Moral Imagination
Due to President Obama, the word "empathy" is getting tossed around a
lot lately. What interests me is that his definition of the word
"empathy" is central to what ethicists call "moral imagination." And
moral imagination is central to government ethics.<br>
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Here's Pres. Obama's definition of "empathy" from his book <em>The Audacity of Hope:</em><br /><br />"It is at the heart of my moral code,
and it is how I understand the Golden Rule — not simply as a call to
sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see
through their eyes."<br /><br />In his 1993 book, <em>Moral Imagination,</em>
Mark Johnson defined "moral imagination" as follows:<br /><br />"an ability to imaginatively discern
various possibilities for acting in a given situation and to envision
the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given
action."<br /><br />
How can you "envision the potential help and harm" of your actions if
you cannot see through others' eyes? What does the term "appearance of
impropriety" mean to someone who can't think how one's actions appear
to others?<br />
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A person without Obaman empathy, without moral imagination, is a moral
klutz who says hurtful things, who does hurtful things, and who thinks
only of how the response to what he does might affect his reputation,
if even that.<br />
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It's not surprising that the politician who ends up in a scandal is often just
that sort of moral klutz. And it's not surprising that one of the first
things that comes out of the mouth of such a person when he's been
caught is, "I'm sorry if you were hurt," as if the problem were the
victim's thin skin, not the thick moral imagination of the person who
did the harm.<br />
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Our popular media are often good at bringing a moral imagination to
situations. Our ethics training needs to focus on this, at all levels
of education, and certainly with respect to government officials and
employees, who are so often in the position of affecting the lives of
thousands or millions. Moral imagination is, as Pres. Obama said, "demanding." It doesn't come naturally.<br />
<br />
Robert Wechsler<br />
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br />
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