Ethics & Standards
My list of ethics from which my standards proceed are:
beauty, equality, equity, evolution, honesty, insight, integrity, interdisciplinary perspective, justice, knowledge, parity, plurality, progress, progression, reciprocity, truth, trustworthiness, wisdom.
This list is not exhaustive. I regard these as non-negotiable standards for my own conduct, not rules I require others to follow.
Honesty means that I will not misrepresent, minimize, or deny my lived experience. What I actually believe, feel, or think has intrinsic value, and I will not pretend it does not exist. I may withhold, refrain, disengage, or avoid; honesty does not require me to disclose everything. But if I have no alternative to participating in discourse without conflict, I will state what I believe, feel, or think rather than falsify it.
Integrity is the degree to which a person is actively, demonstrably, and historically reliable in maintaining honesty openly and transparently. It is not established by appearance or plausible deniability; a person’s record matters. When trust is injured, the response matters too: integrity involves honoring that trust, acknowledging its injury, and taking actions that show an interest in repair.
I consider a person worthy of trust unless they have violated trust. A violation occurs when trust is made secondary to another outcome and potential harm is sufficient to breach it. Integrity requires eliminating that potential harm or rejecting progress until the potential is no longer present.
Reciprocity means mutual exchange. The exchange need not be identical, but before an arrangement begins, the parties must agree on how each values it and reconcile any differences in valuation. If that agreement cannot be reached, refusing or ending the arrangement is acceptable.
Plurality means that multiple perspectives or possibilities can exist. I seek reconciliation between disciplines rather than ranking one above another. If perspectives cannot be reconciled, they can remain side by side; the future may manage tensions that cannot be resolved now.
I favor changing formally equal rules when they leave people with unequal access or influence. A remedy must address both access and outcomes. At the same time, when people have equal access and freely choose different outcomes, those differences do not need correcting. Agency, autonomy, and authority over one’s lived experience take priority. A concentration of decision-making power is not, by itself, a problem for me; if harm is detected, it is.
Justice requires both repair and accountability. If they conflict, repair takes priority. Redress should repair harm, restore trust, and maintain equality and equity.
When evidence is incomplete, I reserve response. I want access to knowledge even when it may be distressing, particularly if it could be useful to others. I treat an untested insight as a possibility, not a basis for action. When consequences are uncertain, caution, experimentation, and consultation are all required; progress may continue once the situation is reconciled.
Beauty matters to me in its own right. Evolution, progression, and progress are also among my values. I value wisdom, knowledge, and insight, and I approach questions through an interdisciplinary perspective.
These commitments have affinities with several intellectual traditions, without making my outlook identical to any one of them. My emphasis on multiple irreducible values resembles moral value pluralism; my account of integrity as a sustained pattern of conduct has an affinity with virtue ethics; and my approach to redress resembles restorative justice in its emphasis on repairing harm while retaining accountability. My commitment to autonomy is central in its own terms, rather than an attempt to impose a universal code on others.
These are study lenses, not labels: engaging with a tradition may illuminate part of my outlook without implying that I belong to it or agree with all its claims. The strongest starting points: value pluralism, virtue ethics, restorative justice, autonomy, and epistemology attentive to lived experience. A few primary sources for readers who may wish to explore further.
| Tradition | Why it’s relevant | Primary Starter |
|---|---|---|
| Value pluralism | Helps explore commitment to many important values, the possibility that they can conflict, and view that some perspectives may remain side by side. This is a strong affinity, though preference for reconciliation is not identical to every pluralist position. | Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal.” The New York Review of Books |
| Virtue ethics | Examines integrity as a sustained pattern of conduct and wisdom as a capacity involved in judgment and action. Aristotle is a useful comparison, though his account of virtue is not the same as a list of absolute personal standards. | Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, especially Books II and VI. Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Restorative justice | Directly engages view that justice requires both repair and accountability, with repair taking priority when they conflict. | Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times. faithlife.com |
| Liberal theories of individual liberty | Offers a substantial tradition on personal agency and when others may limit it. Mill is relevant, but his harm principle is not identical to my standard: the Rio Declaration’s precautionary approach is closer to my emphasis on acting before potential harm occurs. | John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. Project Gutenberg |
| Feminist epistemology and standpoint theory | Investigates how social position and lived experience shape what people can know, and how supposedly neutral accounts can omit important perspectives. This may help readers understand my emphasis on lived experience without assuming my views are reducible to this tradition. | Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Johns Hopkins University |
| Pragmatism and democratic inquiry | Connects with my stated requirement for caution, experimentation, and consultation when consequences are uncertain, and with my interdisciplinary approach. | John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems. Project Gutenberg |
| The precautionary approach | Offers a comparison for my rule that potential harm can warrant stopping progress until the risk is removed. The Rio Declaration is narrower: it addresses threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage under scientific uncertainty, so it should not be treated as equivalent to my broader standard. | Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 15. United Nations |
Finally, for reciprocity specifically, Marcel Mauss’s The Gift is also worth engaging: it studies exchange as a social relationship, which can be a useful counterpoint to my emphasis on parties agreeing in advance how an exchange will be valued. Internet Archive