My good friend and fellow blogger Ed Brenegar, over at Leading Questions, passed on an interesting letter making the rounds. It’s from Stephen B. Young, Global Executive Director at Caux Round Table. First, let me say that I was glad to encounter such a noble group of leaders who play a strong role in improving economic and social conditions.
Young’s letter raised the compelling question … “How should we decide what is right and what is wrong?” What’s your firm’s approach?
Young points out that many ethics professionals take a very rational approach, using the logic and grammar of language to argue out the right course of action for any case.
Others, according to Young, look to application of cultural norms and religious teachings for answers about right or wrong.
Through left-brain thinking and right-brain thinking … Young attempts to close the gap between what he terms … “a rational, cognitive approach to finding ethics, on the one hand, and, on the other, using a more psychological, virtue-based approach to acting ethically.” In part – he does just that – but he stops short of drawing on the extravagance of the human brain to act ethically. Part of the problem – as I see it – lies in traditional structures in philosophy – that fail to fit new facts about the human brain. For instance … we now know that emotional intelligence is part of rational thought.
Young steps out into the water a wee bit when he describes left-brain directed thinking … which is “literal, functional, textual and analytic using approaches in science and mathematics; the logic of computers and the reliability of engineers.”
Then he lays out right-brain directed thinking, by contract, as “simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual, and synthesizing.” Young states … “It is poetry, not prose; dance not scholastic aptitude tests; blues and jazz in music, Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack in painting. It is
I agree with Young’s statement, that … “As individuals and societies we use both left-brain directed thinking and right-brain directed thinking.
However, based on new information about the brain, I disagree with Young’s statement … “Our minds can be rational while our hearts are virtuous…” though.
To integrate the parts of the mind that include ethical decision making capabilities, go far further that Young’s conclusions. How so?
Here are 2 aspects of the brain and ethics that show integrated right and left brain approaches beyond ethical decisions to practices at work:
1. What you do in any day shapes your brain and rewires dendrite brain cells for or against right decisions. What you do to challenge the tyranny of the majority for instance rewires your brain to do more in that direction.
2. Moral tone transform a government for instance, with what is ethical and wise, only with brain based approaches that move us beyond politics as
What then would it take … to rethink and then practice ethical approaches? I’m thinking of honesty that wins at work? CRT claims to move from aspiration to action ... so I suspect they'll investigate Young's fine vision for the ethical mind even further. I have some practical ideas based current research about how ethics works from the right and left side of the human brain… Do you?
» Left and Right Brain Ethics at Caux Roundtable from BizzBites.com
An an interesting letter' making the rounds, from Stephen B. Young, Global Executive Director at Caux Round Table. While I am glad to encounter such a noble group of leaders who play a strong role in improving economic and social conditions, the brain ... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 19, 2007 6:42 PM | Permalink to Trackback