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Morals and ethics:

Where is society headed?

by Simon Longstaff

I have to tell you that there are very few occasions as dangerous for a philosopher as that which involves speaking to young people. It makes us very nervous. All of this stems from knowledge of the fate endured by the first of our number. His name was Socrates and he was tried and executed in the ancient city-state of Athens. There were two charges brought against him. One of them was that, through his teaching, he corrupted the youth. I plan to be very careful!

I would like to recount to you a true story. It concerns a conversation that I had with a taxi driver who was driving me to the airport. The conversation took place just two months ago.

Story about taxi driver who, after a long conversation with Simon about the value of ethics and of an ethics centre, then offered to write up a taxi receipt with a figure recorded that is slightly larger than the actual fare. Those taxi drivers who make such an offer do so with a sense of doing a favour for the passenger. From their point of view it seems a good deal for all concerned in that they don't lose anything from the transaction whilst the passenger may gain a little at the expense of an organisation that can probably afford what is perceived to be nothing more than small change. The point is that some drivers and passengers do not even see the possibility of there being anything wrong with such an offer.

How could it be that the taxi driver, an articulate and intelligent man, failed to see that there was anything curious in his offer to help men in effect, to steal from the Ethics Centre? To be true, the man thought that he was doing me a good turn. Looking at the matter from his point of view he was extending to me an opportunity which, if taken up, would have allowed both of us to profit. But the matter goes beyond a question of whether or not the man was well-disposed towards me as an individual. I suspect (I am tempted to say that I know!) that I was not the first or last passenger to receive the taxi driver's offer. And it is at this point that some of the more serious aspects of the story begin to emerge.

Needless to say, the business of overstating fares for the purpose of facilitating undeserved remuneration was, and probably is, part of the custom and practice of that taxi driver. As such his offer, made to me in good faith, was an automatic reaction to my request for a receipt. It is easy to see that the driver didn't think there to be anything wrong about his offer. But it goes beyond this. The fact of the matter is that the driver didn't think about any of this at all. As noted above, all of this was an example of his usual custom and practice. And, without thinking, he would never see the contradiction inherent in his complaining about stealing and apathy whilst at the same time assisting with another type of theft. One of the issues which I will touch on in this address is Socrates' contention that the unexamined life is not worth living. But more of that later.

One experience with a well-meaning taxi driver. One experience shared by countless other commuters and many more in a host of other settings reveals something which is both obvious and profound, depending on the way you view the matter. This is that much of what can be termed the 'ethical landscape' is invisible to those who traverse and thereby, constitute it. I will return to this question of how it is we can be blind towards something which we constitute in a moment. Before doing that, it may be useful to try to define the area which we are discussing.

People frequently ask, ldquo;What is ethics?”. I sometimes think that they expect a philosopher to give an incredibly complex and impenetrable answer to what is after all a very simple question. As an aside, I must say that I can understand this apprehension about philosophical discourse. As a profession which aims to seek wisdom and which usually prides itself on clarity of thought, we certainly know how to defy comprehension.

I would not be surprised to learn that most people think that ethics is an obscure area that barely touches on the conduct of their daily lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. At one level ethics is to do with questions of right and wrong, good and bad. But at an even more fundamental level there is the first question of ethics.

First asked by Socrates the question is this, "What ought one to do?". Think about it for a moment. There is nothing remote and abstract about such a question. Indeed, it is the most practical question that you can ask. "What ought one to do?". Such a question challenges every aspect of our lives: from the way we allocate our time, to the way we treat one another in our dealings with each other.

It is interesting to probe the matter a little further. Suppose I was to outline for you some sort of scenario which requires you to make a practical response. Such a scenario might involve you in trying to determine whether or not a doctor should always be absolutely truthful when answering patients' questions about illness. Alternatively, it might require you to determine the extent to which the competing interests of stakeholders should be balanced in the conduct of a commercial operation. Or again, it may involve you in deciding on issues such as the role of censorship in society, who to vote for in an election, whether to encourage your parents to book into a home for the aged, deciding for and against the purchase of environmentally friendly products, whether to read a novel or watch a soap opera and so on.

