John B. Dilworth's Commentary on "Boundary Between Professional Engineering Society and State Licensing Board"
Author(s):
John B. Dilworth
Roughly, my general view is that it is very beneficial to us as
a society, and hence ethically desirable or even obligatory, that
we should ensure that social interests or roles (such as being a
businessperson, friend, landowner, or a state representative) are
maintained or made to be as compatible as possible with each other,
so that 'friction' or 'conflict' between roles or interest-groups
is minimized.
From this point of view, problems of 'conflict of interest' in
which one person has several social roles involving different
interests (e.g., as a friend versus as a business associate) turn
out to be morally problematic not because of supposed 'conflicts'
of those interests, but rather because of the high degree of moral
temptation present in such situations. The proper social solution
to such problems is appropriate regulations designed to legally
enforce standard morality. On this view, there are no special moral
circumstances associated with supposed 'conflicts of interest'
which could excuse or exonerate those who act in a biassed
manner.
In the case of supposed conflicts of interest of social or
political entities such as states or townships, I argue that such
conflicts cannot occur at all. Hence of course there are no moral
problems resulting from such 'conflicts'.
The present case suggests another, perhaps harder kind of
challenge to my general view. It raises the question of apparent
'conflicts of interest' in which the supposed 'conflicts' could be
between a person's 'self-interest' and some social interests.
For example, in the current case Brian Simpson expresses a
concern that if members of the State Board accept hospitality from
NWSPE (lodging, meals etc.) having some substantial value, their
behavior would be "inappropriate". At least one of his specific
concerns here seems to be that since individual members would get
personal benefits from the hospitality, there would be at least the
appearance that their actions as Board members might be compromised
by this. Is there some conflict of personal versus social interests
which could cause or explain why members could be morally
compromised (or appear to be) in such a situation?
On my account of social interests, they are about the
commitment, stake or value which some entity (a person, a political
unit, etc.) attaches to or associates with some object or activity.
This account would (so far) be generally accepted, and is broad
enough to cover both legal and more general interests (in
friendship, business associations, etc.).
However, note that nothing in this account rules out the
possibility that the objects or activities of an interest are
centered round one particular person. Then a 'self-interest' would
simply be the special case when a person has the interest, and the
same person is involved in the objects or activities associated
with the interest. I propose that we accept this natural
consequence of our initial definition, and hence regard it as a
defining interests generally rather than specifically social (as
opposed to individual) interests.
Admittedly, the term 'self-interest' is often used in ways which
seem to make it a very different kind of thing from more impersonal
or social interests. However, that can be explained. Such talk
about a person's 'self-interest' is not about any particular
self-directed interest the person may have, but rather about some
kind of overall evaluation of the full range of a person's
self-directed interests.
In this sense, a person's 'self-interest' is not one of their
interests (since it is rather a sum or resultant of specific
interests), and hence it cannot conflict with other interests or
social responsibilities. So in our search for conflicts of
interests between individual and social interests, we must be sure
to use specific interests in each case.
Another common mistake about social versus self-directed
interests is to assume that it is possible to exhaustively divide
all interests into one category or the other. This encourages a
view of 'conflicts of interest' in which the basic problem is seen
as a conflict of selfish, personal interests on the one hand with
social or moral interests on the other. However, it is easy to show
that many interests involve both self-directed and other-directed
elements, so that this account must be over-simplified.
For example, if person A has an interest in being friendly with
someone B, this has an other-directed element (the other person B),
but A's interest itself is richer than that. In order to adequately
play the role of being a friend, person A must (of course) himself
act in a friendly manner toward B, and so A's interest must be
self-directed as well as other-directed.
The above example is a case where a social interest can be shown
to have a self-directed element. Some personal interests can just
as easily be shown to have an other-directed or social element. For
example, suppose person A signs up for a course on public speaking
because she has a selfish, personal interest in being able to speak
well in public (she may believe that such a skill would improve her
promotion prospects, for instance). Whether A likes it or not, she
will succeed with her selfish interest only to the extent that she
is able to actually speak well in public, i.e., perform that social
role at least adequately (to the satisfaction of her audiences).
