Blog Post: Three Approaches to Making Good Decisions

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Patrick serves as pastor of a large, historic church that has a strong and positive legacy in the community.  It’s the kind of church where stained glass windows are named in honor of someone’s rich grandfather, but it’s also a vibrant church where the gospel is preached.  The church has grown too large for their current building and is in need of additional space.  And buildings require money.

Patrick knows several families in the church who could write very large checks to help fund the new building.  However, these families are only nominally committed to Christ and the church.  They are CEO church members (Christmas Easter Only) who – to be honest – don’t have a strong reputation in the community when it comes to Christ-likeness.  These families will likely make substantial gifts, but they’d do so less out of generosity and more out of pride and in order to boost their reputation among other community elites.

Pastor Patrick is faced with a decision.  Should he approach the families and ask them to support the ministry with large financial gifts even though doing so would somehow feel polluted given their lack of involvement in the church and their lack of Christ-like witness?

As coaches, our clients often face these sorts of decisions.  At heart, they want to do the right thing and make a good decision.  But what is “right?”  And how do we define “good” when it comes to decision-making?

These are ethical decisions:  times when right and wrong are not obvious.  After all, if Patrick asks for support from these families, it seems that he’s sanctioning the charade of their pride-filled and ego-driven approach to life.  But if he refuses to ask for their help, it means the church’s gospel witness will have fewer resources, poorer families will be required to contribute more, and/or the church’s Bible study groups will be capped because of lack of space.  What’s the right thing to do?

When supporting a client who’s facing this kind of decision, it’s helpful to know the basics of ethics.  Ethics is the branch of philosophy dealing with right and wrong conduct – basically how to live morally.  Within ethics there are three general approaches to establishing what is right: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.  Let’s unpack each of those for a bit more clarity.

Consequentialism says that right actions are those that produce the right results.  This approach is best summed up by the old adage “the ends justify the means.”  This approach shifts the burden of right/wrong from the action itself to the consequences of the action, so instead of trying to figure out “What’s the right thing to do?” we now ask, “What’s the right and best consequence?”  Once you know the best consequence, you can back your way into the action or decision that will more likely produce the best consequence.  There are several variants of consequentialism based on how to define good/best such as pragmatism and utilitarianism.

If Patrick follows the morality of consequentialism, he will have to weigh the pros and cons of various outcomes over against one another.  For example, he might determine that the harm caused by perpetuating the wealthy families’ pride and lukewarm faith are outweighed by the good provided to the community and the gospel cause.  In this case, asking for the money would be the morally right thing to do because the consequences justify the action.

Deontology says that morality is determined by duty or laws (“deon” is Greek for obligation or duty).  In this system, action is more important than consequences since you are always obligated to follow the law (or rules) for right behavior regardless of the consequences.  If the law says the speed limit is 55 miles per hour, then you don’t drive faster than that, even when you’re running late or when everybody else on the highway is swerving around you.  Of course, this system requires a clear set of rules and the ability to apply the rules in a wide range of circumstances.

If Patrick follows the morality of deontology, then he will try to find a rule or principle to shed light on his decision.  He might determine that there’s an inherent duplicity in asking halfhearted, quasi Christians to be at the center of the church’s building campaign – a duplicity that falls under the purview of biblical guidance about not lying.  So in order to avoid lying, he would forego asking the family for their support.

Virtue ethics says that the goal is not simply to take moral action but to be a moral actor.  In other words, a virtuous person (someone of good character) will do the right thing.  The most famous proponent of virtue ethics was Aristotle, who described certain virtues that every person should ascribe to.  The cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude serve as a guide for everyday life decisions.  Even if prudence is not yet deeply ingrained in your character, you can still allow the virtue to shed light on your decision by asking, “What would a prudent person do in this situation?”

If Patrick follows the morality of virtue ethics, then he needs to be clear what a good and virtuous person looks like.  What are the attributes, characteristic traits, or virtues of a good person?  Who are the moral exemplars he can look to for guidance?  He might ask himself what Jesus would do.  Reading in the New Testament how Jesus dined with tax collectors and welcomed other sinners into the community, Patrick might reinterpret his decision as an opportunity to invite these lukewarm families deeper into the life of Christian community.  Patrick might also look to the three primary Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love and determine that a person of faith, hope, and love would optimistically invite less-than-ideal church members into fuller participation in the life of the church.

This (very) brief ethics lesson provides coaches a framework for helping clients make moral decisions.  While none of these approaches is perfect, it helps to have a system (and to know what your system is) before you face a crisis requiring a system.  A system helps declutter the decision and burn away some of the fog.

As coaches, clarifying our own approach to right living allows us to better serve those we coach.  For example, I happen to favor a virtue ethics approach.  For this reason, during the intake session I invite my clients to describe their heroes and persons they admire.  This question helps them identify the virtues by which they hope to live.  They tend to identify people of honesty, courage, and faithfulness, which helps them recognize that these are the virtues to which they ascribe.  Later in the coaching relationship, we will have opportunity to bring up their list of virtues as they face challenging decisions.

What about you?  How do you support clients in making ethical decisions?  What’s your own approach to ethics and morality?

1 thought on “Three Approaches to Making Good Decisions”

  1. Hi Chad Hall! Another great blog from you. It’s wonderful to learn how having a basic understanding of ethics can be a tremendous approach to helping our clients find and establish what is right for their situations. Thank you again, for introducing us to consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. I can help but be grateful for all of the amazing coaching tools we have at our disposal. This is one of the main reasons why I so appreciate all of the experience and passion this team puts together for us here at Coach Approach Ministries.

    Thanks CAM!

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