As you can see, the questions are endless. This, in itself may help you to see the extent of territory making up the ‘ethical landscape’. But the thing which I would draw to your attention is that in considering how to respond to any of these scenarios you would be drawing upon your understanding of what you consider to be the essential elements of the ‘good life’.

Is the 'good life' one of maximum pleasure and minimum pain, is it one of happiness, is it one shaped by obedience to a law which we give ourselves as rational beings, is it a life spent in obedience to the revealed commands of God, or is it one so led that at the very end it is possible to look back, without any regrets, and judge that your life has exemplified the true end of human being?

At one time or another, over the centuries, these ideas of what the 'good life' may involve have competed with one anther for primacy of position when answering Socrates' question. I've outlined a few of the options. You will be able to think of more. For much of the time people believed that it would be possible to settle the matter one way or another. That is, philosophers believed that reason and argument would lead eventually to agreement.

We have recently passed through a period in which such an assumption has been challenged by those who have argued that it is impossible to settle the issue, and what's more, that we positively should not try to do so. Whilst there are stronger and weaker versions of this point of view, it is generally known as relativism. All of you will have heard the phrase "everything is relative' or "that's just your opinion". Well, relativists hold to the same sort of line and argue that there are no absolute values of right and wrong or good and bad but only values that we happen to support for the time being.

This view can be extended to suggest that because of this nobody can say, for certain, that a certain action is wrong because, in a particular context or setting, it may be right. For example, there are some cultures where brothers and sisters, of a certain social standing, are expected to marry one another. Most people from a traditional Western background would be tempted to judge that this was wrong. Some would think it a good thing if such practices were prohibited. The relativist will challenge such attitudes and try to prove that there is no adequate foundation to support a 'knock-down' argument in favour of one point of view over another.

So let me summarise, I began with a taxi driver who seemed unable to grasp the contradictions in his own words and actions. Given what I have said, should I have been surprised to find confusion? Does the ethical landscape appear to him as a mirage? Everything shimmers, the whole scene moves before his eyes and nothing is what it appears to be. That could be one explanation. Another may be that, like many people, the task of thinking about ethics has been set aside in favour of a conventional morality that can be practiced as if on automatic pilot and with no thought of whether it represents a coherent view of what the good life consists in.

I realise that this has been something of a long introduction to the topic which I have been invited to address. However, I hope that you will come to see the importance of these background comments as I turn to consider the question, "Where is society headed?".

I believe that it was Malcolm Muggeridge who, at the height of the Cold War, argued that the Liberal Democracies of the West would not be defeated by Communism so much as by the fact that they would be undermined from within and eventually cave in on themselves. You may be surprised to know the name of the enemy that Muggeridge supposed to be lurking unnoticed within the precincts of the ‘free world’.

Instead of naming any of those traditionally thought to be subversive, such as: a 'fifth column' of communist sympathisers or, a rabid and cynical press or, disaffected minorities claiming a better share of the spoils of capitalism, Muggeridge identified the culprit as being our own chronic inability to cope with our freedom. Rather than growing strong and straight under skies clear of the shadows of totalitarianism (whatever its hue), the vision that he entertained was of a wasted people stooped low under the burden of choice. The problem of freedom is an ancient one which, in its modern form, runs on through the writings of Sartre to the present.

As with virtually every period from the past, we are experiencing a time of fundamental and rapid change. Some features of this change appear as cracks in the old firmament of international certainties.

Who is to know what to make of the 'new world order'? As newly formed economic and political associations begin to take shape, it is anyone's guess as to whether or not their formation will lead to a greater realisation of the inter-dependence of the world's people or, alternatively, to the creation of further gulfs which might grow to separate us. And in the wake of these changes, what of international justice? I mention these matters, because they clearly have the capacity to affect each and every one of us. But it will not be possible to do justice to these matters here. My brief necessarily bids me concentrate on issues which are closer to home.

So I turn to other features of change as they register within our own domestic environment. In a sense, my standing here before you today is both an effect of change and, I hope, an example of it.

Let me explain. Few people would want to disagree that, for many, the decade of the 1980s was a period of unrestrained and selfish gratification. I'm not saying that everybody engaged in the excesses of a dozen or so well-publicised individuals. Rather, I am suggesting that the actions of the most prominent individuals would not have been possible without the active participation of what Henry Bosch, former Director of the National Companies and Securities Commission, has aptly named, a 'cast of thousands'. And Mr Bosch is correct. The rise of a handful of robber-barons to the status of national heroes was achieved on the back of a wave of popular adulation.