Hence her interest is inherently other-directed (or social) as well
as self-directed.
What these points suggest overall is that there is nothing
special about apparent conflicts of selfish versus social
interests; each kind of interest is structurally similar, and we
cannot even assume that the selfish/social contrast is
theoretically fundamental because there are 'mixed' cases with
elements of both.
However, it might be thought that some fundamental
selfish/social distinction could still be made. For example, the
idea of the intended beneficiary of an interest might be
introduced: A intends to benefit herself in the example above, and
any benefits to her audiences are unintended by her. Since it is
her interest, she gets to decide whether it is 'really' selfish or
social by her intentions. (Note that, even with this addition, it
is still possible to have 'mixed' cases, in which the owners of
interests intend to benefit both themselves and other people
involved in their interests.)
Certainly one's intentions, and one's own reasons for doing
things, are important in the discussion of interests. However, they
are more closely tied up with interests than the above account
suggests. It is not as if, for any interest, one could have that
interest plus any intentions whatever which one might choose to
have. Instead, the having of an interest is itself a kind of
commitment or way of thinking about or relating to things, which
already reflects or contains the main outlines of one's intentions
toward the objects of the interest.
For example, consider the case of person A above. If she really
is taking public speaking courses just to enhance her promotion
chances, perhaps we should say that strictly, she does not have an
interest in public speaking, but instead only an interest in
getting promoted? This would make clear that public speaking is
pursued by her only as a means to the end of getting promoted, and
not for its own sake. This more insightful or explicit account of
her interests (which takes account of her reasoning and intentions
in explaining why she wants to learn public speaking) also leaves
no room for additional intentions to distinguish selfish versus
social 'versions' of her interest.
However, we should not over-emphasize the similarities and
connections between intentions and interests. Interests are
grounded in real connections in the world, while intentions are
merely mental attitudes, which can be much more variable and
quirky. For example, a speaker with an interest in public speaking
may have intentions to speak in public as an integral part of that
interest. But she may or may not intend to inform her audience of
anything in the course of doing so. (That part purely depends on
how she thinks of her interest.)
On the other hand, if she does indeed have an interest in public
speaking, then she does have an interest in an activity which will
inform her audience of something, as a result of her speaking. In
other words, having or acquiring an interest involves taking on
tasks or responsibilities which are integrally associated with the
normal causal connections of real events and activities. In fact,
it is this 'reality-oriented' aspect of interests which gives point
to our whole discussion of conflicts of interest. We really would
have moral problems if interests did conflict in a serious way.
Let us now follow our own advice above, and use as a possible
example of conflict of individual versus social interests a case
where each interest is clear and specific. My strategy will be to
describe a scenario in which the interests definitely do seem to
conflict, but then to show that a person could have the same
interests without them conflicting with each other.
It will follow that such interests do not necessarily have to
conflict, and so it must be other factors (such as the moral
attitudes of the person having the interests) which determine
whether there is a conflict or not. But then we are explaining why
there is a conflict in terms of problems in a person's moral
attitudes, which is just the opposite of the conventional view
(according to which it is the inherent conflict of the interests
themselves which explains why the person's behavior is morally
problematic.)
For example, suppose that a State Board member X in the case
really would enjoy hospitality at the resort (food, sightseeing,
..) to such an extent that he would do almost anything to get other
invitations in future years from the NWSPE. Perhaps then if a case
for review involving a NWSPE member Y came up, X would allow
himself to be influenced by his desire for future hospitality, and
rule in Y's favor whether Y deserves it or not. Is this not a case
where X's individual interest in 'good living' is in conflict with
his interest or role as an impartial State Board member?
My claim is that there are two possible answers to the question,
depending on our interpretation of the interests in question.
First, if we think of X's individual interest in its most specific
form, as X's current interest in X himself receiving hospitality
etc, then it may well be true that it conflicts with X's current
role as a Board Member.
