7/23/2019 Ethics of One Off Decisions
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This material is part of the Giving Voiceto Valuescurriculum
collection (www.Giv ingVoiceToValues. org).
The Aspen Inst itute was founding partner, along with the Yale
School of Management, and incubator f or Giving Voice to Values
(GVV).
Now Funded by Babson College. Do not alter or distribute without
permission. Mary C. Gentile, 2010
1
One-Off Decisions
FromHow To Be Good, by Nick Hornby, Riverhead Books, NY, 2001,
pp. 1,2.
I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I dont want
to be married to him anymore. Davidisnt even in the car park with
me. Hes at home, looking after the kids, and I have only called him
to
remind him that he should write a note for Mollys class teacher.
The other bit just sort ofslips out.This is a mistake, obviously.
Even though I am, apparently, and to my immense surprise, the kind
of
person who tells her husband that she doesnt want to be married
to him anymore, I really didnt thinkthat I was the kind of person
to say so in a car park, on a mobile phone. That particular se
lf-assessmentwill now have to be revised, clearly. I can describe
myself as the kind of person who doesnt forget
names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of
times and forgotten them onlyonce or twice. But for the majority of
people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at
all.
If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car
park, then you cannot really claim thatit is unrepresentative, in
the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldnt really claim that
shootingpresidents wasnt like him at all. Sometimes we have to be
judged by our one-offs.
Discussion Questions
Do you agree that sometimes we have to be judged by our one
-offs? If so, when? Does itdepend on how high the stakes are? How
frequently the decision comes along? Both?
Something else?
Does this observation strengthen your resolve to live
consistently with your values and sense of
who you are/want to be? Does it give you a script or story to
use when persuading others to
stand with you?
Or does this observation discourage you, suggesting that the
ship has already sailed when it
comes to your reputation for living by your values, because of
past choices you may now
regret? If so, how can you deal with that? Does remembering the
times when you or others
have changed your minds and behaviors help?
Last Revised: 02/28/201
