"Everybody Does It" -- The Golden Rationalization Versus The Categorical Imperative

 Title: "Everybody does it" - the national excuse / Albert Levering 1910. Abstract/medium: 1 photomechanical print : offset, color.

Why not cheat on tests, commit adultery, lie under oath? After all, everybody does it. It's done all the time. Therefore, you shouldn't single out Person X for condemnation when Person Y (everybody else) does the same wrong.

This justification is known as the Golden Rationalization. If has been used to excuse ethical misconduct since the beginning of civilization. It is based on the flawed assumption that the ethical nature of an act is somehow improved by the number of people who do it, and if “everybody does it,” then it is implicitly all right for you to do it as well.

Of course, people who use this “reasoning” usually don’t believe that what they are doing is right because “everybody does it.” They usually are arguing that they shouldn’t be singled out for condemnation if “everybody else” isn’t.

Those who try to use this fallacy are really admitting misconduct. The simple answer to them is that even assuming they are correct, when more people engage in an action that is admittedly unethical, more harm results. An individual is still responsible for his or her part of the harm.

When we turn our backs to wrongdoing by using the Golden Rationalization, we become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. As Irish philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

“Everyone's doing it” is a diffusion of responsibility often used in an ethical dilemma. It is so much easier for us to rationalize unethical behavior when others – especially friends – are already doing it. Someone that we trust and associate with has already made the decision to take part in this activity … so why wouldn’t we? We somehow make ourselves believe that something is no longer bad if everyone else is doing it. 

Contrast this excuse of diffusion with the ethical belief of the Categorical Imperative established by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant founded critical philosophy, a rule of conduct that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any desire or end.

“Thou shalt not steal,” for example, is categorical, as distinct from the Hypothetical Imperatives associated with desire, such as “Do not steal if you want to be popular.”

For Kant there was only one categorical imperative in the moral realm, which he formulated in two ways:

1. “Act according to the maxim that you would wish all other rational people to follow, as if it were a universal law” and

2. “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end and never as only a means.”

Since by nature (according to Kant) the moral law is universal and impartial and rational, the categorical is a way of formulating the criteria by which any action can pass the test of universality, impartiality, and rationality. That is its only function.

For Kant the basis for a Theory of the Good lies in the intention or the will. Those acts are morally praiseworthy that are done out of a sense of duty rather than for the consequences that are expected, particularly the consequences to self.

The only thing GOOD about the act is the WILL, the GOOD WILL. That will is to do our DUTY. What is our duty? It is our duty to act in such a manner that we would want everyone else to act in a similar manner in similar circumstances towards all other people.

For Kant “duty” means something different than what we usually think it means. Usually doing something because it’s your duty means following certain external rules or orders. Kant did not mean that at all. Doing something from duty is the right way to act only when that duty is towards your own internal moral law that you have figured out by careful thinking, using your reason, and applying certain logic principles.

There's the problem. Doing your duty requires thinking, reasoning, and logic. These are not preferred skills of most people who use the Golden Rationalization. In fact, large numbers of people who believe something are often wrong. And, those who jump on the bandwagon with them are ignoring rationality, refusing to invest in critical thinking, and simply “going along for the ride” because it suits their own selfish preferences.

Let's take the often debated example of the nature of free speech. The problem with free speech is that many who exercise it fail to understand the added element of each freedom we all enjoy – the responsibility that is attached to the freedom.

Let's make clear I am not talking about censorship of that most precious of rights, the right to express ourselves freely without punishment. I am speaking about a more responsible exercise of that right, one that considers consequences and motives.

For example, the controversy over “hate speech” has been renewed as America experiences the Black Lives Matter movement and the Me Too movement. These movements have raised consciousness and promoted national dialogue about racism, sexual harassment, and more. With the raised awareness come increased calls for laws punishing speech that is racially harmful or that is offensive based on gender or gender identity.

At present, there is not a category of speech known as “hate speech” that may uniformly be prohibited or punished. Hateful speech that threatens or incites lawlessness or that contributes to motive for a criminal act may, in some instances, be punished as part of a hate crime, but not simply as offensive speech. Offensive speech that creates a hostile work environment or that disrupts school classrooms may be prohibited.

So, because free speech offers such broad legal protection, responsible speech is generally an ethical question rather than a legal one. Understanding the appropriate ethical boundaries shows thoughtfulness and intelligence as well as personal integrity. We knoe racial slurs, name calling, bashing people, and other degrading language is unethical. Speech should not be weaponized.

Our personal morals and ethical boundaries should help make clear that freedom of speech should be exercised with the caveat that there are responsibilities that should precede its use. In America, those responsibilities are grounded in the protection of the individual and the society from injury or harm. At the extreme, that injury is covered by liable or defamation, but in lesser instances, those who exercise free speech should guard against causing physical, emotional or spiritual harm or damage to their audience. 

Freedom? Privilege and independence of speech? In Kant's way of thinking the irony of such a prized liberty is that obeying the moral law from duty is the only way to be truly free. If we just “blow with the wind” we are pawns of our physical needs and desires. We are most free not when we do what we desire, but when we do what we decide to do using our reason, and we follow the moral law it recommends, even if we are not so inclined at that particular moment.

Think … really think … about this proposition of true freedom.

Freedom, for Kant, is thus not the “freedom” to follow one’s inclinations. Instead, freedom implies morality, and morality implies freedom. To act on one’s inclinations or desires, even if one desires the morally correct act, is to be determined by the causal forces of nature, and therefore to be unfree or “heteronomous.”

To act morally is to act “autonomously,” meaning to act according to the law that one gives oneself. It is not sufficient only to perform the acts required by morality; it is also necessary to act intentionally in accord with one’s moral duty.

Kant ultimately posits “autonomy” is “the property of the will by which it is a law to itself” (G 4:440), is the ultimate value for Kant, the only value that can be an end in itself and has a dignity beyond all price.

This can all be reduced to the concept of Autonomy. The word autonomy, derives from Greek, literally translating to self legislator. 

 

Choice Concerns

When it is all whittled down,

A core of freedom is left to place.

Where fundamental questions seek the

Constitution, for answers, case by case.

The fulcrum seems to slide back and forth,

From right to left at the start.

Seeking to balance the lever of justice,

And preserve humanities heart.

Here the weight of liberty on one end,

Shouldn't remove the gains on the other side.

Since the roots of law share this burden,

Where autonomy won't restrain what others applied.

If independence is our lofty goal,

That preference must be true and held high.

Where one's volition won't detract from another's,

And all voices are heard above the cry.

Timothy Mattson | Year Posted 2021