Last Sunday’s article by columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia is, I think, one of her best. She states at one point that she would “rather have to contend with a good and decent person who isn’t terribly competent than one who is essentially bad or amoral and who is terribly competent”. She goes on to state that tragically we have a government today which is both amoral and incompetent. One of her best statements is when she says that she usually divides people into good and bad and prefers to spend time with the former than with the latter but admits to a human weakness of having made mistakes in this regard. This admission is in fact her saving grace in her seeking to find good and which gives credibility to her whole article! Some people seek to do good and often make mistakes in discerning this good, but others are not really interested about the good and are only interested in themselves as the centre of their actions. They are only interested in politics so long as they are able to feather their nest.
In decision-making theory, they say that the best decision is the right decision; the next best decision is the wrong decision while the worse decision is not deciding at all. This implies that when making the right decisions in life, we open ourselves to wrong decisions! Only those who do nothing ever make any mistakes. This admission of vulnerability is in fact a great source of our strength as we move away from relying only on ourselves and start to rely more on the strength and mercy of God. This is the real difference between humility and pride. In Pope Francis’ new book, “The Name of God is Mercy”, there is a small story about a German soldier during the Second World War being condemned to death by the French resistance. In granting this poor man access to confession, a priest found the man not at all sorry for having slept with a number of women. However, the priest asked him whether he was sorry that he was not sorry and on the basis of his yes, he was able to grant him absolution before being shot! I always prefer a person who admits his or her human mistakes rather than one who brags about his or her performance and perfections, even when trying to follow the good road.
This brings us to the matter at hand. We have an amoral government whose only interest is attracting people’s votes by submitting to their amoral requests irrespective of the negative influence this might have on the common good. The overarching aim of this government is to make people surrounding the Labour Party rich or satisfied in as short a time as possible, maybe to compensate for the time they spent in opposition. As one case of mal-administration rolls of the shelves one after the other, it becomes evident to everyone that the search for good policy by this government is not at the top of its priority list! A government minister and the chief of staff of the Prime Minister admit to opening bank accounts in a tax haven and slowly admit by degrees as first the New Zealand story comes out and then the Panama one.
Suspicious behaviour indeed! The Minister admits he made a bad choice in his investment portfolio and even admits to breaking the law and willing to pay a fine. He then expects us to take this as if nothing wrong has happened. He attacks others for having investments but this is not the point at all. People who work make money and have investments. There is nothing wrong with this. The problem is where these investments are actually made! A Minister of the First Republic admitting that he opened a bank account in a tax haven by stealth and that he has broken the law and incurred a fine and then pretends that nothing has happened and does not admit his failing can usually be charged with the vice of pride and arrogance! Usually, Ministers who admit to these indiscretions tend to resign, as mistakes usually have consequences. So much for the morality and ethics of the Second Republic!
Ethical theory is usually divided into objective and subjective ethics. In subjective ethics the individual usually bothers only about himself and his own interests or applies a norm that is essentially defective. Theories of ethics like those in meta-ethics and descriptive ethics are singularly subjective, while even some of those in normative ethics purport to be flawed norms such as those of consequentialism this might have and utilitarianism. Objective ethical theory usually falls into five categories.
They are all theories that respect the needs and recognise the existence of others in society besides self and pay obeisance to the objective truth. Divine Law theory is perhaps the only theory that is based on faith in a divine being as the source of wanting and ordering what is good. The Ten Commandments would fall under this theory. However other theories also exist that depend on our human reason and the cultivation of an objective behaviour. Natural Law theory is based on human prudence and reason as the basis for what is right as are the concepts of the Natural Rights theory which should in effect be based on natural law itself.
Kant’s theory of Duty also implies objectivity through our duties in life situations arising from our reason as human beings. I believe however that today one of the strongest objective ethical theories is Virtue theory. We obtain good not only by what we do not do, but also by what we do, by what we train our characters to become. Essentially, we become the choices we make! Aristotle recognised in this the essence of our happiness, while Aquinas built on this theory and applied it to Christian living. The recent revival of Virtue Theory by Alisdair MacIntyre and Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe among others, cements the objective nature of this approach.
We have a government that is not rational or prudent, that is unjust in action, that lacks fortitude in seeking out the good, is intemperate in considering its moderating functions in seeking the benefit of the whole community in its daily workings and which is ultimately full of conceit and pride and lacking in magnanimity and courage. There is no respect for the truth in the underhanded dealings going on at all levels. This means that we have a government which is neither objective nor virtuous. There is no cognitive knowledge or acceptance of the depths to which they have rendered daily administrative processes and they have become more and more arrogant as they fail to realize that they neither seek the good nor genuinely admit their mistakes and change tack when they commit them! When things go wrong they never admit wrongdoing and take the rap, but like the couple in the film “The Titanic” pretend to have hearts that go on and on, that is until the ship sinks!
The essence of a good government is to take consistently good decisions based on the virtuous behaviour of its individual governing members. I see no such behaviour and no such men or women at the top. It is increasingly becoming a bad government by the few for the few, a fact that we should not accept lying down.
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