The thing about injustice is that it is not a “one size”
fits all. What is perceived as just for you may not be seen as just by me. And
then there is the added complexity of perceptions. Without knowing the full
range of facts I may perceive something as just or unjust.
This emphasizes the importance of ethics because in these
cases ethics is, sadly, often forgotten or ignored – which is why they are
unethical (obviously).
Spend a moment to think about this. As a hypothetical - I
may feel it is just that I am now a wealthy man because I worked hard all my
life and built up a large organization that employs many people. Others may
have views that differ. They may consider (or perceive) that I exploited my
workers by paying them the lowest possible wage so as to maximize my profits;
or that I used my economic “clout” to force suppliers to reduce their costs to
me, again to maximize my profits.
It matters not who the suppliers or what the products –
banks and financial products, miners and raw materials, manufacturers and semi-finished
products, machine tools or whatever. Forcing my suppliers to reduce the cost of
my “inputs” forces them to reduce the wages they pay their workers; it forces
them to consider alternatives such as lowering the quality of what they make.
To meet my demands and to maximize their profits (that, also, is what they are in
business for) they may consider activities which are criminal; acts such as
“sweat shop” conditions and/or employing child labour; acts such as prosthetic
companies filling breast implants with industrial gel; acts such as butchers
selling horse meat as beef; acts such as adding melamine to baby milk formula;
acts such as pharmaceutical companies reducing the number of, or “adjusting”,
test results for medical products, and so on and so on.
All this is done, often, without a thought for the purchaser
or end user. Either way it is a matter
of perception – mine or yours, and ethics.
Then of course there is the greatest cause of unethical
conduct and injustice ever known – the gender difference – male and female.
Women, the female of the species, seem to have been discriminated against
forever, certainly as far as we can confirm, at least since written records
began. Why just because women, generally, are less physically strong are they
discriminated against by men? Is it because women are the “gate keepers” of
sexual union? If any force is used
against a woman for sexual favours it is considered rape, which in most
societies is a crime. I don’t know why men have this perception that they are
superior to women – but it seems strange that this discrimination exists at
all, because every man was, of a certainty, born of a woman – and most sons
hold their mothers in high esteem. So why denigrate, why abuse or discriminate
against someone else’s mother or someone who will, in all probability, become a
mother?
Possibly the second greatest cause of unethical conduct is skin
colour. There is no known way of choosing your own skin colour - you are born
with it. No one is born superior to anyone else. It is, again, a matter of
perception. Just because someone may look “different” is no reason for
discrimination or abuse. To discriminate against someone, or to abuse them
because of the colour of their skin is not only unjust but also unethical.
The other major cause of injustice and unethical conduct is religion.
Why in God’s name (quite literally) this should be so is beyond my
comprehension. There is – as I believe – only one God. So to me it matter not
what He, She, It is called and I cannot think of any good reason why He, She, It
would care what name we humans use; we humans who live on a miniscule speck of
rock at the edge of a very ordinary galaxy that is one of billions of galaxies
in a incomprehensibly large universe which He, She, It presumable created (the
big bang?). I mean really, does it matter what name we use? Anyway how would
anyone know what He, She, It thinks or feels about the issue of a name – or anything
else for that matter?
All these are matters of perception – about gender, skin
colour and religion – just a person’s opinion. And yet millions have died;
millions have been abused; millions have been tortured all because of
perceptions which, inevitably lead to injustice.
But then has injustice of any kind - force, abuse, discrimination,
torture, cruelty - ever changed anyone’s opinion or perception? I doubt it!
