Category Archives: Ethics

Network Stimulus Issues 3: Animals

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 14th Mar 2021. In this, the third of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Jim Champion, who is a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to ethical issues involving animals.

Our relationship with animals is complex, messy and overwhelmingly one-sided. For many of us, much of the time, the basic assumptions about this relationship go unrecognised; and when they are recognised, they often go unexamined. Usually, when the status quo is challenged, people’s positions remain polarised and it is difficult to make progress in resolving the conflict. What might a Middle Way approach to this sticky area of ethical practice look like?

As a principle of judgement, the Middle Way involves identifying absolutes in order to better avoid them: Jim will talk about the dogmas that dominate the discourse around animals, including moral assumptions that lie behind the status quo and those that arise in reaction to it. In practice, if we are trying to steer our beliefs away from dogma they need to be incremental, as objective as possible and we need to hold them provisionally; Jim will talk about adopting moral principles in a way that is compatible with the Middle Way, and how this moral practice may work differently to more conventional dogmatic approaches such as veganism and animal rights activism.

A Middle Way approach to maintaining an ethical practice regarding animals is going to require balance: we ought to do what stretches us most towards a more integrated position, in a way that is compatible with our capacity for moral change. As such, the Middle Way for different individuals and for different groups in society is going to look different, with those people and groups moving forward from where they currently are. With this in mind, Jim will talk about his own experience of attempting to steer clear of the dogmas of conventionalism and purity by maintaining awareness of the fallibility of his beliefs.

In this Network meeting there will be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. If you would like to catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 21st March) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from the meeting:

Some suggested reflection questions:
  1. Identify a principle that you use with regards to animals. It could be to do with eating meat or other animal products, recreation (e.g. sport, entertainment), companionship (e.g. pets, wildlife), scientific research, education (e.g. zoos, television documentaries), etc. When, and from where did you adopt this principle? How successful have you been in applying this principle? To what extent has it acted as a long-term reminder of your intent, helping to bring more integration to your everyday ethical practice with regards to animals?
  2. To what extent are there conflicts between your beliefs about animals? It may help to focus on specific pairs of examples, such as your beliefs regarding cows and horses, or pigs and dogs. How do you respond to feelings of hypocrisy, with regards to yourself or others? What do you consider to be an adequate balance here?
  3. Identify a pair of opposed absolute beliefs about animals. It may be easiest to identify an absolute belief that you hold, or tend towards, and then to construct its opposite. How can the belief be incrementalised and made provisional, in the spirit of taking the Middle Way?
Suggested further reading:

Network Stimulus Issues 2: Public Health and Covid 19

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 28th Feb 2021. In this, the second of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Hannah Bailey-Thomas, who is a doctor working in the British National Health Service and a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to public health in the context of the current Covid 19 pandemic.

Hannah will talk about general perception of personal and social risk and how poor we tend to be at it, and the spectrum of ‘evidence based’—’common sense’ — ‘herd mentality/feelings as facts’. She’ll also then apply this to the issues of mask wearing, lockdown adherence, vaccine uptake, the effects of social media and rule fatigue in the pandemic, with the absolutizations she thinks can be avoided in these areas.

Picture by Mehmagar Dolutmand (Unsplash)

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 7th March) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Suggested reflection questions

  1. Where do you tend to sit in the evidence based/common sense/herd mentality/feelings and facts spectrum and what factors tend to shift that for you?
  2. What is your response when challenged with the idea that no human being individually is good at assessing risk? If this is the case how can we address this?
  3. What specific absolutisations have you found yourself indulging in during the pandemic? What has driven that for you?

Suggested further listening

Podcast interview with Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland (this is pre-Covid, but is about wider public health issues)

Network Stimulus Issues 1: Climate Change

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 14th Feb 2021. In the last few sessions of our ethics and politics series we will be applying the Middle Way to some specific issues, and climate change is the first of those issues. This will also enable us to have some talks from different speakers. To apply the Middle Way to a particular issue is not to come up with a definite prescription or solution for that issue. In accordance with error focus as an approach, we can be more confident about identifying absolutised assumptions to avoid when approaching the issue than we can about the answers. However, hopefully the discussion will help you examine your own views of the issue.

