the largest number of people (or, for Peter Singer and other preference utilitarians, creatures who have preferences), we set aside our personal biases and self-interest to benefit others.
One problem with the theory is that it can be hard to measure different benefits to decide which one is morally preferable. Is it better to give my money to charity or spend it studying medicine so I can save lives? Many forms of consequentialism have been proposed that attempt to deal with the issue of comparing moral value.
The other concern people express is the tendency of consequentialism to use ‘ends justify the means’ logic. If all we are concerned with is getting good outcomes, this can seem to justify harming some people in order to benefit others. Is it ethical to allow some people to suffer so more people can live well?
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The myths of modern motherhood

The myths of modern motherhood
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BY Dr Camilla Nelson The Ethics Centre 12 FEB 2016
It seems as if three successive waves of feminism haven’t resolved the chronic mismatch between the ideal of the ‘good’ and ‘happy’ mother and the realities of women’s lives.
Even if you consciously reject them, ideas about what a mother ought to be and ought to feel are probably there from the minute you wake up until you go to bed at night. Even in our age of increased gender equality it seems as if the culture loves nothing more than to dish out the myths about how to be a better mother (or a thinner, more fashionable, or better-looking one).
It’s not just the celebrity mums pushing their prams on magazine covers, or the continuing dearth of mothers on TV who are less than exceptionally good-looking, or that mothers in advertising remain ubiquitously obsessed with cleaning products and alpine-fresh scents. While TV dramas have pleasingly increased the handful of roles that feature working mothers, most are unduly punished in the twists of the melodramatic plot. They have wimpy husbands or damaged children, and of course TV’s bad characters are inevitably bad due to the shortcomings of their mothers (serial killers, for example, invariably have overbearing mothers or alcoholic mothers, or have never really separated from their mothers).
It seems we are living in an age of overzealous motherhood. Indeed, in a world in which the demands of the workplace have increased, so too the ideals of motherhood have become paradoxically more – not less – demanding. In recent years, commonly accepted ideas about what constitutes a barely adequate level of mothering have dramatically expanded to include extraordinary sacrifices of time, money, feelings, brains, social relationships, and indeed sleep.
In Australia, most mothers work. But recent studies show that working mothers now spend more time with their children than their non-working mothers did in 1975. Working mothers achieve this extraordinary feat by sacrificing leisure, mental health, and even personal hygiene to spend more time with their kids.
This is coupled with a new kind of anxious sermonising that is having a profound impact on mothers, especially among the middle class. In Elisabeth Badinter’s book The Conflict, she argues that an ideology of ‘Naturalism’ has given rise to an industry of experts advocating increasingly pristine forms of natural birth and natural pregnancy, as well as an ever-expanding list of increasingly time-intensive child rearing duties that are deemed to fall to the mother alone. These duties include most of the classic practices of 21st century child rearing, including such nostrums as co-sleeping, babywearing and breastfeeding-on-demand until the age of two.
It seems we are living in an age of overzealous motherhood.
Whether it is called Intensive Mothering or Natural Parenting, these new credos of motherhood are wholly taken up with the idea that there is a narrowly prescribed way of doing things. In the West, 21st century child rearing is becoming increasingly time-consuming, expert-guided, emotionally draining, and incredibly expensive. In historical terms, I would be willing to hazard a guess that never before has motherhood been so heavily scrutinised. It is no longer just a question of whether you should or should not eat strawberries or prawns or soft cheese, or, heaven forbid, junk food, while you are pregnant, but so too, the issue of what you should or should not feel has come under intense scrutiny.
Never before has there been such a microscopic investigation of a pregnant woman’s emotional state, before, during and after birth. Indeed, the construction of new psychological disorders for mothers appears to have become something of a psychological pastime, with the old list of mental disorders expanding beyond prenatal anxiety, postnatal depression, postpartum psychosis and the baby blues, to include the baby pinks (a label for a woman who is illogically and inappropriately happy to be a mother), as well as Prenatal and Postnatal Stress Disorder, Maternal Anxiety and Mood Imbalance and Tokophobia—the latter being coined at the start of this millennium as a diagnosis for an unreasonable fear of giving birth.
