This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the difficulty of balancing effectiveness with honesty in ethical dilemmas.
Stephen Schneider's quote reflects on the complexities individuals face when confronted with ethical decisions that require a compromise between being effective and maintaining honesty. He emphasizes that there isn't a universal formula to resolve these dilemmas, and it ultimately falls upon each person to determine the right balance that allows them to be both effective in their actions and honest in their intentions.
In practice
In a business meeting when discussing the importance of ethical leadership.
The dramatic importance of climate changes to the world’s future has been dangerously underestimated by many, often because we have been lulled by modern technology into thinking we have conquered nature. This well-written book points out in clear language that the climatic threat could be as awesome as any we might face, and that massive world-wide actions to hedge against that threat deserve immediate consideration.
We are 25 years too late. If the object is to avoid dangerous change, we've already had it. The object now is to avoid really dangerous change.
Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.
I’m losing my taste for everything, including even my taste for finding everything tasteless.
Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.
There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.