— Leave a Comment

Civility and Love

Last night we met with hundreds of SouthLake families for JK-8 Curriculum Night. I told the audience in attendance that such events take on added importance in a society increasingly skeptical about what schools teach. We make our curriculum fully accessible to parents because we have nothing to hide. Meeting face-to-face also helps us humanize each other in ways that increase empathy and trust, both necessities as we partner together for the benefit of your children.

When the Maui wildfires devastated the town of Lahaina last month, early criticism focused on the EMA Director who did not activate the county’s warning sirens. When I first heard the story, I reflexively thought, “What an idiot!” That thought persisted unchallenged in my mind for days. Then I heard an interview with the Director, Herman Andaya, who explained that the sirens were used primarily for tsunamis, and residents hearing them would likely flee inland, directly toward the fires. My entire perspective changed. I was forced to admit that I didn’t know if the decision was correct or not; I had insufficient information to form a credible opinion. I was reminded of Proverbs 18:17: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”

In-person interaction informs our beliefs about each other. Face to face we see where our judgments have been hasty and our information incomplete. Each time we meet, whether at carline, an athletic event, a school meeting, or a fine arts performance, we build the relational capital a healthy community needs. Research consistently shows a growing incivility in America, much of it executed through digital communication fueled by online disinhibition. By contrast, I have seen a growing civility at SouthLake in recent months, perhaps because as a Christ-centered community, we are called to something even greater than civility. We are called to love.

Bible community Education Ethics Leadership
— Leave a Comment

Managing Increased Email Volume

Now that everyone is working and schooling from home, your email inbox has probably blown up. Friends, family members, co-workers, and all of your kids’ teachers are emailing you with unprecedented regularity. I have a strategy to offer for managing that ballooning inbox, one that I adapted over time from other people, the identities of whom I cannot now remember. I can remember these four words: delete, delegate, do, delay.

Delete. Many emails can be deleted the moment you read the subject or sender line. Marketing promotions, social media alerts, and various lists to which you subscribe intentionally or not, my recommendation is that when times are hectic, delete these emails the second they show up in your inbox. Some email management software automatically sends such emails into a separate folder. By whatever means, get these junk emails out of your inbox.

Delegate. Some emails you can immediately send to someone else – a coworker who needs the information, an employees whose job is to handle the task, a child who needs to manage his or her own school assignment, or information on which you’ve been copied. Get these out of your inbox immediately by forwarding them with as little explanation as possible or filing them in case you need the information later. When in doubt, file. Storage is plentiful and cheap.

Do. After you’ve deleted and delegated all the emails you can, now you look through the list of emails and, counterintuitively, look for the least important emails first. If the email requires you to perform a task that you cannot delegate, and the task would take less than two minutes to perform, perform that task as soon as you open the email. Someone is asking a simple question or needs your permission for something. Give them an answer in as few words as necessary, politely but succinctly, and move on. Now is not the time for verbose niceties. Take care of as many of these brief tasks as possible and then delete or file the email, depending on whether or not you need a record.

Delay. The last category of email is the one that requires a task of you that only you can perform, and the task will take longer than two minutes. Keep this email until you’ve deleted, delegated, or done all of the other email tasks in your inbox. These are the only emails that should camp out in your inbox. Keep the number of these emails below 20 if possible. This will help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

Here are additional quick recommendations:

  1. Work on email during specified times of the day. Don’t let email dictate your work life, otherwise you will sacrifice the important for the urgent.
  2. Don’t check your email within a couple of hours of bedtime. You don’t need that irritant to keep you awake.
  3. Never send an angry email. Electronic communication is permanent. Emails can be subpoenaed. Confrontational conversations should be held face-to-face or by phone where facial expressions or vocal inflections can provide context and prevent misunderstanding.
  4. If you must, write a draft of an angry email and then sit on it for 24 hours. Reread it the next day. Let a colleague review it for you. In the end, you’ll probably delete it so save time and just don’t write it in the first place.
  5. Use proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar regardless of who you are writing. Emails provide good opportunities to practice proper English, proper English shows respect to others, and respect is a good thing, especially in times of crisis.
community Ethics Technology
— Leave a Comment

How Should We Live? A Very Brief Introduction to Ethics

“Every pursuit aims at some good.” – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“Pride comes before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18

Introduction
Students in both my graduate level Corporate Integrity class and my freshmen level Core Texts class read quite a bit of philosophy. Some consider philosophy boring or impractical, but in some ways philosophy is the most practical of academic disciplines because it helps us think about the things that matter most in life.  Philosophy deals with the good, the true, and the beautiful (ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics), the necessary components of a life well lived. Ethics helps us think about what a good life looks like.

From a Christian perspective, a good life comes by grace through faith in Christ, but the gift of grace is not the end of the Christian life. Instead, grace should motivate right behavior. The field of ethics helps us think carefully about right behavior. What is good? How should we live? The major of schools of ethical thought help us answer these questions. Let me list four, describe them, and discuss their strengths and limitations.

1. Consequentialist Ethics. Sometimes called teleological ethics, consequentialism focuses on the outcome of a particular behavior. An action is good if it achieves a good end. There are two forms of consequentialism, egoism (act to maximize your own good) and utilitarianism (act to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number). Of course questions remain as to what goods should be maximized and for whom. Should we, for example, prioritize a growing economy or a clean environment? Should we sacrifice the needs of a wealthy minority for the needs of the poor majority? And how might we distinguish between needs and desires? Surely we desire many things that we do not genuinely need.

2. Rule or Duty Ethics. Sometimes called deontological ethics, rule or duty ethics focus on the obligations, rules, principles, laws, norms or duties that guide behavior. An action is good if it conforms to an accepted rule or duty. One classic expression of deontological ethics includes Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative: treat people as ends not means, and act only on that principle that you would will to be a universal law. Another expression of deontology includes John Locke’s Social Contract Theory: if you choose to live in a society, you should respect the rights of others within that society. Deontology, however, raises obvious questions. How do we determine rules, duties, and rights? Are there ever exceptions to a rule? Can I tell a lie to save a life (as many did, for example, to hide Jews from the Nazis)?

3. Virtue Ethics. Sometimes called character ethics, this school of thought focuses on the development of virtue, the traits that lead to ethical decisions. An action is good if it embodies a virtue (integrity, trustworthiness, humility) and avoids a vice (greed, dishonesty, arrogance). Of course one might ask what virtues are most important, and whether or not it is possible for a vice sometimes to produce a good outcome.

4. Divine Command Theory. Here, an action is right if God commands it. There are two (mutually exclusive?) forms of divine command theory: (1) Plato – God only commands actions that are good, and (2) Ockham – Any action God commands is good. Plato’s view runs the risk of placing good over, God if it is something to which God is bound. Ockham’s view runs the risk of making good entirely arbitrary, such that humans could never know what was good apart from specific rules. Divine command theory raises some obvious questions. Which god’s command should be followed? How can one truly know God has commanded an action? Can God command something seemingly unethical (as when God commands Abraham to murder his son Isaac)?

Conclusion
No single school of ethical thought solves every moral dilemma. Some situations involve unavoidable moral complexity. Each school of thought contributes something to the conversation, but each has obvious limitations. Most people utilize a combination decision-making philosophies, but gravitate toward one in particular. It is wise to know one’s own ethical tendencies and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of that school of thought. To know what you don’t know requires humility, without which the good life (and God’s grace) will likely elude you.

Ethics Theology