The problem with the way in which this pop psychology is played out in the media is that it performs an endless re-inscription of the ideologies of mothering. These ideologies are often illogical, contradictory and – one suspects – more often dictated by what is convenient for society and not what is actually good for the children and parents involved. Above all else, mothers should be ecstatically happy mothers, because sad mothers are failed mothers. Indeed, according to the prevailing wisdom, unhappy mothers are downright unnatural, if not certifiably insane.
Never before has motherhood been so heavily scrutinised.
Little wonder there has been an outcry against such miserable standards of perfection. The same decade that saw the seeming triumph of the ideologies of Intensive and Natural mothering, also saw the rise of what has been called the ‘Parenting Hate Read’ — a popular outpouring of books and blogs written by mothers (and even a few fathers) who frankly confess that they are depressed about having children for no better reason than it is often mind-numbing, exhausting and dreadful. Mothers love their children, say the ‘Parenting Hate Reads’, but they do not like what is happening to their lives.
The problem is perhaps only partly about the disparity between media images of ecstatically happy mummies and the reality of women’s lives. It is also because our ideas about happiness have grown impoverished. Happiness, as it is commonly understood in the western world, is made up of continuous moments of pleasure and the absence of pain.
These popular assumptions about happiness are of comparatively recent origin, emerging in the works of philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, who argued in the 18th century that people act purely in their self-interest and the goal to which self-interest aspires is happiness. Ethical conduct, according to Bentham and James Mill (father to John Stuart), should therefore aspire to maximise pleasure and minimise pain.
Our ideas about happiness have grown impoverished.
This ready equation of goodness, pleasure and happiness flew in the face of ideas that had been of concern to philosophers since Aristotle argued that a person is not made happy by fleeting pleasures, but by fulfilment stemming from meaning and purpose. Or, as Nietzsche, the whirling dervish of 19th century philosophy, put it, “Man does not strive for happiness – only the Englishman does”.
Nevertheless, Western assumptions about happiness have remained broadly utilitarian, giving rise to the culturally constructed notion of happiness we see in TV commercials, showing families becoming happier with every purchase. Or by life coaches peddling the dubious hypothesis that self-belief can overcome the odds, whatever your social or economic circumstance.
Unless you are Mother Teresa, you have probably been spending your life up until the time you have children in a reasonably independent and even self-indulgent way. You work hard through the week but sleep in on the weekend. You go to parties. You come home drunk. You see your friends when you want. Babies have different ideas. They stick forks in electric sockets, go berserk in the car seat, and throw up on your work clothes. They want to be carried around in the day and wake in the night.
If society can solve its social problems then maybe parenting will cease to be a misery competition. Mothers might not be happy in a utilitarian or hedonistic sense but will lead rich and satisfying lives. Then maybe a stay-at-home dad can change a nappy without a choir of angels descending from heaven singing ‘Hallelujah’.
This is an edited extract from “On Happiness: New Ideas for The 21st Century” UWA Publishing.
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Ending workplace bullying demands courage

Ending workplace bullying demands courage
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BY Petrina Coventry The Ethics Centre 5 FEB 2016
Despite increasing measures to combat workplace harassment, bullies remain entrenched in organisations. Changes made to laws and regulations in order to stamp out bullying have instead transformed it into an underground set of behaviours. Now hidden, these behaviours often remain unaddressed.
In other cases, anti-bullying policies can actually work to support perpetrators. Where regulations specify what bullying is, some people will cleverly use those rules as a guide to work around. Although these people are no longer bullying in the narrow sense outlined by policies or regulations, their acts of shunning, scapegoating and ostracism have the same effect. Rules that explicitly define bullying create exemptions, or even permissions, for behaviours that do not meet the formal standard.
