Thinking on Ethics and Affording your Morals
In this episode of thinking on thinking, we discussed morals, ethics, values
Divya: Hi, I'm Divya.
Kahran: Hi, I'm Kahran.
Divya: In this episode of thinking on thinking, we discussed morals, ethics, values, and, how we think about them in context of our personal lives and, in context of businesses. This was a very interesting episode because there is no hard lines here, and we have to discuss everything in almost moral relativism context. And while it's an uncomfortable space to be in, it's still an interesting conversation to have. We hope you really enjoy it.
Kahran: I think something that you and I have talked about since we were early days of joyous, right, Washington. How it's expensive to have morals, right? And to kind of be able to afford to have your ethics means that you have to be having margins that are high enough that you can afford to. Right. Whether it means, in your industry, paying people well, or, like, using sustainable products or whatever. It means, whatever your ethics and your morals kind of align either way, those often have a cost associated with them.
Divya: I also feel like it's sometimes presented as a dichotomy, because we haven't had lived in a world where people are forced to be ethical in some ways. How do you think about, what is the right thing to do? Like, as, like, what is your personal.
Kahran: Well, I think it comes a lot from, like, where you're starting from, right? And I think something, you know, we've talked about, many people talk about is, like, you know, are you starting from a mindset of abundance, or are you starting from a mindset of scarcity? And I think a lot of times in these places, it's a scarcity, right? So then it's like, oh, we can't afford everything, so how are we going to make a choice among what we can afford? Interesting. That's how you always end up when you're in a scarcity mindset. But I think if you're coming from an abundance mindset, then it becomes like, oh, this is the way I want to be. Or, these are the values that we have. And it's like, how many ways can I show these values?
Divya: You know, what is interesting? So I recently read this book, the righteous mind, which shares the moral foundations theory, and how, like, you know, left and right, the american left and american right, how they are divided across, like, these six different morals. And it was interesting. But now that you say, this idea of scarcity versus abundance, like, what people feel is abundant and scarce in a particular situation, can be different based on who is talking. So, for example, like, recently, especially because of the whole, AI art, I guess, conversation. And now it's also happening in the writing world where writers are fighting, against AI usage in writing rooms and all of that. Clearly, there is a lot of scarcity mindset in some spaces. like there are some people who are developers and who are very pro AI, and there are other people who are developers who are very anti AI writing code. And it's very interesting where, one, where does a particular person put the value of certain things? And two, where do they, like, how limited do they think the value is?
Kahran: M but don't you think that's a kind of reflection of the person a lot of times, I mean, and, you know, the circumstance that led to them.
Divya: But also the cultural context that they are living in? I don't think that, like, how we think. Yeah, not circumstance. Right. Like circumstance could be, ah, see, that would make like, you know, people who are living in the same household under like, mostly similar circumstances have the same political opinions or have the same moral values, but we know that, like, you know, that's often not the case. I think that, like, what social group you feel like you belong to and like, you know, we think that this kind of a thing is right. And, this is abundant and this is not like, basically what is worth being territorial about? And what is not worth being territorial about. You can't be non territorial about everything. You will think of some things as limited or you can contest that.
Kahran: Actually, I don't know. I mean, that's what I'm wondering. Right. Is that a guarantee?
Divya: Do you have a situation where, like, you know, you can imagine not being territorial about anything, not having like a scarcity? I guess, like block around anything?
Kahran: Well, I think if you think about it from a company perspective, which I think is in some ways the way I was thinking about it coming into this conversation, yeah, I think some companies are kind of built in a way that they are. Like, don't you feel like Disney is built in that way? No, same way.
Divya: Like, for example, I don't think Disney feels like creativity is infinite. That is why they, like, you know, struck down copyright laws. And as strictly as they did, I don't think Disney thinks that, like, you know, people's appetite for creative things is infinite, which is why they are so territorial about their audience and attention. I'm not going to say Disney is an amoral company or anything like that might be, who knows? but, like, the fact that most of their child actors don't have great things to say about it, working with them definitely means that there is something that is systemically problematic in the way that they are building their ips.
One of the ideas in product development is that, you know, secrets
Kahran: I guess you kind of run into this other thing, which is like, like one of the ideas in product development is that, you know, secrets. Like, you know something about this problem that no one else knows. And a lot of times when you're building successful solutions, particularly in the consumer space, it'll be because you've understood more about that problem, than other people do. Right. So I had one person I worked with years ago who was like, yes, you know, we need to have at least a certain number of secrets before we can go out and take this thing to Markethouse. I guess in some ways those two ideas run in contention, because if you're in a place of abundance, you're not going to be thinking about retaining secrets. That's a place you come from. When you're in a place of thinking that there's not enough and you can't share. If that's what you need to build successful solutions, well, then you can't be in a mindset of abundance when you're trying to build these things.