The massive threat posed by climate change makes it an obvious source of fear, but because it is also a very complex issue, panicked or extreme reactions are the last thing we need. It is possible to recognise the urgency of the issue without panicking, and whilst maintaining a determination to stay in the Middle Way. Robert M. Ellis will suggest various absolutizations that it might be helpful to avoid in approaching climate change – including denialism, extreme pessimism, and sole reliance on one kind of response or solution as the only acceptable one.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. On that page you can also find links to all the previous network talks on basic approaches to the Middle Way and to ethics and politics.  If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 21st Feb) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. What has been your general emotional response to climate change? Does it tend towards either of the extremes of panic or denial, or have you managed to find some sort of balance?
  2. What kind of response do you tend to favour, and how much weight do you put on that type of response?

Suggested further reading/ listening

There is no shortage of books and articles about climate change out there (do feel free to recommend these in comments). Here are some resources related to the society and the Middle Way. Some of these may now be getting a bit out of date in some respects, given the ever-developing information about climate changes.

Podcast interview with Adam Corner of the Climate Outreach and Information Centre

Podcast interview with Jonathan Porritt

‘Fiddling while the Planet Burns’ blog post by Robert

‘Embracing Extinction’ talk by Stephen Batchelor at our Festival in 2020

Review of ‘Facing Gaia’ by Bruno Latour

Network Stimulus Ethics 5: Provisional Rules

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be at 7pm UK time on Sun 3rd Jan 2021. This will be the fifth of our series of talks and discussions on ethics, and the last of three sessions where we will be looking at the three classic approaches to morality in turn: virtue ethics, ethics seeking good consequences, and principle-based ethics. We will be asking what a Middle Way approach implies for what we consider to be ‘good’: is it becoming a better person, fulfilling good goals, or obeying the right principles? Or is it all of these? If so, how do we fit them together when they sometimes contradict each other?

Following principles or rules is the traditional way that many people think about ethics. But where do we get the rules from and how do we know if we have the right ones? The Middle Way approach suggests that we should never take a rule absolutely. Often absolute rules create unnecessary conflict and rigidity. But that need not prevent us from developing provisional rules that we can justify from experience. In this session we’ll be exploring the ways that principles or precepts can be useful for individual practice, and how provisional rules are also necessary in society.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on consequential ethics, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 10th Jan) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the actual video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. What’s the history of your attitude to rules? Are you a rule-follower or a rule-breaker? How well do you think this has served you?
  2. Have you practised (or would you like to practise) any provisional rules or precepts? What issues do you think their provisionality might raise?
  3. What advantages do you think there are in a deontological (i.e. principle-based) way of thinking about ethics, by comparison with thinking in terms of consequences or virtues? How far might it be helpful for you?

Suggested further reading

Middle Way Philosophy 1: The Path of Objectivity 7.(see pdf of Omnibus edition on Researchgate)

Truth on the Edge section 6

Parallel thinking and six hats

In a recent middle way group discussing consequential ethics, we wondered how groups with diverse beliefs, ethics and approaches can work together to make effective decisions that account for a wide range of conditions, whilst at the same time avoiding conflict and argument?

Many thinkers have considered this problem and we might gain from looking at their ideas. One that came to my mind was Edward de Bono’s process of “Parallel thinking” which aims to enable groups to reach decisions as efficiently and effectively as possible, by considering the situation from several different perspectives and avoiding an adversarial framework.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, parallel thinking uses the metaphor of “six thinking hats” each of which represents a mode of thinking.

Illustration by Lorna Edwards

De Bono categorises the thinking modes as follows:

  • Blue – Overview and process
  • White – Information, facts and figures: What do we know, or need to know?
  • Black – Caution and criticism: What are the risks we want to avoid?
  • Yellow – Optimism and positivity
  • Green – Creativity and possibilities
  • Red – Emotion and intuition: What is our gut instinct?

To begin the process one person can take the role of facilitator – guiding the process – wearing the “blue hat”. The group then works together through each of the modes in turn, ensuring everyone is coming at the problem from the same direction (in parallel) at the same time. Hopefully, in this way, we might avoid an adversarial situation, where one person with a positive perspective on an idea might argue with someone with a negative view – often to little effect.

Individually, we can use this thinking process when seeking to integrate our our own judgements and actions in the context of complex conditions. We might consider “trying on the hats” to see which we habitually use. Then perhaps we could try on a hat we are less attracted to to gain a better perspective.

Here’s a short film explaining how the process can be used in practice:

Have you used this process in groups or individually?

What other thinking processes do you find useful in making judgements?