This post is a follow-up to a previous post entitled “Ethics in a delicate situation: what do you think?”, which presented a hypothetical case study together with a poll, to which you can still participate (you might want to do so before reading further). Let us begin with a few remarks about the poll results: On both the French and the English versions of the site, choice e (There are no fundamental differences between helping others and devoting sufficient time to one’s spouse: Jack could have spent that evening exclusively with his wife and still be practicing ethics) has been by far the most popular, followed by choice b for the French version (The well-being of one’s spouse should always take precedence. It should be preferred to the well-being of others and even to one’s own well-being) and choice a for the English version (Efforts of generosity always meet obstacles that must be overcome to allow progress: Jack should have expected Kelly’s opposition and prepared himself better for this test in order to prevent any conflict). The numerous comments left under the post have generally been very critical of Jack’s behavior, to say the least, both on the substance—with many suggestions of failings, weaknesses and character imbalances that could explain his choices—and with regards to the procedure—in particular, the way he acted towards his wife. A lot of the comments have touched upon issues such as the ego, altruism, observing rights, a hierarchy of duties, the golden rule of ethics (putting oneself in other people’s shoes), intention, etc. Each of them have triggered very interesting developments.

The analysis here can be divided into three separate issues:

1. the evaluation of the powers at play within each of the protagonists: what are the symptoms, which powers are manifesting themselves, what are the underlying character imbalances? In short: what is the diagnosis?
2. the determination of what “the right thing to do” is: what are the ethical principles that either of the protagonists should ideally implement? What is the adequate treatment?
3. more general conditions for a correct practice of these ethical principles. What are the conditions for the implementation of the treatment?

The first two issues are very contextual and it is up to each individual to reach their own conclusions, with the help of the common reflection provided via the comments. It is the third issue that we would like to further develop here. The idea is not to recommend a specific behaviour that would be generally adapted to the trials of daily life, no matter the context, but to reflect on a framework that provides general conditions for the practical implementation of ethics.

The framework of reference we present here consists of a set of recommendations for a successful practice. It is based on a chapter of Bahram Elahi’s book Medicine of the Soul (Cornwall Books, 2001), precisely entitled “The Practice of Ethics”. Under this approach, ethics is envisaged as an activity that can nourish and develop the soul, which is conceived as a psychospiritual organism. The nutrients are the ethical principles and their nutritional value has to be activated under certain conditions.

	Ethics in a delicate situation		Medicine of the Soul

See also:

• How to rate the quality of an ethical and spiritual practice? Survey.
• Medicine of the Soul, excerpt – Conditions for the practice of ethics
• Assessing the quality of an ethical and spiritual practice: survey results and suggestions of method

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