Mental Frameworks for Company Policies

So you need to come up with rules for the workplace. Or maybe you’re updating your existing policies and you’re trying to make those final decisions about the perfect wording. Or maybe you’re trying to nail down your list of company values or virtues.

A background in ethics, morality, and the philosophies that aim to guide how we as humans should behave can give you a baseline to work from (in addition to, you know, what your laws say). It can also provide frameworks you can use to make decisions. Don’t know which way to go with the wording of a policy? Stress test it against this background and the right answer becomes evident.

But who has the time for a “background in ethics, morality, and the philosophies that aim to guide how we as humans should behave”? Not you! Well, you’re in luck. I recently read How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur and I’ve turned what I learned into a cheat sheet, just for you.

Summaries of the Big 3 Historical Philosophies on Ethics

1) Aristotle’s Virtues. Try and find the “right amount” of the virtues that make you a good human. Too much bravery is reckless; not enough and you’re a complete pushover. There’s a right amount in there somewhere that you should strive to get to, mostly through trial and error. It’s a lifelong process. The striving part is what’s important, as you’ll never achieve a “perfect” balance.

Ideally, any group or society would all agree on the virtues everyone should live by, and then each person works towards finding a happy medium for themselves. In theory, this helps everyone make decisions about which actions to take when there are options. Does it though? It’s pretty hard to weigh every value/virtue against each other before you make a decision. This is probably more helpful for post-mortems. See how your actions stacked up against your values/virtues, make an adjustment, and try again.

2) Utilitarianism (a branch of Consequentialism). Try to add up all the happiness/good and all the sadness/bad that comes from a decision/policy/rule, then choose the option that maximizes the total happiness/good. Sounds nice in theory and could be helpful for some decisions, but overall it’s pretty naive and flimsy. It implies that there is some X amount of delicious pizza that N people can enjoy where it is worth somebody’s life. That doesn’t seem right… buuuut this happens all the time. How many construction worker deaths & injuries are acceptable so that we can all enjoy the olympics, or whatever thing a new factory is going to produce? Let’s all just be thankful we aren’t actuaries who need to actually quantify these things.

3) Deontology. Immanuel Kant says, “Act according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, if you’re unsure how to act, pick an option and ask if you’d be ok with everyone acting that way all the time. It’s a very German and rigid system. Is it ok for everyone to lie all the time? No? Then you must never lie, no exceptions. The inflexibility of the system and rational thought required to apply it makes this challenging to use for adults. However, it’s simplicity as an easy-to-remember, approachable maxim (like the golden rule) means a child could likely understand and use it to make more ethical decisions.

There’s a second part to deontology: always treat others as an end, not as means to an end. It’s unethical to use others as tools to get what you want. Kant focused his writings on humans, but I’d like to think his ideas could apply to other creatures as well. The difficulty here is determining the ratio of the worth of a creature’s life vs a human’s (if it’s not 1:1).

Overall, deontology seems like a fairly good way to come up with policies. Don’t treat people as simply means to an end, and only make policies that should apply universally. But I think we can do one better…

And Now, Some More Modern Ideas

1) Contractualism. Act in a way where, if your actions were to be proposed as a rule for society, other people would not reasonably reject your actions/rule. Kind of like deontology, but different in that instead of it being an introspective, personal decision on if you think it’d be ok if your action were to become a universal law, you’re imagining if other people would be ok with it. Kind of like a platinum rule vs golden rule thing.

The big hole for every day decisions is that it requires everyone to be reasonable. This can be challenging in real life as people are unreasonable all the time.

However, I think Contractualism is a great framework for company policies, which are typically written in a calm, reasonable fashion, with several people acting reasonably on behalf of a mostly reasonable workforce. Isn’t an employee handbook kind of like a contract each employee agrees to with each other for how to behave at work? Seems like a great fit.

2) Ubuntu. Extreme contractualism. It’s not that we owe things to other people, it’s that we exist through them. Their health is our health, their happiness is our happiness, their interests are our interests, when they are hurt or diminished, we are hurt or diminished. Practitioners of ubuntu see our existence as conditional on others’ existence.

3a) Existentialism part un. There is no natural meaning to anyone’s life or existence, so you are responsible for what/who you are. You are the choices that you make. HOWEVER, when you make your choices, remember that you’re not just making them for yourself, you’re making them for all people. Every one of us is or can be a role model for others (even if just for a moment), so we should make choices that model morality for everyone. The contradiction between “there’s no meaning and we can all make our own choices” and “we should model behavior for all humanity” is anguishing. That is a feature, not a bug. Life is anguish. Welcome to existentialism!

Sidenote: I think Gandalf was an existentialist: “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

In other words: Life is anguish. Accept it and make the best choices you can.

3b) Existentialism part deux. A summary of Albert Camus’ ideas by our book’s author: “Humans desire meaning from the universe, but the universe is cold and indifferent and denies us that meaning; in fact, nothing ‘means’ anything, really, or at least nothing is more ‘meaningful’ than anything else. So we’re just little specks of nothingness on a big dumb rock floating in space, desperately searching for something we’ll never find, and thus, the human condition is fundamentally absurd.” You’ve now got 3 options:

1. Kill yourself
2. Embrace some sort of structure (religion, family, work, etc.) and find meaning in it
3. Acknowledge the fundamental absurdity of the human condition, and just kind of exist within it

Well isn’t that super uplifting?! Most people choose option 2, but Camus suggests option 3. When you think about it, it’s kind of freeing. If nothing means anything, why stress? Accept the absurdity of being human, make the best choices you can, be ok with making mistakes, and try to find as many moments of happiness as you can along the way.

Maybe a good philosophy for life, but probably a bad one for making your company policies.

Reminder: Luck and Circumstance

The existentialists “you are your choices” ignores the fact that there were many, many choices made by many, many people that resulted in you being in the situation you are in, good or bad. Decisions made based on any ethical framework or philosophy are not made in a vacuum. The choices available to us are bounded by the time, place, circumstances, and systems that we find ourselves in, and we’d all be better off if we took a moment to understand that before we judge ourselves or others too harshly. Keep this in mind when thinking about how your rules, policies, and values apply to different populations of your workforce (and when you judge compliance with those rules/policies/values).

Keeping it Simple

If you’re still having trouble figuring out how to be an ethical/moral person (or how to influence others to be ethical/moral), start with the first 2 delphic maxims:

1. Know thyself.
2. Nothing in excess.

If your workforce is following these ideas, they’re already 90% of the way there.