Because they are more difficult to notice or prove, these insidious behaviours can remain undetected for long periods. As Kipling Williams and Steve Nida argued in a 2011 research paper, “being excluded or ostracized is an invisible form of bullying that doesn’t leave bruises, and therefore we often underestimate its impact”.
The bruises, cuts and blows are less evident but the internal bleeding is real. This new, psychological violence can have severe, long-term effects. According to Williams, “Ostracism or exclusion may not leave external scars, but it can cause pain that often is deeper and lasts longer than a physical injury”.
Bullies tend to be very good at office politics and working upwards, and attack those they consider rivals through innuendo and social networks.
This is a costly issue for both individuals and organisations. No-one wins. Individuals can suffer symptoms akin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Organisations in which harassment occurs must endure lost time, absences, workers’ compensation claims, employee turnover, lack of productivity, the risk of costly and lengthy lawsuits, as well as a poor reputation.
So why does it continue?
First, bullies tend to be very good at office politics and working upwards, and attack those they consider rivals through innuendo and social networks. Bullies are often socially savvy, even charming. Because of this, they are able to strategically abuse co-workers while receiving positive work evaluations from managers.
In addition, anti-bullying policies aren’t the panacea they are sometimes painted to be. If they exist at all they are often ignored or ineffective. A 2014 report by corporate training company VitalSmarts showed that 96 percent of the 2283 people it surveyed had experienced workplace bullying. But only 7 percent knew someone who had used a workplace anti-bullying policy – the majority didn’t see it as an option. Plus, we now know some bullies use such policies as a base to craft new means of enacting their power – ones that aren’t yet defined as bullying behaviour by these policies.
Finally, cases often go unreported, undetected and unchallenged. This inaction rewards perpetrators and empowers them to continue behaving in the same way. This is confusing for the victim, who is stressed, unsure, and can feel isolated in the workplace. This undermines the confidence they need to report the bullying. Because of this, many opt for a less confrontational path – hoping it will go away in time. It usually doesn’t.
Cases often go unreported, undetected and unchallenged. This inaction rewards perpetrators and empowers them to continue behaving in the same way.
What can you do if a colleague is being shunned or ostracised by peers or managers? The first step is not to participate. However, most people are already likely to be aware of this. More relevant for most people is to not become complicit by remaining silent. As 2016 Australian of the Year David Morrison famously said, “The standard you walk by is the standard you accept.”
The onus is on you to take positive steps against harassment where you witness it. By doing nothing you allow psychological attacks to continue. In this way, silent witnesses bear partial responsibility for the consequences of bullying. Moreover, unless the toxic culture that enables bullying is undone, logic says you could be the next victim.
However, merely standing up to harassment isn’t likely to be a cure-all. Tackling workplace bullying is a shared responsibility. It takes regulators, managers and individuals in cooperation with law, policy and healthy organisational culture.
The onus is on you to take positive steps against harassment where you witness it. By doing nothing you allow psychological attacks to continue.
Organisational leaders in particular need to express public and ongoing support for clearly worded policies. In doing so, policies begin to shape and inform the culture of an organisation rather than serving as standalone documents. It is critical that managers understand the impacts of bullying on culture, employee wellbeing, and their own personal liability.
When regulation fails – the dilemma most frequently seen today – we need to depend on individual moral character. Herein lies the ethical challenge. ‘Character’ is an underappreciated ethical trait in many executive education programs, but the moral virtues that form a person’s character are the foundation of ethical leadership.
A return to character might diminish the need for articles like this. In the meantime, workplace bullying provides us all with the opportunity to practise courage.
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To live well, make peace with death

To live well, make peace with death
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BY Matthew Beard The Ethics Centre 14 JAN 2016
“What do we say to the god of death?” swordsman Syrio Forel asks Arya Stark in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (and in HBO’s TV series). “Not today.”