It is an interesting exercise for the individual to listen to the words of those who have survived to be wise after the event and wonder whether they expressed the same sentiments at the time the ill fated deeds were being done. Indeed, some have been so cynical as to suggest that the parlous reputation of some of our ex-tycoons arises not so much from out of a condemnation of misdeeds as from a rejection of their failure to succeed.

None of this is to suggest that there wasn't a number of people who knew what was going on and who also had the moral courage to condemn it. I am certain that many people acted with consistency and integrity. And for them and because of them we should be both proud and grateful.

But for many others without either the internal desire (or I suppose external limits) to restrain their ambitions, imitation became the sincerest form of flattery. And with this in mind they celebrated the acquisitions of their antipodean Caesars and, as a nation, over-borrowed with the best of them.

As we have all come to realise, the bigger the binge, the worse the morning after. Most people are prepared to suffer a little as the necessary price to be paid for a small measure of over-indulgence. And many are prepared to test their limits because of their faith in the fact that the person at the bar will stay sober in order to mix the drinks properly and that there will be a sensible taxi driver to ferry the revellers to the safety of their homes.

That is, people only tend to let go when they believe that it is safe to do so and that they can trust others not to take advantage of them.

So it is that if we wake to find that the people we trusted either mixed us a Mickey Finn or drove us to another bar, then the shock of it all and their subsequent rejection is especially strong.

Having said this, it is as well to remember that Australia is not alone in trying to come to terms with the aftermath of the 1980's. Japan is currently embroiled in yet another saga of scandal and corruption that touches on the activities of those in high office. And what of America? In a brilliant article published this week in Time Australia, the Australian critic, author and historian, Robert Hughes, writes of the "fraying of America". He observes:

Americans are seeing a public recoil from formal politics, from the active, reasoned exercise of citizenship. It comes because no one trusts anyone. It is part of the cafard the '80s induced: Wall Street robbery, the savings and loan scandal, the wholesale plunder of the economy, an orgy released by Reaganomics that went on for years with hardly a peep from the US Congress - events whose numbers were so huge as to be beyond the comprehension of most people.

There are still practices at work within our society that cause us to question whether or not trust should be maintained with regard to some of our fundamental institutions. I can tell you, frankly, that it worries me when the community is given reason to doubt the integrity of segments (I repeat, segments) of our legal, political, commercial and financial systems. To have reason to doubt even one of those systems is a cause for instability. What are we to do when all four systems seem to totter on the brink of impropriety?

People no longer feel that they can assume that things are what they seem to be. This brooding sense of disenchantment would seem to be widespread and thus, is all the more disturbing. This is not to suggest that all of the criticism is deserved. I suspect that some of it is grist to the mill in the manufacture of that which sells newspapers and the like. However, no matter how much one discounts the actual incidence of unethical behaviour, it would be difficult to feel comfortable among the ranks of the complacent.

In times such as these there are always people ready to put their pen to paper. Here are just two examples of what has been written:

... the profiteers insolently and covertly attack the public welfare ... They charge exorbitant prices for merchandise, not just fourfold or eightfold, but on such a scale that human speech cannot find words to characterise their profit and practices.

Or again,

... those I abhor are the unprincipled men who ... use unethical means to obtain undue profits ... they hoard currency or commodities to force the value up ... I will have nothing to do with such people.

I suspect that for most of us the language is vaguely familiar. Yet, each of these pieces is drawn from the fourth century AD. The first extract forms part of the Roman Emperor Diocletian's decree of AD 301. The second extract is from the pen of the Chinese scholar, Ho Hung, who wrote those works in the first half of the fourth century.

Closer to us in time lies the period of catastrophic social convulsions known as the fourteenth century. In a brilliant depiction of that time, Barbara Tuchman, summarises an age:

... economic chaos, social unrest, high prices, profiteering, depraved morals, lack of production, industrial indolence, frenetic gaiety, wild expenditure, luxury, debauchery, social and religious hysteria, greed, avarice, maladministration, decay of manners.