Divya: There is also another thing, right? Like, if you think about, game theory and, like, playing infinite or finite games, you can't play all games in your life in an infinite game manner. You pick and choose which relationships you're gonna play as infinite games and you leave the other ones in a finite game setup.
Kahran: Yeah.
Divya: Because, like, ultimately, there is a driver here which is time on earth is limited whether one acknowledges it or not. Time on Earth is limited whether you're a person, whether you're a company. Right. Like, all companies would die off at some point. I don't know how many hundred year old companies exist today. Definitely. Like, you know, less than 1% of whatever existed 100 years ago.
Kahran: Yeah, yeah. Ah, for sure. Interesting. What I was just thinking about was, like, if at the core of, right, that, you know, like you're saying, right, like, their attention is scarce, life is scarce. Right? Like, things will reach their finite, point. Like, there is going to be, a choice that has to be made in terms of what ethical choices, what ethics do you want to afford, basically. Right?
Divya: Yeah.
Kahran: and I guess I'd be curious about how you think about that. Right? Like, I think I was starting from the contention when we were, when we were thinking about this before the episode started that, you know, maybe the right answer is that you have to be pushed for more into an abundance mindset, right. And that, like, people who are running companies, the right solution for them is to be in a more abundance mindset thinking that, yes, you know, you can afford your morals and you can afford to show your values across different channels in different ways. I think as I was just thinking about it now and kind of listening to you and talking through it, you know, I'm not sure if that's true. Right. I think you actually, you do kind of have to be in a scarcity mindset when you are running companies at times because you are trying to think about how do you maximize with a limited amount of resources, and, you know, how do you kind of build those secrets that are going to help you guys be successful, whether that means, you know, stealing, stealing share from competition or outmaneuvering kind of, you know, new product waves. Right. It can mean all sorts of things. So I guess, yeah, I'm curious about how do you think about that, right? Like, when you can't afford everything, how do you choose what you can afford? or even do you set up the question that way?
Divya: So I honestly, before we started talking, I also did not think that the conclusion sort of that we would end up moving towards is that you have to make a hard choice at some point. You have to draw the line.
I wonder if there might be a cultural component to this. Um, I wonder though
so one of the thoughts that comes to my mind is I was recently talking to a friend of mine, who was starting his second venture. And I was like, what? What is like, you know, what are some lessons that you're taking from your previous venture to this one? And he said, and this is like, really stuck with me. He said that, I think we wasted a lot of time in not making decisions. We just kept trying things, like, out. And like, you know, we would say, oh, let's just try in both places and in three different directions. And we were just not decisive enough. And any decision would have been better than no decision. So I think that, like, as I think about us building this, I would first maybe think about survival in some ways, not in terms of, like, there is compromising your ethics, which is like giving up, doing the wrong thing. Then there is doing the neutral thing, and then there is doing the right thing. And I think I would try to. I would never do the wrong thing, but I would try to sustain ourselves before forcing myself to, quote unquote, do the right thing.
Kahran: That's interesting. I think that's a, cultural answer, right? Because, I mean, and I may be romanticizing, but my sense of, like, you know, I don't know, Japan before America, was or Japan pre 1945. I guess is like, it's a place where people would rather die than do the wrong thing. I imagine it would be pervasive to business culture as well. Do you think that's a romanticization?
Divya: Yeah, 100%. Just like people think that samurais were so loyal and like, they were basically not. And how people feel that ninjas were disloyal while they were the loyal ones. I wonder though that there might be a cultural component to this. about like the survival versus like, doing the right thing versus doing like, being okay with doing the wrong thing. I'm sure. Like, you know, it's one of those things where if your survival is at stake, even killing someone might not feel like the wrong thing. Right. Like, if you're in the wild and you're an animal, like killing something is not the wrong thing to do. but I don't know, I just feel like it's very. Again, I do not like moral greyness, but this is one of those problems that I faced. The more I have, like, read about morals and ethics and stuff like that. and I'm articulating this stuff, like, just right now as we are talking about this. But it's very easy to stand from the outside and say somebody did the wrong thing or somebody did the right thing. I mean, if you're endangered people, again, that is hundred percent a wrong thing. But defects by omission are not as problematic as defects by action, if that makes sense.
Kahran: I mean, that's, that's a blanket statement. That could be disproven.
Divya: Yeah, that can be disproven in the edges, but like, you know, just the sentiment of it. Of course, like, Elizabeth Holmes didn't do the right thing at all. Like, she did not. Like, you know, by, by error. That was not the thing. Like, that's not what she was trying to do. She was trying to lie and cheat her face by hurting millions of people. Like, that's very.
Kahran: Well, her claim is like, the technology wasn't that far away and they just needed a little bit more time is what she believed.
Divya: Yeah, but she's not a technical person and there was no proof. Like, there is nothing.
Kahran: Well, this is why the other man went to jail for a lot longer. Yeah.
Divya: Yeah. I don't know. How do you think about it?
