Social and business ethics considerations

Ethics, in its theoretical and practical aspects, is something that is constantly worrying my circumstances. Perhaps it is due to some feeling of guilt for that veil with which we surround ourselves so as not to see the needs of others, the daily aggression with which we resolve disagreements, the feeling of disagreement that many of our acts cause us. Perhaps that is also why I repeat to my children, and write to them on the screen saver of the computer: the neighbor also exists.

Introduction

In every act of nu

In life there is a choice between values, there is an action estimated by ethics, whether in personal or professional relationships, in the particular environment or in social projection. The situations that surround us, or that influence us, move us more and more. We are recovering our concern for our neighbor.

Last year, one of the important topics, at the Davos economic forum, was ethical behavior, in order to the consequences of globalization. In one of the commissions, he spoke about “Moral behavior: natural or religious?”. And in the speeches, over definitions of the economic type "such as profitability, efficiency or management", the need was affirmed to "preserve basic values", "preserve the cultural essence" or "defend against loss of identity".

This recovery commits us more to reflect on ethics to guide our behaviors. What's more, we cannot stop doing it, we can avoid ourselves. We are permanently making decisions, or, as Jean Paul Sartre would say, "… we are condemned to freedom." A relative freedom, it is true, but about which we are perfecting our conscience, awakening to the reality that surrounds us, and even to that which we did not believe would affect us, - globalization rethinks, or resizes, our attitudes -, and with that Awareness, we are establishing priorities in daily relationships.

The issue is complex as it touches on our moral responsibilities. We will try references to design behaviors that guide us towards constructive models.

I think it is inevitable to develop a small theoretical scheme, even at the risk of being tedious. We need to agree on the definitions of some concepts for a better understanding when we use them.

In proposing to be ethical, what do we mean? What do we mean by ethics? The answer is surely already in your minds, and there are a series of words that flow with semantic similarity to explain it: «be good», «contemplative», «respectful», etc., associating ethics with conduct, but, is it the same ? Also, is there only one kind of ethics? The answer is in the classification that, of course, given time and space, we will ignore; but we will distinguish some, in order to understand the need for such planning, since it is usual to think, a priori, that there is only one ethic.

But it is not enough to classify and define concepts. We have to know what we are dealing with when we want to be ethical. There must be something that makes it difficult for all of us to be. Achieving it is not a simple expression of desire. It did not seem to me incorporating an analysis that, grandiloquently, ended with a "we must be ethical", as this will surely end, without realizing that it is not easy to be, that you have to deal with it, and try to perceive what or who that fight is. To do this, I will introduce a new concept: ethicobiology, and I will propose reducing the classification of behaviors to two categories.

Moral and ethic

In everyday language, it is common for us to refer to, and hear, both morals and ethics refer, without a clear conceptual distinction, which forces us to analyze whether there is a synonym or identity between them.

The Royal Spanish Academy seems to lean towards similarity when it tells us that "ethics is the part of philosophy that deals with morals and the obligations of man". This, perhaps, because the word "moral", of Latin origin (mos, moris), is interpreted as "custom", And ethics, of Greek origin, (ethos) has a very similar meaning, although associating the "custom" with the character of each person.

It could also happen that the fusion of both concepts is a practical way to develop discourse or teaching. Socrates, or Plato through his mouth, ends by summarizing his discourse on the "essence of good", formulating the slogan "Be wise and you will be good." His philosophical conclusion on moral causality, without worrying about distinguishing ethics, he expresses it with a phrase that, surely, impacted his disciples.

But, most of the writers, especially contemporary ones, agree to depart from the etymological background to give them different meanings.

They understand morality as the sum of customs and norms imposed socially and that we accept, and on the basis of which we act daily and thoughtlessly. Notwithstanding this thoughtlessness, the acceptance of a particular moral theory - even knowing the association that is usually made between it and religious precepts - would be the basis of moral law. Instead, they define ethics as philosophical introspection, reflection, which studies these behaviors, trying to establish identities with the causes. Consequently, they are saying that there is thoughtless behavior first, and then analysis of that behavior; Morals first, and then ethics.

I believe that the distinction between ethics and morals is necessary, but not only to differentiate between acts and reflection on them, but to anticipate reflection on the act.