No wonder she entitled her book A Distant Mirror. As Voltaire noted, "history never repeats itself, man always does".

Now my reason for drawing attention to these observations of, and from, the past is a simple and, I hope, a reassuring one.

One of the benefits of the past is that we can look at where we have been, recognise the footprints that lead to our own time, and know that we too can survive it all, perhaps to be the object of study of an unknown generation of future historians.

Whilst I would not want to suggest that we should return to a position of complacent optimism concerning the prospect of humankind's ultimate perfection, I do want to suggest that we have reason to believe that the cycle of history allows for periods of consolidation and correction.

Governments have a role to play in this period of consolidation and correction. As a rule they need little encouragement to expand their range of activities. And for the most part, I believe that their agenda is driven by a genuine concern to govern well. However, at times when confidence is low, the community looks to government to do something to correct imbalances in the system. In almost every case the government will respond by introducing new legislation leading to an expansion in the regulation of the system.

One can see some classic examples of this in Australia.

The Australian Securities Commission has burgeoned forth with a panoply of new legislative and regulatory measures. Concern about tax evasion and social welfare fraud has seen the creation of a massive data collection and manipulation system. The wide use of the tax file number of Australians has achieved all that was intended for the ill-fated Australia Card.

Legislation, regulation and surveillance all come at a cost. They cost time and money to those who are subject to these measures and, ultimately, this cost is passed on to consumers. Consumers are charged a second time in the form of taxes needed to pay for the level of bureaucracy required to administer the new systems.

But it is not just the financial cost that should be borne in mind. Of equal or greater significance is the fact that the imposition of systems of external control has a significant impact on the quality of life in a society. I do not mean to suggest that there will be a deterioration in the material standard of living. Rather, there is a reduction in the privacy that we can enjoy as citizens. And this in turn has an impact on the sense of our freedom and autonomy.

Then again, some do find that the prospect of external control is an easier option than that of exercising self-discipline.

Having said all of this, it is as well to remember that there are one or two powerful countervailing forces that make government hesitate in the face of the opportunity to regulate. Firstly, governments realise that if they put on the mantle of the regulator then they too will be held accountable for any scandals should they emerge.

Secondly, many citizens prefer to look for alternatives to an extension of government powers. This provides a strong impetus to revive informal frameworks in which trust can be developed anew. Hence the renewal of interest in business and professional ethics. People can remember a time when certain standards prevailed and they look to those who have positions of leadership within our society to re-state their commitment to a set of values which, once in place, will allow the community to drop its guard. Caveat Emptor is fine in principle, but it can be a debilitating maxim when allowed to dominate our practice.

I keep coming back to the point that trust is a valuable and essential feature of any mature society.

I am very conscious of the fact that I have sketched a somewhat sombre picture of how things stand at the moment. Yet, I have also been trying to suggest that the legacy of the 80's is not all bad. For example, there is a renewed interest in the question of values. This has led people to realise that a sole concern with selfish acquisitiveness represents too narrow a construct of self-interest. People have become more concerned about how their actions impact upon the social and physical environment. People are willing to experiment with new ideas whilst re-evaluating long standing traditions.

It may be that we have entered one of those periods of transition between one stage in our history to the next. All of this speaks of opportunity. But it also speaks of choice.

So my question to you this morning is this, "How will you choose?".

Having been recognised as people with all the potential to take on the mantle of leadership do you have a view of the ‘good life’.? Where would you hope to see our society headed? Are you able to answer me when I join with Socrates to ask, “What ought one to do?”.

Much of what I have had to say so far has been an interpretation (if not properly regarded as a description) of the way in which our society has been developing in recent times. But can I suggest to you a plausible explanation for all of this? I am going to attempt to do so because I believe that these matters demand our understanding so that we might defy Voltaire's dictum concerning Man's capacity to repeat himself.

Needless to say, that which follows is open to objection and I must confess that these observations are not especially original. The core idea that I wish to explore is that we no longer have the opportunity to experience the depth of our society (if deep it still be) but, instead, are relegated to an exploration of an increasingly multi-faceted surface area and that this is because of the way in which an abiding sense of belonging to a community has been replaced by the notion of atomistic individuals who live primarily for themselves and only coincidentally as part of a society. Whilst I do not want to fall prey to the vice of romanticising the past, I think it fair to say that there used to be a time when Australians had a proper appreciation of each other.

