- Organizations face difficult ethical choices all the time.
A lot of these choices can be broken down
into what you want to do versus what you ought to do.
When I'm driving my car,
I might want to ignore the red light
so I can get there faster, but I feel a duty to stop my car,
even if there's no other traffic.
I do what I ought to do instead of what I want to do.
Immanuel Kant called these the categorical imperatives.
A categorical imperative is pretty much what it sounds like.
You must categorically do something
or not do something to act morally.
And, remember, you should act this way
no matter what the consequences.
Kant said what you want to do is irrelevant.
The moral law binds to everyone.
Kant spent a lot of time trying to settle on
the smallest number of imperatives.
He came up with the four formulations
of the categorical imperative,
but the first three are the most famous.
The first formulation is usually called
the Universalizability Principle.
It means that if you're doing something
that would create a problem if everyone was doing it,
then it's usually immoral.
So think of it this way.
When you're sitting in your car at a stoplight,
you're following the duty to not act immoral,
but you're also following the first formulation
of the categorical imperative.
That's because if everyone ignored stoplights,
then it would be impossible to drive.
It would create a serious problem
if everyone acted this way.
So it's not universalizable.
The second formulation of the categorical imperatives
is often called the Rule of Humanity.
It says that you should not use other people
as a means to an end.
On the one hand, it's okay to use objects like a car
as a means to an end, but you can't use people the same way.
You might use your car to get to work,
and if it breaks down, you might decide
to sell it for parts
but you can't treat people the same way.
Cars exist to drive, but people exist
for the benefit of themselves.
Still, there are many ways to use people
without acting immorally.
You might use someone to fix your car,
but your mechanic is doing this of their own free will.
So it's not a means to an end.
Now, if you knowingly wrote them a bad check,
then you'd be acting immorally.
The third formulation of the categorical imperative
is often called the Formula of Autonomy.
Kant says that you should always act
in a way that encourages others to use their own free will.
This is one of the reasons that Kant always says
that you have a duty to tell the truth.
If you lie, then you're taking away
their ability to be autonomous.
So if you have a terrible haircut,
I have a duty to tell you the truth,
even if it hurts your feelings.
Otherwise, I'd be taking away your autonomy
to try and improve your hairstyle.
As you'll see later, a lot of issues
around data-driven decision making
conflicts with this third categorical imperative.
You might have to ask yourself some hard questions,
like whether your organization is always fair
and transparent with its customers.