Morality is in the field of empirical moral science, which also encompasses sociology, ethnology, anthropology, and psychology. Ethics is in that of philosophy; Reflects taking into account some aspects of cultural anthropology, since acts, in themselves, are not moral, they depend on circumstances, on historical moments, where the concepts of "good" and "bad" vary from one stage to another, from one era to another, as we will expand when referring to relativistic ethics.

The observation of human behaviors becomes a classification from which we will summarize some cases.

Selfish ethics

It is the one that tries to understand the behavior of people who act for their own benefit and interest.

This attitude includes not only the profiles clearly indicated by the definition, but also those that, consciously or unconsciously, are, or seem, "good", in the sense of kind, where simulation becomes a characteristic of being. This form of selfishness is a necessary condition, in some cases, to survive and fulfill the functions of the species.

Other cases are those that come from the famous phrase "do not do to your neighbor what you do not want them to do to you", and that makes reciprocity based on selfishness.

These behaviors are usually shown by their selective attitude: you are "good" with whom you agree. In short, the neighbor is an instrument that they venerate, flatter, treat as a couple, or a slave, depending on the usefulness it reports.

Relativistic ethics

The concepts, or the symbolic relations that a word or an act arouses in our mind, depends on our experience and, or, on what we find accepted from others. "Correct" or "incorrect", "good" or "bad" do not have absolute meanings, but rather variable and relative meanings, depending on the person, the circumstances and their social situation.

This relativity was already considered by Aristotle, who, criticizing Plato's concept, interpreted that "the good is multiple and multifaceted and will therefore have to be understood in an analogous way; It is something peculiar in each case, not a generic common concept… ». Protagoras, the first of the sophists, as regards time, launches, in Hischberger's opinion, "the grave affirmation that there are no universally valid and objective truths."

Of course, it is also contemplated by modern sociology and anthropology. "What is functional or convenient for some can be very burdensome or harmful for others, so there are found and mutually hostile behaviors that all have good reasons to exist at the same time." Different cultures have different beliefs and moral behaviors that, conflicting with each other, are perfectly justified in each of the societies they inhabit.

A modern skeptic would tell us that moral utterances are certainly not affirmative statements, but emotional expressions in the face of an act.

But even relativity is relative. Some anthropologists have pointed out that there are moral principles common to all societies, or almost all, and that they call "universal ethical" values, such as prohibitions against murder, incest and, let me put it in bold, unfair distribution, among others..

We could accept, then, that for ethical relativism, what is "good" is in order to what the individual or society understands as such, which will vary with time and place and, therefore, there is no objective analysis that can determine a concept of "good" for all people and societies.

Ethicsbiology

"… if a symposium of philosophers specialized in ethics meets to discuss the dangers of genetic engineering, we see these philosophers make vague statements based on texts by Aristotle or Spinoza, when what these philosophers should have studied, which they talk about ethics and go to a genetics symposium, it's biochemistry. ”

Luis Racionero

Just as a term has been composed to explain human behavior from biological characteristics, as sociobiology is defined, we could speak of "ethicobiology" to explain certain customs or moral attitudes of man, taking into account his genetic structures. Furthermore, as a non-etymological curiosity, if we separate the word genetics into "gene-ethics," it could lead us to create an additional meaning: gene ethics.

Ethicobiology would be distinguished from bioethics, because it "studies the ethical problems posed, both in the individual and in society in general, due to the progress achieved in biology, medicine and other sciences." That is to say, it is not their object, - that of bioethics -, to reflect on human behavior, but to study the ethical approaches derived from new possibilities by new discoveries such as, for example, cloning.

In contrast, ethicobiology, without falling into a simple anthropological conception, where it would lose its speculative character, would constitute the part of ethics that tries to explain man's attitudes, starting from his biological structure.

This requires some knowledge about the human genome. Fortunately, there is a great scientific dissemination on the subject that allows us to know, at least, that we are talking about the set of all chromosomes, or more journalistically, about the genetic map of man. Each of the cells of a living being keeps the instructions to make it, and those instructions are the "genome"; which leads us to educate ourselves, also, about cellular behavior, in order to spread humankind

Looking for relationships with this method, let us remember that the plan of the species is to privilege its own survival, in order to be able to protect that of its descendants. Selfish ethics, which we have already defined, could find causes in what «Richard Dawkins has updated and popularized… his famous theory of the selfish gene. Organisms would be mere vehicles that genes build to navigate through time. "; Are we not a system for them to reproduce, add extragenetic and extra-somatic information, and continue in other genes? -, and from there, and with it assured, one could think in terms increasingly removed from the circumstances: the coexistence of the species.