This short refrain marks the beginning of a sustained exploration of humanity’s relationship with death told through Arya’s experiences. She becomes a murderer and later, in ‘The House of the Undying’ where death is seen as a god to be worshipped, an assassin and servant to that god.
Watching Arya’s story unfold, it seemed to me she’d never forgotten her former (you guessed it, now dead) teacher’s lesson – the only response to death is denial.
According to many thinkers, this isn’t surprising at all. Arya isn’t alone in running from death. Denying the reality of human mortality is a near universal behaviour. In The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking, Oliver Burkeman considers the writing of Ernest Becker, whose arguments Burkeman surmises. “Your life is one relentless attempt to avoid [thinking about death] – a struggle so elemental that … for much of the time you succeed.”
Becker believed to avoid confronting our mortality people invest in “immortality projects”. Art, family, business, nations, war, charity, and so on… Immortality projects aim to overcome physical death by ensuring our continued existence through symbols or ideas.
The late David Bowie promised “We can be heroes”, and that’s precisely Becker’s point. Immortality projects are attempts to become heroes, thereby avoiding the emptiness of death.
But research suggests the common instinct to avoid thinking about our mortality might be worth pushing against. In a paper entitled ‘Deliver us from Evil’, researchers found that mortality avoidance can cloud our judgements about life and death issues, leading to unreflective decisions in high-stakes situations.
The study asked two groups of people to undertake a long and generally dull questionnaire and then to read a short essay and tell researchers how strongly they agreed with it. The essay was a strong statement of support for the controversial policies of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. It included lines like “It annoys me when I hear other people complain that President Bush is using his war against terrorism as a cover for instituting policies that, in the long run, will be detrimental to this country … Mr. Bush has been a source of strength and inspiration to us all. God bless him and God bless America”.
The only difference between the two groups was that one questionnaire forced subjects to consider their own mortality. The “mortality salience” group were asked to “briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and to “jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die, and once you are physically dead”.
For some, even the idea of answering these questions might feel uncomfortable, as it did for the subjects in the experiment. Researchers found the “mortality salient” subjects invested more strongly in the nearest immortality project to hand – the war in Iraq. Subjects from the mortality salience group agreed strongly with the essay. By contrast, the control group generally disagreed with the essay’s sentiments.
When we’re forced to confront our own mortality, our default reaction may not be the product of rational thinking but an impulsive rejection of death.
This tells us something important – especially in a time when we are continually confronted with the threat and reality of terrorism and domestic violence nearly every day. When we’re forced to confront our own mortality our default reaction may not be the product of rational thinking but an impulsive rejection of death. The researchers argued similarly:
The fact that reminders of death and the events of 9/11 enhanced support for President Bush in the present studies may not bode well for the philosophical democratic ideal that political preferences are the result of rational choice based on an informed understanding of the relevant issues.
This poses a challenge for ethical behaviour – some of the most serious ethical decisions people face are made when they are confronted with death. Most obviously these include healthcare and political decisions with serious implications for the general populous. Is it possible to overcome mortality avoidance and make decisions based on moral values and principles instead?
Researchers weren’t optimistic on this point, but Burkeman indirectly suggests a way forward. His interest lay in whether thinking about death might enable us to live a happier life. He presents evidence that regular contemplation of death can enable us to avoid horror and shock when it ultimately arrives. “The more you become aware of life’s finitude, the more you will cherish it and the less likely you will be to fritter it away on distraction”.
The same might be true for our mortality avoidance in decision making. If regular acquaintance with death can remove some of its shocking strangeness, perhaps we will be less likely to invest in immortality projects as a way to distract ourselves from its reality. By making our peace with the fact we are all going to die, we will be less likely to make decisions based in our fear of death. If ‘Deliver us from Evil’ is any indication, this might also save lives in the long run by ensuring serious decisions are made reasonably and not from fear.
Plus, doing so might also make you happier.
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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.