Indeed, there was a time when people would write with approval about an Australian society in which the traditional virtues of justice and benevolence had found a new and distinctive expression in the notion of giving the other person a fair go and that of mateship. How it came to be that these characteristics came to the fore in the public mind will remain a matter of contention for many years to come.

Some will look to the formation of bonds of solidarity formed by the ill-fortune of ending up as a convict in New South Wales. Others will point to the pioneering spirit that was born in the bush. Others will see the idea as having its genesis in an explosion of idealism that flowered, somewhat paradoxically, once people found liberation from old ties in a new land (that just happened to be a penal colony). I suspect that the truth is an amalgam of these three, and many other, influences.

Whilst there might be doubt about the provenance of these 'Australian virtues' and although they may have been abused and debased in later generations, there can be little doubt that they were perceived as being real features of the Australian character in the middle of the last century and on into the early years of our own. For example, in a book entitled Settlers and Convicts written in the 1830s, Alexander Harris wrote:

There is a great deal of this mutual regard and trust engendered by two men working thus together in the otherwise solitary bush: habits of mutual helpfulness arise, and these elicit gratitude, and that leads on to regard. Men under these circumstances often stand by one another through thick and thin; in fact it is a universal feeling that a man ought to be able to trust his mate in anything.

As I said a moment ago, this perception of Australians persisted into the twentieth century. In 1910, Bean talks of:

That general determination - to stand by one's mate, and to see that he gets a fair deal whatever the cost to oneself - means more to Australia than can yet be reckoned ... Whatever the results (and they are sometimes uncomfortable) may it long be the country's code.

The thing to notice about Bean's comments, in particular, is that he is not writing of the values of one or two selected individuals. He writes with confidence about how a nation, how Australia, expresses itself when answering the question, “What ought one to do?”.

There are a number of features that characterise the early period in Australia's development. Some of these features remain but their effects have been neutralised. For a start, many people found themselves in what they considered to be an unfamiliar, inhospitable and even hostile environment. As such they were drawn close to one another. Then there were the problems of difficult terrain, long distances and poor communication. People needed to be able to trust one another and to rely on the word of honour. Then there was the pace of life itself. Things move more slowly and there was time to get to know the other person, to see them under strain, to test their mettle. Friendships thus became enduring relationships. Another feature was the silence of the land.

Anyone who has read Les Murray's poem The Noonday Axeman will remember his evocative description of the abiding (and sometimes disquieting) silence of the frontier bushland. When silence is broken by human speech the words uttered may be attended to in a way not usual when words are embedded in a wall of sound.

It is, perhaps, another paradox that almost instant access to each other has been accompanied by an apparent consolidation of individual identity at the expense of a sense of community. It is as if we engage with interactive video images in a world of virtual reality.

If we prick our neighbour will he bleed? Or will his skin peel back to reveal nothing - not even a ghost in the machine? Perhaps these comments are too extreme. However, I am concerned about a society that feels comfortable about terms such as 'human resources'. As Dame Leonie Kramer recently declared, "I am a person, not an object!". The way we use words matters, for they reveal our underlying conception of the world.

Of course the picture is far more complex than that which I have outlined. My comments and concerns need to be balanced by a recognition of the fact that there is a new awareness of issues like our impact on the environment. I am not trying to depict a society in which people have performed a wholesale trade of benevolence in favour of selfishness. At heart I am an optimist about human nature. And I am not wanting to decry the importance of the individual in favour of some naive view which presupposes the superiority of society.

Instead, I am trying to suggest that whilst society may not be superior to the individual, it is none-the-less the necessary context for the full development of our human being, of our personhood if you like. Indeed, the idea of society and the idea of the individual are mutually dependent on each other for their fullest expression.

Without an appreciation of the fact that we are all related as members of society it becomes difficult to see why the welfare of others should be taken into account when trying to decide how to act. And it has been my contention that we are currently experiencing a time in which it has become increasingly difficult to appreciate these relationships, except amongst immediate family. If we care to look for the seeds of the unfortunate activities of the 1980s it may lie in the fact that we no longer recognise our neighbour.

Let me see if I can knit together some of the preceding points.