This determinism would be related, in a special way, to the behavior of man trying to fulfill his basic needs and primary desires, common to human society regardless of their level, geographic location, or time.

Ethicobiology could also add explanations to the inequality of moral attitudes, facing the same circumstances.

In our biological evolution, we have accumulated three overlapping brains, the reptilian, the mammalian, and the human. The first is usually called the reptilian complex or the R complex; to the second, which surrounds it, the limbic system; and the rest of the brain is occupied by the neocortex, "without a doubt the most modern evolutionary incorporation", according to Paul Mac Lean, director of the laboratory of cerebral evolution and behavior of the National Institute of Public Health in the USA. This scientist "has shown that the R complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual acts and the establishment of social hierarchies." The man is going through the stage of imposing the neocortex on the limbic and the R. complex, even though there are still cases of struggle of the second named over the third.This would cause different people to have different reactions to the same events according to the degree of their own evolution, which would be measured by their resistance to "yielding to impulses emanating from the reptilian brain". This, of course, would not be a single explanation, but additional to the one that could originate in differentiated attitudes in order to experience, for example.

The "ethicobiology" can find new explanations for some behaviors and customs, which would allow re-treating everything analyzed.

We could be concerned, since the life cycle seems to end with reproduction, that the acceptance and generalization of this approach, turned into extremely skeptical or chaotic behaviors.

It is difficult to accept, even on a scientific basis, that the body is a vehicle that is exhausted with death, that the driver also has a limited life, and continuity, or immortality, is embodied in our children, but not exactly as our own genotype, which is unique, but as the elaboration of a new one, which will also be unique, in combination with that of the other parent.

Science is explaining our biological past to us, but it is still far from telling us anything about the future, unless we find transient immortality in cloning. For now, that future is speculative in a philosophical order: whether we elaborate a series of principles on the ends of beings and things with a rationalist attitude, or with a religious heteronomy.

So, if we become aware that man is a system for one gene to produce another gene, without knowing, yet, why would skeptical or chaotic attitudes arise, I ask again, that would make religious systems necessary, as a brake on these attitudes and their consequences ?.

I believe that the system entails an innate, genetic respect for the evolution of the species that, within an ecological balance, unleashes mechanisms of ordered coexistence, necessary for evolution, for the additional extrasomatic information that it needs. If a catastrophe, natural or fingered, led us to return to live in the caves, even with our current knowledge and experiences, but without books, electricity, communication systems, food distribution, economic and social relations, the setback would be millennial; we would have to start again to discover, invent, and accumulate knowledge, record it and spread it to us, while we fought for subsistence.

Coexistence is a reciprocal process, which is also expressed in intuitive areas when we hear the poet say, "never ask who the bell tolls for, they are tolling for you."

Man, as an individual, tries to overcome the conditioning that he has as a member of the species, and struggles for its evolution. Neuroanatomy - anatomy of the nervous system - confirms this fact, and refers as proof to "political history and introspection itself", in Sagan's opinion.

Pragmatic and transcendent ethics

We have made a brief introduction to two types of ethics, and have included a new one. For a more complete classification, we would have to compile what has been written about humanistic ethics, authoritarian ethics, legal ethics, professional ethics, and many others; critically analyze the ideas from Aristotle, passing through Kant, who they say is the first who conceived it scientifically; Following Schiller, who they say freed morality from moralism, and reaching our contemporaries, of whom I certainly do not know a minimum of their expressions. But all, the ones described and the omitted ones, could be included in two: the pragmatic ethics and the transcendent ethics.

The first tries to understand and establish laws about man's behavior, taking into account genetic, anthropological, psychological, legal, conscious or unconscious motivations. That is, we group in this category all those who catalog our attitudes in order of their circumstances.

Transcendent ethics values behaviors reflecting on the positive qualities, the fundamental principles, and the stages to be reached.

They are not different ethics, but different approaches. One scientific, the other philosophical. One tries to find the causes and establish permanent relationships, and the other meditates on the theoretical framework and, based on it, makes evaluations.

In the analyzes we ride on the two approaches, that is, we describe to qualify, to make value judgments, otherwise we are in the data collection, in the statistical function.

