What if the Law and the Constitution enshrine something that we know is morally wrong? What then?
In the Government of the People, by the People and for the People this question is important, it is difficult and, in its propensity to bring about civil strife, it is dangerous. Abraham Lincoln asked this question and struggled with it for many years. His simple answer, that no individual or community had the right to do what was wrong led to his selection as the Republican candidate for President. And as they say, “All the rest is history”.
For the rest of us the issues are never so great, but the result, when we fail to adopt Lincoln’s answer, can be just as significant in our lives as well as in the lives of others.
Two examples of a moral failure in this respect have recently been before us in the news. The first is the matter of MP’s expenses and the second was a the case of a man sent to a private clinic, by the National Health Service, for an everyday knee operation who died because the clinic had no blood supplies on hand.
In both cases the defence is the same, “I/We followed the rules. I/We are blameless”. Well, not if you are Mr Lincoln, you’re not, say the rest of us!
It must surely be obvious to the parties in cases such as these that if harm results then the excuse of following the rules is not admissible. The degree of accountability depends on the degree of the error and the level of knowledge and responsibility at which the parties operate.
In the case of the MPs there had already been concern raised within the House. The failure to recognise that, helping yourself liberally from the public purse is morally wrong, whatever the rules may be, is worrying. It points to our premiere legislative body consisting of people who, in the main, appear to be unable to make moral decisions. And if they cannot do this then they are not fit to rule us.
The case of the clinic is perhaps worse in that a man died, perhaps because of the clinic’s failure to put difficult moral questions to itself. The answer, to the reporter’s question that surely it should be obvious that if an operation is being carried out then blood may be required as a matter of extreme urgency, of “We followed all the rules” is clearly a failure of moral sense. We expect the professionals who treat us to do so in a safe manner having regard to all the unfavourable events likely to occur and to the importance of the outcome. Surely death as an outcome is important in any moral society?
The willingness of what appears to be many important people, organisations and their leaders to act at all time, without respect to other peoples safety or their property, in other words to act without morality, is a cancer in the side of our present society. A cancer moreover inserted by those who far too frequently have been heard to make harsh judgments on other people, often poorer and less well educated than themselves.
The answer is to change the law, if indeed the law needs changing. We all need to know that the law requires of us to carry out, when the health and safety of others or their property is in question, at the level of competence it is reasonable to expect from us, an analysis of the importance of outcomes and of their likelihood of occurrence irrespective of any rules or contractual agreements in force. If for some reason we do not like the answers or cannot implement them then we should be expected to take the moral decision and not go ahead with what was intended.
In the meantime, whilst we wait for the civil authorities to make their minds up about wrong doing, we should surely expect those who have failed this moral test to do the moral thing. Apologise and make recompense!