Firstly, I have tried to suggest that there are real questions to be asked about the state of ethics in our country. How could we have stood by and allowed some of the outrages to occur with barely a murmur of dissent. Were we overawed by events? Were we all ignorant of the events? Or were we happy to watch in silence for as long as we enjoyed the illusion of comfort and prosperity?

Secondly, I have addressed the question of whether or not we, as a society are prepared to take up the burden of our freedom. We talk a lot about the independent nature of Australians. Is this reputation still deserved, or is there a deep streak of grudging acquiescence (if not respect) in the face of authority? Do we want to choose and if so how will we choose?

Thirdly, I have offered an explanation for the apparent disintegration of values. This explanation suggests that we have lost touch with the deeper meaning of things (and persons) and that we have found ourselves in a fractured environment full of commodities. Commodities tend to have a monetary value (that is, a price) so that rates of exchange can be calculated. When people start to be regarded as commodities, there may be a temptation to calculate their value in terms of whether or not they are a worthwhile means to achieving an end, rather than as an end in themselves.

A more full explanation might look at this process of fracture and erosion of depth in terms of the failure of certain institutions to maintain their relevance and their values intact. For example, what is the standing of the Churches, the Law, our families, our system of government, the financial sector?

These questions are not just of academic interest. They impinge, at a most fundamental level, on the nature and wellbeing of our society.

So, what is to be done? What ought one to do? Whichever way you look at the issue, an effective response is going to involve the exercise of responsible leadership. The burden of choice is not lifted by effort alone. As a precondition for success there must be an exercise of the will. People need to be inspired, to see that it is possible to choose and to choose well. This means that we need people in every sector of society who are prepared not only to be ethical in their own conduct but who seek to stimulate discussion of these important issues. This will require moral courage, something that we hear very little of these days.

At the same time, I want to be absolutely clear that I am not suggesting that those who would lead should set themselves up as the arbiters of good conscience; with the power to enforce their standards. To do so would merely be to remove any chance of our society testing its resolve in the face of choice. This does not commit our leaders to a life of silent example. On the contrary, those who would lead should also be permitted to exhort and persuade. They are entitled to explain the basis for the values which they hold and to encourage their exploration by others.

Yet there is another powerful tool which can be deployed. This is to raise questions about customs and practices that everyone may take for granted. This is not inimical of tradition. Just as sound plants thrive in the light of day, so sound traditions should thrive in the face of constructive questioning. Convention can be a straight jacket, custom can be performed without any sense of the rhyme or the reason which gives it life. All of these things can be like the letter of the law; dead without the spirit.

If this seems easy for me to say, then I would be the first to recognise the difficulty of applying it in practice. Not least of the difficulties may be the fact that we live in a society of many cultures and in which there can be no guarantee that values are shared across the community. The fact of this raises both challenges and opportunities the full import of which I will return to in a moment. Some of you may be wondering how it is that I expect you to make sense of all this complexity, how to roll back a decade of bad habits.

Well, I am pleased to be able to tell you that some very good answers to the questions which I have raised with you are close at hand. All of you are familiar with the Four Way Test. The test is elegant in its simplicity:

Of things we think say or do

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIP?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Given the nature of my job, I am especially aware of the fact that the Four Way Test does not solve all the problems for those who would aspire to the highest ethical standards in the conduct of their lives.

As all of you will be aware, there are many circumstances in life when there is no clear answer as to what is required. Equally valid principles can compete and require different decisions to be made. If I am a medical practitioner and have a patient who has a terminal illness, will it always be beneficial to all concerned if the truth is revealed? Does the truth always lead to better friendship, even if it hurts? Is being fair to one group with special needs always going to be beneficial to all concerned? The list goes on. You will think of many examples of ethical dilemmas.

St James Ethics Centre has been established, in part, to provide a secure and confidential forum for the discussion of such dilemmas and to provide counselling for those who confront them.

Having conceded that the Four Way Test does not provide a fool-proof blue print that will relieve you of the need to exercise individual judgement, what more can be said in its favour? I think that the answer to this question may lie in its relationship to the cultivation of what used to be known as the virtues. A list of the cardinal virtues might include: honesty, courage, temperance, wisdom, justice and benevolence. In more religious times the list has included : faith hope and charity.