Ethics and society

After this brief theoretical and impersonal introduction, which I had pointed out as necessary, I think we can continue, but already placing ourselves at the center of the analysis. The question is, what character will we place ourselves in?:… Responsible for our family ?,… employees,… business administrators ?,… professionals ?,… owners ?. Furthermore, could we make this distinction? Are we just one person - in the external sense that Jung gave him - or a group of them that make up our personality? And if so, where do we place ethics and our particular insertion in the social fabric?

We have interference as members of society, in general, and within it as members of our particular environment; but we are also part of other groups: for our hobbies they can be artistic, sports, philanthropic, etc.; by our ideas we can form some political group; for our religious beliefs, some religious; without a doubt we belong to a family group in ascending or descending order; and so we could continue listing. But, in each of these areas, there are their own interests, behaviors specific to those interests and, consequently, different ethical references.

In all of them we are, or should be, a person, the same person.

If we agree, our references must be common when locating our performance in society in general, in the particular that we have to live, in our relationship with the company, capital, standards, and our intrinsic responsibilities. Let us conclude by sliding down this almost deductive lifeline, supported by the above.

- the references

If we agree that all the ethics that we can distinguish, concur in two: pragmatic and transcendent, we build a bridge so that moral behaviors are framed in the second.

The social framework is the framework of ethics. The assessment of our behavior is measured in relation to the impacts on others. Ethics does not exist without social content, without the existence of "the other", and this implies the need for coexistence.

There are conditioning structures of our will: natural, social, and legal.

Among the natural ones we find the behaviors characteristic of the primary level of the species, based on the fulfillment of the cycle "born-grow-reproduce-die", and which are typically offensive. In fact, we call the individual who behaves in an aggressive manner "primitive." Once this state has been overcome, due to genetic and extrasomatic evolution, we find behaviors derived from the "emotional" state, which, in addition to being aggressive, involve a series of more complex and evolved attitudes, but still linked to some degree of unconsciousness. The third "state", more intellectual and conscious of behavior, is the one we are currently developing in a struggle to impose it on the previous ones.

Among the social structures we find the very poor states, - consciously classified as structure -, which favor attitudes based on primitive instincts, without denying that they are not a sufficient condition, and recalling the selfish tendency that moves us, concealing primary attitudes as positive, for what I do to my neighbor in some way I do it, or it will affect me.

In terms of the legal structure, the civil ethics of coexistence is expressed as the set of minimum acts that, in the face of certain circumstances, the individual needs to carry out, and which are usually established in legal norms. Ethics is translated into the philosophy of law. Of course, the regulations that force certain attitudes and behaviors do not necessarily have, as a referent, the ethics of society, the collective ethics; the norms respond to the development needs of the majority within a democratic society, or to those of power groups within it.

The different pre-eminence of each one of the conditioning structures mentioned above explains, in part, the tendency towards different behaviors in each one of us, and even, the personal contradiction in daily behaviors.

On the other hand, precisely because they are conditioning factors, they do not make ethics as a compiler or a benchmark of freely decided behavior.

The genetic structure induces us to basic behaviors, but it is not enough to order the accumulated superstructures. You need our help. We have achieved the freedom to change, to fight against primitive structures, and evolution requires us to do so. The lack of adequate behavior that pontificates pragmatic relations with the transcendent, can make the human species disappear, or provoke its total or partial involution: ending in a concentration of economic and intellectual power that cuts off most of the links with the extrasomatic information, outlining a slave society of the interests of that power.

We can recognize the potential of man in his concern for harmonious coexistence, but it is very important to be vigilant to avoid primitive and emotional outbursts that result in aggressive or depressive behaviors, which tend to overwhelm us, especially when we act together with other men.

Socially, we can agree that it is very difficult to reflect in a state of impoverishment. Transcendent ethics can only be created, sustained, with basic needs met. In line with this objective, it seems important to change objectification for identity, as a way of changing the social framework in which we live. Poor states favor attitudes based on primitive instincts. The law is not enough, or institutions that monitor and penalize non-compliance, such as the police and judges, would not be needed. Behaviors derived from fear do not create socially ethical environments.