However, if we concentrate on the interests themselves, as
possessed by anyone rather than on them as possessed by X (so that
the individual interest is describable as of the type 'a person's
individual interest in he himself receiving hospitality, etc.'), it
seems clear that someone could easily possess both attitudes
without any conflict. It is a normal fact of everyday life that
some people are very fond of free hospitality, and that some are
virtually morally incorruptible. There is no inherent connection
whatsoever between great enjoyment of free food on the one hand and
impartial decision-making on the other, and only morally corrupt or
'sleazy' people would allow themselves to adopt their interests in
such a form that they could result in conflicts in this way.
Thus in such a case of conflict, it is the moral corruption or
failure of a particular person at some stage in their life which
explains why there is a conflict in interests. It is not some
inherent conflict in the interests themselves which explains why
there is something morally problematic about the situation of any
persons who have the interests in question.
This analysis fits in closely with my general account of
apparent conflicts of interest as morally problematic only because
of the moral temptation involved. The case selected above is one in
which the person has already given in to temptation. So even in
this extreme case, when there is some actual conflict, it turns out
that it is a mere symptom of an underlying moral problem about the
person.
An analogy might be useful: just as interests don't have to
clash, but may do so if adopted by bad people, so also
spatio-temporal locations of cars don't have to clash, but may do
so if driven by bad drivers (in an accident, the cars occupy the
same spatio-temporal region for a while). We explain why the
locations of two cars clash by appealing to facts about the drivers
(bad driver, drunk,..); the crash itself is a mere symptom of the
underlying driving problems of (at least one of) the drivers. The
pattern of explanation is the same in each case.
In order to further demonstrate the validity of the above
analysis of a conflict of interest, let us look at an even more
extreme case. Suppose that it is not just hospitality, but some
powerful, addictive drug which is being used to influence the
decisions of State Board members. Suppose that it is so powerful
that, once taken, anyone will develop an overpowering need for more
of the same substance.
In such a case, the personal interest of each member in
obtaining the drug might in every case conflict with their interest
in rendering impartial judgements for the State Board. In other
words, the interests would always conflict, and the need for the
drug would override impartiality, whatever the individual moral
scruples of the Board members happen to be. What should we say
about such cases?
Note that here, if anywhere, the conventional view ought to
work, according to which there are unavoidable conflicts of
interest, which explain why people are morally compromised in such
situations. However, the problem is that the only means of
guaranteeing that the interests will always conflict in this way is
to bring in an extreme form of causal determination. Far from being
morally compromised in such a situation, Board members have instead
become innocent victims of a dangerous drug which completely
removes their power of choice. They are not responsible for failing
to act impartially, and hence cannot be morally blamed for their
actions in the situation at all.
There is another, deeper problem with this extreme example. I
would argue that in order to acquire an interest as one's own, one
must intentionally or deliberately choose or accept whatever is
involved in the interest (only thus could it become or remain
'your' interest). But in the case of an addictive drug, there is no
such preliminary (or ongoing) deliberative process. Hence strictly
we should deny that anyone could have an interest in obtaining such
a drug (they merely have an overwhelming need for it). If this is
accepted, the extreme example falls apart, because we no longer
have a conflict of interests at all.
In conclusion, let me return to a main part of my original claim
(in my GOLFING commentary) that interests are normative in the
sense that we ought to structure them in such a way as to avoid or
minimize inherent conflicts between them. We have just seen an
extreme example of such a conflict: if we allow (for the sake of
argument) that drug addiction could generate an 'interest' in
ingesting a drug, then clearly it is ethically imperative that we
find effective ways of preventing this 'interest' from conflicting
with all kinds of social interests and roles to which addicts may
also be committed.
In such an extreme case, the only effective methods available
may involve an outright suppression of the harmful interest (i.e.,
outlawing of the manufacture, sale or possession of the drug
involved). Notice that here again, it is not the conflict of
interests itself which generates the problems or explains anything;
instead it is the specific problems within a specific interest
(here, that the acceptance of the interest rapidly becomes
involuntary and overwhelming) which explains why there would be a
conflict, and why it may be necessary to use forceful means to
suppress or prevent such conflicts.