This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the difficulty of balancing effectiveness with honesty in ethical dilemmas.
Stephen Schneider's quote reflects on the complexities individuals face when confronted with ethical decisions that require a compromise between being effective and maintaining honesty. He emphasizes that there isn't a universal formula to resolve these dilemmas, and it ultimately falls upon each person to determine the right balance that allows them to be both effective in their actions and honest in their intentions.
In practice
In a business meeting when discussing the importance of ethical leadership.
The dramatic importance of climate changes to the world’s future has been dangerously underestimated by many, often because we have been lulled by modern technology into thinking we have conquered nature. This well-written book points out in clear language that the climatic threat could be as awesome as any we might face, and that massive world-wide actions to hedge against that threat deserve immediate consideration.
We are 25 years too late. If the object is to avoid dangerous change, we've already had it. The object now is to avoid really dangerous change.
Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your authentic self.
Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders.
You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
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