Any attitude that leads to perfecting our degree of coexistence is valid. Any religious belief, or scientific speculation underlying it, must be welcomed. The levels are different, the paths are various. It is as valid to fight for a harmonious relationship believing in the evolution of the species - our existence is the immortality of our ancestors - as it is to believe in the moral retribution of a superior being. Any impulse that motivates moral acts is acceptable, although we should be concerned with the forms they take and the implicit selfishness.

Behaviors must be derived from reflection on coexistence, and from the causes that make respect for others necessary. It is true that there is a different degree of evolution in each one, which leads us to different conclusions in our reflections, but we have a history, a knowledge, and a common memory, which can form those bases, supported by the "third state" that We defined in ethicsbiology as intellectual and conscious, or supported by faith systems that entrust us with an immortality nested in religious principles.

We have evolved enough to realize the freedom we have to build and choose some alternative roads. What we can do to alter the conformation and determinism that have been given to us has already begun to be relevant.

- the society

From the point of view of the organized human group, it contains groups, and these individuals, without the group being the sum of the individuals that compose it, nor are societies the sum of groups. Each of the categories transcends simple aggregation, to have its own identity, and to configure internal social relationships and relationships with the other categories, whether they understand them or are understood. And, consequently, in what concerns us, we have, or can have, different ethics that create conflictive situations between our interests as individuals of the same group, and with those of another; at the same time, surely, our association may have behaviors, and referents thereof, as opposed to those of other groups, and to those of the society they make up.

Let us assume the existence of coexistent and conflicting moral behaviors, whose regulation is the concern of the different social hierarchies, and whose success depends on different factors, depending on the representative who opines.

For some, the collective conscience, if it can be classified as a hierarchy, is the brake on individual attitudes that harm society as a whole.

For others, it is the ethical culture, detached from philosophical or religious dogmas, strengthening moral convictions.

There are those who affirm that only an ethics based on faith, on a god, can be imposed, since it has more sustenance than that founded on man, even accepting that we can be ethical by the principle of sufficient reason.

Legally, deciding which are the moral norms that should prevail between the conflicting interests, is a political question. The legislator translates this decision into laws, and forms a legal system that supports the institutions responsible for imposing it. This is the task of the state.

The problem is complicated by globalization, containing, adding, and amplifying social conflicts. The fragmentation of knowledge, hyperspecialization, makes us lose sight of the results. We study a career, within it we specialize in something and, even so, the quantity and speed of information forces us to dedicate ourselves to a branch of that specialization. We are part of an assembly line, without being very clear about what we end up helping to produce, at the end of the line.

Globalization urges us to raise the need for a global ethic. Efforts are being made. In September 1993, the Assembly of the Parliament of the World's Religions took place in Chicago, which produced a "Declaration of Global Ethics". The effort is exemplary if the impossibility of adopting unique world religious or philosophical principles that serve as a framework is not ignored. It cannot be claimed that all are upasakanas, Catholics, or Kantians.

We need to find a common climate of coexistence independently of any religious or philosophical principle, that allows the establishment of a common moral denominator, or, if you prefer, let's observe what are the common moral attitudes and build that ethical framework. After all, we sailed together on this little planet Earth.

The subject is not easy. When you want to generalize a norm, you have to fight on at least two fronts: your own convictions - for the benefit of the majority - and external pressures. But, there is a common global factor, in addition to all the anthropological ones, that could help in the attempt, and that is to be living together in a capitalist society.

- capital

Capitalism does not escape the common denominator of all economic doctrines: the desire to achieve the well-being of the population. The controversies begin when the means to achieve it have to be decided, from which this system that we have to travel does not escape. Therefore, so that capital does not lose sight of the aforementioned objective, it is necessary to worry about the ethical references that guide economic measures.

The issue does not go through the definitions about capital, - in addition to the fact that our objective is to reflect on ethics and not on economics - but where we place it on our scale of values. Duby reminds us that in 15th century Europe the marginalization of the poor began, and "wealth became synonymous with virtue", and from there, perhaps, arises the admiration for the economically successful, valuing the results in relation directly proportional to the monetary gain obtained. So, it is important to build a state of alert so as not to disrupt the ends with the means, not to forget that profit, the accumulation of capital, is the vehicle to achieve the well-being of man, in general, not in particular of its owner, it must, of course, have its revenue

Let us reconcile the end of capital with that of ethics. This relationship cannot be thought of in ideal terms, but in pragmatic terms, assuming living in a world of everyday circumstances, but, conceiving pragmatism in philosophical terms, which “bases the criterion of the truth of knowledge on utility, purpose and action ”, and not in theories that consider“ utility as a criterion of truth ”.

