Clairvoyance?
Steve, a devoted reader of the Hades Ethics Consultancy blog, wrote in to share his ethical concern:
Well, my Hades, I seem to have trapped myself in a proper fix this time. You see, it is as follows. I have a very dear colleague, and let us call her Susan. Susan is, in my own opinion, an employee of the very highest caliber. Her work is always timely, attentive to the smallest detail, and thoughtful in the extreme. Our corporate establishment has been on many an occasion the beneficiary of her wisdom or insight, indeed, that rare quality you may even call innovation, indeed, even genius.
Now allow me to divulge a private observation of mine about Susan, which is as follows. Susan, for her many talents, appears to face certain issues as regards self-confidence; specifically, Susan often wishes to seek counsel from a superior or colleague before carrying forth even the most trivial of decisions. For example, Susan is inclined to ask my review for tone and accuracy before pressing “send” on even the simplest of emails, even in such cases where an error in communication could be easily resolved via the “reply” feature. Lately, Susan has taken to sending daily updates on the status of her long-term project, including such trivia as specific numbers of emails exchanged with experts on her research topic.
Now, in my inward wonderings, I have reflected often on the ways in which one's style or manner of communication in the workplace might shape others' perceptions of oneself; for example, those who speak crudely of others or are prone to innuendo may acquire the reputation of a gossip-monger, and so on. And one observation I have made of certain individuals is as follows: That some, in their attempts to appear a conscientious and hard-working employee, may betray to others their own insecurities about that very matter, and indeed thereby attract only greater scrutiny, finding themselves the subject of with such cynical questions as: “Why is Susan sending so many goddamn emails? Does she really have nothing better to do with her time?” Or perhaps even such back-handed and limiting praise as “Big slay at the email job, Susan. You're so thoughtful!”
Yes, it was in such a spirit of detachment and confidential musing that yesterday I found myself applying my observation about the relationship between one's stylistic choices and the impression created thereby to our Susan. It was thereby that I made a certain prediction as follows: That Susan, too, might soon find herself “slotted-into” the template of a precocious junior hire whose sole and outstanding ability is facility with email and the quality of being well-organized.
Now, it is not uncommon for a man such as myself to issue such predictions in the privacy of my own thought-space. But today I was caught “off-guard” and indeed quite surprised by a phone call from the our very Susan, who appeared in great distress and expressed to me a spirit of panic as follows: That she, over the past few weeks, as she has engaged in her campaign of daily informatics, has found herself receiving much positive feedback, but also a much unbearable increase in her workload. Worse yet, the bulk of the added load consists of such trifling and simpletonian tasks as compiling lists of staff in standardized text formats.
Upon receiving this news, I found myself in a spirit of great perplexity and indeed moral uncertainty. For Susan's words represented the “coming-true” of my very prophecy from the day before. Indeed, I seem to have predicted the precise misfortune with which Susan now finds herself face-to-face—that she would “brand” herself as a functionary of far fewer abilities than fact!
This newfound power, as I am sure you know, my dear Hades, weighs very heavily on me. For if it should be true that I have the gift of prophecy, then a great many opportunities would avail themselves, for example, in the stock-market, or sports-gambling, to name a few. And I have to wonder if taking such advantage of my gifts would be an ethical breach, a transgression of commonly understood norms of fairness, or simply the manifest destiny of my natural talent.
Please, dear Hades, elucidate.
Hey Steve! Believe it or not supernatural powers are one of the most well-documented sources of ethical dilemmas. In fact, there is a famous story in Greek mythology that deals with precisely this theme, but our former copyeditor appears to have taken the HEC office copy of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths with her to a new job in the marketing department at Marlboro, so I regret that we are unable to provide a citation.
Going from memory, I think the main theme for you to consider as you turn this "proper fix" of yours over and try to find its honest moral underbelly in your search for truth is as follows: What does fairness even mean? It's possible that you could use, as your suggest, your powers of clairvoyance to game the stock market and enrich yourself greatly at the market's expense. But you could also turn your powers to good for a more prosocial cause.
For example, there is much investment currently pouring into the development of new AI technologies to predict how different medicines might interact with different diseases. Why not offset these very expensive research and development costs by offering, at a fair price, your prediction services to physicians and hospitals who need to know which course of treatment would produce the best health outcome?
It's just an idea! But what our ethical analysis in the previous paragraph shows is that tools, such as the ability to predict the future, do not have an inherent ethical weight such as "fair" or "unfair." It's in the application of the tool that we find insight into whether the application was a good ethical use or an unethical use.
That's right folks: When it comes to ethics, it's all very case by case! That's why you should submit your case for consideration using our Ethics Q&A feature by emailing hades@acaciavalleyhoa.org. Tell us what's on your mind, we won't judge.