By David Hegg
Back in 1989, an epic, Academy Award-nominated film hit the theaters with immediate impact. It waded without fear into the controversial waters of social subjects of racism, community behavior and violence. The filmmakers’ message was powerfully communicated in its simple title: “Do The Right Thing.”
For Christmas, a thoughtful friend gave a group of his lunch buddies a beautiful pocket knife. One side engraved our names, while the other displayed three capital letters: DRT, which stands for “Do the Right Thing.”
While not referring to the movie specifically, our friend was calling us to the fundamental ethical rubric behind it. In every situation, do the right thing. Do the right thing when it is difficult, inconvenient, and even costly.
That got me thinking. What determines the right thing? Asking this question puts us smack dab in the middle of the science of ethics. In calling its audience to do the right thing, the movie demanded that they – and us! – have a consistent, life-shaping ethical system. They could have titled their film “Do the Ethical Thing,” but that wouldn’t have caught on!
But the truth remains. Individual decisions that face us daily will ultimately be made based on what we believe is true and the convictions arising from those truth claims. These convictions act as guardrails guiding our decisions about right and wrong. Without a solid ethical system based on a series of absolutes in terms of truth, our choices will be swayed by subjective things like convenience, arrogance, hypocrisy, selfishness, greed, and a whole host of malleable emotional impulses.
For example, which of us hasn’t thrown something out the window while driving? Who of us hasn’t crossed the street against a red light? Who of us hasn’t picked up an item at the market only to realize we didn’t want it anymore, so we left it on a shelf far away from where it belonged? These seemingly small wrongs are simply examples of the forces allowing us to do bigger, more consequential wrong things. To do the right thing demands a comprehensive, justifiable, and unalterable ethical system.
But, since such an ethical system takes time, energy, and a fair amount of epistemological (the science of how we come to know what we know) study, let me offer a few questions that can, if asked often and answered honestly, help you and me to do the right thing most of the time.
Will what I am about to do or say prove to be hurtful or helpful? Will the action I am about to take make my community better or worse? Will what I am about to do be evidence of my selfishness or arrogance? Will it demonstrate genuine love or pull the curtain back to reveal some hateful toxins that I’ve collected?
Will my actions in this situation reveal my integrity or give evidence of my innate hypocrisy? Are the actions I am about to take flowing out of my sincere desire to be generous, or am I pursuing public recognition while privately remaining stingy?
OK, I better stop before overstepping my boundaries and start meddling in your psyche. But, if you’ve read this column regularly, you know that my ethical system begins and is grounded in the reality of the eternal, omnipotent, perfectly good, and all-loving transcendent God of the Bible. The ultimate moral question is the foundation of all other ethical questions: Will God agree with what I am about to think, do, or say? Or will his righteous standard indicate that I have done wrong?
That brings up an essential part of any ethical system. What does your system demand of you when you do the wrong thing? Simply put, does your ethical system have a guilt element, and if so, how can that guilt be assuaged, even forgiven?
The most significant problem with every inconsistent ethical system in which decisions are left to emotional forces is that the essential element of guilt can be rationalized away. This explains how those who do the wrong thing can insist it isn’t bad, not only allowing it but also taking pride in doing it repeatedly.
Once again, my ethical system, flowing from God’s self-revelation in the Bible, offers the whole package. Yes, doing wrong brings guilt, defined as God’s opinion of those who transgress his regulations. But the biblical worldview also provides forgiveness to those who sincerely recognize their wrongdoing, turn away from it, and pursue righteousness.
The movie “Do the Right Thing” provided much we should consider. However, perhaps its best contribution to the field of ethics is the poignant assertion that there always is such a thing as “the right thing.” Of course, figuring out what is right, why it is right, and how best to do what is right is an ongoing, daily necessity for all of us. Let’s start with an ethical directive known as the Golden Rule: Do to others what you want others to do to you! In other words, do the right thing!
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