We know very well that capitalism has outlined two subjects, or objects, with peculiar, abstract and iconographic characteristics: the "homo oeconomicus" and the "cash balance of today". The first is the image of an absolutely rational man, acting for the benefit of his economic interests, and this should translate into the benefit of the rest of the population; the second is the priority to take economic measures regardless of their impact on humanity, even at the cost of any attempt at socio-economic plans for the future. Both have become obligatory references for those who decide how to achieve the well-being of man, even at the expense of the absence of fundamental values in their conception. It is urgent to start iconizing a "homo oeticus", inventing a Latin voice to contrast it with the previous one,- "homo oeconomicus" -, and it occurs to me that the means for this is the entity on which capitalism bases its course of action: the company.

- the company

I believe that no one doubts, nor criticizes, that the purpose of capital is to make a profit. But, along with this end, two concepts are installed: that success is measured by results, and that business decisions must be oriented towards achieving greater efficiency in operations, or productivity. When these components interact with each other, without compromising any other value, the ethical vacuum occurs. It is almost understandable, not acceptable, to act in this way, when the accumulation of profits is a way to obtain spaces of power, which feed back and "justify" the not very loyal practices of production, and act in a context where they operate. generalized mechanisms of impunity, in which the strongest, not necessarily the most correct, expire. A Gallup survey, carried out in September 1996, and which I believe is in force,established that "58% of Argentines thought that being an honest person did not serve, in the country, to achieve success."

The responsibility to install, or maintain, the ethical values in companies, lies with the management levels that are at the top of the pyramid of the organizational structure. The attitudes that they have spill over the rest of the people that comprise it; they are imitated, they create climates of security, or insecurity and, in short, they mark the control environment that has a lot to do with the life of the company. We can have an ally in capital itself when, affected by the ethical vacuum, it concludes that it needs ethical behavior in order to protect itself from those who attack it, by contagion, when it acts dehumanizing.

Let's focus on people: companies have the goals that their majority partners want. The capital and the company do not have qualifying adjectives. They are neither good nor bad. Capital is not inhumane, the capitalist may be; The "company" that lacks ethics is not lacking in itself, but because of the behavior of its managers.

The professional who works in companies can lead the installation of moral attitudes within them. Surely many forms will occur to them. One of them is to consider, in personnel evaluations, variables that measure their ethical values and, concurrently, achieve an ethical corridor between companies and their shareholders.

What is our claim, in general? What is our scale of values? Or, as we have already asked ourselves, do we have different moral behaviors depending on the environment in which we operate? It is probable that our performance is closely linked to our ethical responsibility as members of the family nucleus.

- the family

The relationship between our behavior as members of the family and as economic supporters of it, is that the second function is a necessary condition for the first. If we are responsible for the future of the family from an ethical-biological or emotional conception, work is a necessity for that purpose, unless, fortunately, we were rich. In other words, if our priority is the family, we could justify, depending on the circumstances, not being ethical in other areas, because we must be ethical in this area.

Of course this is not an analysis of pathological cases. It is not simply a matter of justifying all inhuman or criminal acts. But, this relationship between the survival of the family and the need to work is contemplated, less and less, in the statistical analysis between the increase in crime and the drop in income in certain sectors, without forgetting that immoral attitudes to achieve pecuniary income, they are not exclusive to the people with the least resources, otherwise we would not have worried about the ethics of capital.

The desire for power, which we have already pointed out, joins, concurrently or in parallel, with another phenomenon: objectification, where we convert other people, or we are converted, into objects. What is the limit of self-need that justifies certain behaviors? What is the ethical limit, in the possession of things?

Act dehumanizing in one area, because I must be ethical in another; justifying the lack of ethics, as capitalists, simple workers, or professionals, - managing companies, or acting independently -, because we have the family as a priority, is a reason that we must resist. If we do not, we would also justify the postponement of the family, for their own benefit, because "if I do not exist", or "I am not well", "I cannot protect them". It is like following, in life, the advice of the stewardess on airplanes: one must put on the oxygen mask first to be able to put it on the children.

We need to be very careful, and if possible, choose to reject present dehumanization behaviors based on future well-being.