Some would argue that the list can be reduced to two virtues; namely, those of justice and benevolence. Whatever the list, the point about a discussion of the virtues is that it turns our minds away from rules towards questions about what type of people we would like to be. Would the good life be one in which I have a disposition to be truthful, to be fair, to build goodwill and friendship, to be benevolent? Should I seek to become just and benevolent?

Some will say in reply, "but surely you must first know what justice is before you can become just. How can you be benevolent without an earlier understanding of what it means to be so?". These are good questions. Part of my reply would include some comment along the lines that knowledge of these things comes with experience of a shared practice and as a member of a community which encourages an understanding of these concepts as part of the acquisition of a disposition to be just, benevolent and so on. I suppose that I would want to explore the idea that the possibilities for being ethical are the possibilities for human beings to be persons.

Finally, I would ask my questioners to consider the implications of their own question. What does it mean to ask about ethics? What does such a question presuppose if you are serious in your endeavour to find the truth?

I have just suggested that the Four Way Test may direct us to look at ourselves and ask questions about the kind of people that we would like to be. At the same time I have tried to indicate that the place of the virtues is not just a matter of individual concern. As a rule questions to do with virtue and vice, right and wrong and good and bad are raised in the context of a community where certain basic values are shared.

But which community? In Australia, is there only one community or is there, after all, a number of communities in this nation of ours?

When invited to give this address, I was asked to include a problem or matter that might form the basis for discussion. I don't know if I have achieved this objective yet. So with this in mind, I will put a problem squarely before you. This has to do with the question of how we ought to respond to the challenge of developing an ethical society in which fundamental values might be at variance? Are we going to take the line of the relativists and conclude that one set of values is as good as another? If this is so, then is the case for relativism itself just a matter of opinion or do some people claim that, as an observation about values, it is absolutely true?

Alternatively, should we assume that an answer can eventually be found, if only we have the wisdom and tenacity to look hard enough. And if we found the answer, should we expect everyone to apply it without dissent? Or are we to agree to disagree, but within the context of a society committed to the principle of tolerance? And if this is the answer, should then we be tolerant towards those who see all toleration as compromise and who, accordingly, brook no dissent within their own ranks. Indeed, should any thing be tolerated for the sake of tolerance?

These are just some of the riddles which I put before you. As you can see, the area can be as dangerous as a mine-field. Controversy abounds. It is always worth remembering that Aristotle wrote his Ethics and Politics with each as an extension of the other so that they should be read together.

Let me conclude by saying that I consider it a great honour to have been asked to speak to you this morning. As you can see, I too am struggling to find an answer to the question about where society is headed. I hope that we have learned from the past. I fear that the good times will come around again only to find the same errors being made. I said before that I am an optimist. I suppose that I am also something of a realist.

Strangely enough, these two aspects can combine to good effect. Combined, they can be the catalyst which motivates people to become involved in stimulating the process for change - a kind of 'pragmatic idealism' (if that particular oxymoron will be allowed).

The challenges before us are amenable to solution. However, they demand that those who are prepared to face the issues do so with humility, wisdom and fortitude. As was noted earlier, ethics is an immensely practical matter which, at its heart, deals with questions affecting the actions of real people. As such the subject is bound to be a morass of complexity which defies explanations based on a crude understanding of human nature and the place of man in society. As Robert Hughes has observed in connection with the writing of history:

The need for absolute goodies and absolute baddies runs deep in us, but it drags history into propaganda and denies the humanity of the dead: their sins, their virtues, their failures. To preserve complexity, and not flatten it under the weight of anachronistic moralising, is part of the historian's task.

The 'flat man' of history is quite unreal. The problem is that too many of us behave as if we are surrounded by such creatures. They are the commodities of modern society, the stock-pile to be allocated in the most efficient and economical manner. Each of them has a price because none of them are thought to be of any intrinsic value.

I have spoken of the burden of choice for all of us. As a yoke, it can sit with extra weight on the shoulders of those who must take the initiative and lead with good example. So how will you choose? Will you remember that you lead real people and not mere ciphers to be deployed for your purposes? Will you remember that if you prick them, they will bleed? Will you recognise each of them as your neighbour.

Finally, when you choose, who will you choose to be?

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