Public opinion and ethics

Public opinion and ethics

The questions this blogpost is asking are below:

• Can ethics be decided reliably by monitoring public opinion?
• What is right and wrong?
• What causes an individual to be perceived as a good or bad person?
• Are ethics more about perception or reality?

To address the first question, an article I read today which inspired that question is titled: "Public opinion and ethics", and the article itself makes a statement that ethics is not something which can be reliably decided by public opinion. If that is the case then is there an objective method or mechanism from which to decide ethics? If it's outcome based then right and wrong would depend on the consequences, but if it's perception based then it would seem right and wrong depends on how the community or public perceives of an individual. An individual can take actions which save the world and still be treated as evil if public perception of that individual does not match.

What is right and wrong? Right and wrong has different meanings depending on who is asking the question. In my opinion right and wrong is subjective and individualized. There could be a right for you which is wrong for another person who isn't you because they don't share your interests and or preferences. On the other hand, the public has it's own opinions on right and wrong which change continuously to such an extent that only opinion polls or and public opinion can elucidate any information on the current publicly recognized right and wrong. From a consequence based perspective if the individual is only concerned about consequences to their interests then they would have to weigh in all actions the current publicly recognized view. For this reason public sentiment becomes critical for perception management, not just of corporations, but on all levels of society, increasingly as things become more transparent.

It would seem an individual is perceived as good or bad based entirely on public sentiment. Public sentiment can change overnight about almost anyone and anyone who was good can become bad. It seems it's a lot easier to go from good to bad than from bad to good in terms of public sentiment. It also seems at least in some societies that due to the Internet, any mistake a person makes going forward will be saved forever.

I predict it's going to be increasingly more difficult for any of us to know if we will be perceived of as a good person in the future or what a good person even is, partially due to the fact that while large corporations, governments, and other entities with processing power can analyze public sentiment to know what to put in press releases, the rest of us aren't privy to such information and must gamble. In my opinion, if we even look in the crypto community we can see many posts which are well meaning which get perceived of in the wrong way, taken out of context, or which are considered "bad for marketing", but this is an area which due to the technology itself becomes more computationally intensive and risk prone. Communication and public speaking will necessarily become more sophisticated as the audience grows more informed.

Whether or not ethics are about perception or reality is the core of all of these questions. It's something I don't have answer to. Perhaps there is some balance or trade off which individuals make between doing what they think is right and conforming to what public opinion thinks is right. If a person only ever did what they think is right then they would likely be perceived of as evil, or a narcissist, because generally conformity is enforced with harsh punishment. Some say perception is reality, and that the only thing to worry about is how we are perceived by others, while others say follow your heart and let the chips fall. I say it's ultimately a balance that people negotiate between themselves.

References

Johnstone, M. J. (2011). Public opinion and ethics. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, 19(1), 25.