Weeds in the Garden of Moral Life

When I returned, about a week and half ago, from my summer travels, a restorative period of reconnecting face to face with friends and family, it was no surprise to find the little garden I'd cleared and planted with herbs, strawberries, and peppers , now covered over with weeds, invaded and seemingly conquered at every available inch of dirt.  After all, I basically abandoned the planted plot not only to the elements of sun, rain, wind, but also to encroachments by other plants seeded within the soil, imperfectly rooted out previously, or straying past the border of bricks.  Given the garden's diminutive scale, thoroughly weeding it anew was thankfully just a matter of an afternoon's effort -- but careful, attentive work, for the weeds had been allowed to grow, as is their wont, not only over, not only within, but intertwined with the other plants.

Culling crabgrass, bugle-weed, and other invasive species out from patches of strawberry, thyme, or rosemary, demands a gardener's eye, discerning patterns of leaf, stalk, and shoot from each other, and hands that follow, gently, teasingly until the moment for pulling, separating out the good from the bad, the desirable from that which desires to choke and supplant it.  As the hours passed, more and more soil cleared of green, except for the plants originally intended for those spots, similitudes between gardening, the husbandry of soil and seed, and the processes of moral life, practice, development suggested themselves to me, tangibly, tactilely, experimentally, as much as in concept and language.  Gardening -- like related activities of landclearing and trailblazing, berry-picking and foraging, finding and transplanting plants -- can easily turn into merely utilitarian, practical activity, but it also just as much admits room, and conduces to a readiness, for contemplation.

Six Impediments to Happiness

A recent Forbes piece, The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness), succinctly sets out --  with Venn diagrams and graphs hand drawn and labeled by Jessica Hagy (her hallmark -- as you can see in her book, Indexed) -- six major mistakes people often make, whereby in the short term they exchange pursuit of immediate goals, objects of desire, enjoyments of pleasures, or even escapes for the longer term prospects of genuine happiness.  Hagy places each type of mistake under a laconic rubric, a name for an "enemy" of greatness, then appends a brief description or discussion to the title of that type.

For the most part, looked at through a Virtue Ethics perspective on practical reasoning -- rationally determining what one ought to do, how one should act, whether one's typical outlooks and assumptions, actions and desires are actually good for one, as well as how to rightly order the variety of goods we experience and desire -- these "enemies" she identifies are in fact real impediments to happiness.  They're just as much hindrances to greatness -- whether the latter be understood as excellence in its full sense, or as activity both productive and fulfilling, or even just as externally apparent and measured success.  For the most part, those she identifies are tendencies we've developed or temptations attracting us, but also including a condition which robs us of the capacity to settle upon the better choices.  So, she's right, dead on even -- but what else can or ought to be added to her so-brief, almost bullet-point advice?

"Corporate Culture" Top Priority for Ethics and Compliance Leaders

A recent report (full version here) by LRN, a company that aims at “fostering ethical cultures” within business environments interprets results from a survey given to Ethics and Compliance executives, and raises some interesting issues adequately visible, perhaps, only from a Virtue Ethics perspective.

The report suggests that, at least for those tasked with promoting some sort of ethics within companies and corporate culture, there is a vital concern with the sorts of moral issues and problems that arise inevitably within business.

Ethics and compliance leaders who participated in the survey see themselves as the champions for creating ethical, values-based cultures: 58 percent of them agree that the primary mandate of their efforts is to ensure ethical behaviors and alignment with core values. In contrast, only 42 percent believe their core mandate is legal and regulatory compliance. Further, 68 percent indicate that creating long-term value for the business is a principal benefit of promoting an ethical culture

Three things need to be pointed out.