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Holistic ethics:

Fragment one - in search of ethical unity

by Suzanne Ross

Recently I was conducting one of our Professional Development Workshops on techniques for resolving dilemmas. The group comprised holistic counsellors who described their work as counselling the whole person - their body, mind, heart and spirit.

I asked them to think about ethics and the general question of "what ought I to do?' as if it were a holistic counselling client and thereby tell me about it's body, mind, heart and soul.

What is the body of ethics?

The body is the environment in which we engage ethical questions. It involves structures, systems, policies, laws, regulations, codes, standards and disciplinary procedures. These are both espoused and lived, conscious and unconscious.

As if this weren't enough there are also personal moral codes, societal norms, vows (eg. marriage), contracts (eg. employment) and organisational intentions (eg. vision and mission statements). Taking a community role will also involve protocols of commitment (eg. a politician's commitment to the electorate, a Rotarian's allegiance to the Four-way Test and the responsibilities inherent in the role of a scoutmaster).

Within the body of ethics, there are some less obvious parts; those unthinking habits or practices that have become part of an individual, group or culture's internal rule. These rules are often accepted without reflection, a type of unconscious injunction.

What is the heart of ethics?

This is the area of our emotions - fear, passion, despair, joy, guilt, compassion, anxiety and contentment are but a few. The heart of ethics involves emotions that arise when faced with a dilemma where two dearly held rights conflict or where we are forced to choose from an undesirable set of options. There are also those that arise when, for example, we are faced with a moral temptation that feels so desirable and yet we know that it's something that we should not do.

The heart of ethics is also about relationship and relatedness. We live in an increasingly narcissistic culture, where anything wider than our own needs is of limited interest. Yet as a human, we have an intrinsic desire for connection and inter-relatedness. We resonate with phrases like "we are all related", "we are part of a greater scheme" and desire to return to a state of "oneness with the universe".

Unfortunately we want all our narcissistic and tribal needs instantly met with no discomfort and with no effort on our part, whilst also feeling really good about ourselves as a person.

What is the mind of ethics?

Psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion suggested that there were thoughts looking for a thinker. The mind of ethics involves not only our own thinking but also that of the thinkers of the past and present.

This is the traditional domain of philosophy. Those 'objective' thoughts, driven by logic and reason to get to the truth about good and right conduct. Theorists who have grappled with these human issues have included Socrates, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Present day thinkers include the Dalai Lama, Peter Singer and the Ethics Centre's, Simon Longstaff.

At the personal level, the mind of ethics involves the capacity to reflect, muse and mull over those issues of human concern. This area involves a continual quest, through a process of questioning, travelling towards wisdom.

What is the spirit of ethics?

The spirit of ethics is a sacred, innocent and creative space where one transcends the mind, body and heart, and yet is also totally engaged with them. Sitting with "What ought I to do?' this state of being does not support being captured by thoughts, feelings or actions. There are many descriptions of this spirit, 'the cloud of unknowing' will suffice for the moment.

Splitting ethics

So why, if we have this desire for unity and wholeness and know that the ethical dimension has a heart, mind, body and spirit, do we find ourselves cutting off part of this dimension? For example, at times we act as if ethics is only about codes or laws, or that we feel as if ethics is only about resolving immediate anguish.

Alternatively we think ethics only occurs through rigorous conceptual analysis, or that being at one with spirit sees ethics as only a private matter, risking disengagement from the world.

Holistic ethics

Holistic ethics may well involve the capacity to sit at the vertex of a pyramid above the quadrants of heart, body, mind and soul. From this position it is possible to embrace all aspects, as individual parts as well as parts of the whole - Koestler's holons.