Kahran: So I think when you're building things, which will last for an extended period, the ambiguity around them tends to get lost. I think it's an idea you were kind of referencing a few minutes ago. Right. But it's part of what makes people feel comfortable is when there's moral clarity. And I think so I think when you're thinking about building things, with a long. That you're imagining who will have a long tenure, it is kind of important to figure out what are the ideas, the kind of moral ideas that you're building around and how are you going to be careful about sustaining it, I guess. And I think, to me, one of the biggest dangers about sustaining come from the potential of just, like, hypocrisy, right? Like, one of the things that can really undermine is when people feel like, oh, you've. You're building. Because if you're building something without moral ambiguity, then that means the tolerance for deviation is so low, right. I think that's why if you think about things that have really long lasting periods and lasting. Right. Like religions and whatnot, right. Or kind of faith in styles of government, right. Like, there's clear cut sort of understanding of where the boundaries lie. And when people step outside of that, or when people are found to have kind of broken the faith, it's so shocking for people, right. It's so horrifying when, like, oh, you know, how could this person do this? How could this priest commit these actions? How could this politician embezzle in this way? Right? Like, it's, I don't know. I don't want to go too far into that part of it, because I was trying to answer your question directly. I think that when you're thinking about building companies, around this, I think figuring out what kind of ethics, are central to you and then figuring out what kind of things are less central to you, basically. So what things are compromisable and what things are not. And I think being clear about that, and I think one of the ways to actually really be clear about that is to figure out what are the stories. Right. What are the stories that tell, the behaviors that we want. I think something we talked about a long time ago on the podcast. but something I learned from one of my good friends who worked at Nordstrom was this, like, this tale that you learned when you were hired at Nordstrom, about how someone once tried to return a tire because the store. Right. I think we told the story, but I'll tell it briefly. But, someone once tried to return a tire to a place that used to have a tire and now had a Nordstrom store, and the Nordstrom took the tire. Right. And that kind of story tells the ethics that the company is willing to pay for.
Divya: Interesting values versus ethics.
Kahran: Oh, that's interesting. You're right. I really blurred those at some point.
Divya: I guess, because I'm sure that those are blurred. I don't think that you blurred them randomly.
I think it's important to figure out where your values, like, which values
as we have been having this conversation, that is another thing that I've been thinking about. So I listen to this podcast sometimes called rationally speaking, and they talk very crisply about so many different things. And, like, today, it's been a little bit of a struggle, just, like, figuring out different things and, like, you know, what we are trying to say and where do the boundaries lie? And I don't feel like I've been as clear as I generally tend to be. Like, I have not brought that degree of clarity. It's very easy to look at philosophers and think, oh, my God, you're just saying things that don't mean something. But clearly, like, engaging with these kind of ideas on a day in, day out basis must give you a much richer vocabulary and ability to deal with these kind of concepts. Because, I mean, you tell me if I'm wrong, but, like, I have felt like, oh, this is a difficult topic. We picked a very hard one.
Kahran: Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I was still kind of thinking on that specific difference, but, yeah, I think I would agree with you at a high level. I think specifically, though, I feel like when you say ethics, though, are you thinking, like, ethical behavior?
Divya: I think when the word ethics makes me think of doing the right thing or, ah, not doing the right thing.
Kahran: But I guess, to me, the right thing is defined by the group of people you are around. A lot of ways, it just depends on how big you draw that size. So then doing the right thing for your company is kind of doing the right thing by the values m in some ways.
Divya: But, like, think about it. If you are the CEO and you moderate the CEO of the opposing company, and you are doing right by a company and your shareholders, are you doing the right thing?
Kahran: Well, are you doing right by your values? Right.
Divya: And I'd say, like, let's say your company's value is that that, can the company hire someone because the company's value is that they want to get to the top of the industry?
Kahran: Well, I guess that's where I think. And, this is where maybe I'd come back to where I kind of started from a little bit. I think it's important to figure out where your values, like, which values are you willing to spend to afford. Right. But what value? Because I think that's what differentiates companies and actually gives them personality is that there's some values that they're willing to pay money for. There's some values that we're willing to say, oh, we'll leave money on the table, because this value is more important to us. It's like, I was at this investor meeting, yesterday, and one of the presenters was talking about how she will not invest in distressed companies, because she's like, I don't want to build that skillset. And we don't have that skill set to go and understand how to unpack and get the best value for distressed companies. We'd rather focus on the growth side, and we think there's more than enough room to focus on the growth side. But she's drawing a line where she's saying, I'm going to leave money on the table because this is a place where I want to focus in a different way. In some ways, I think it's a false dichotomy, and saying that you're leaving money when you afford your values, because a lot of times in your values, in that choice, you're actually going to open up more possibility for yourself.
Do you think that you would have different values personally versus professionally
Divya: Do you think that you would have different values, personally versus professionally, like, in your work versus in your, you know, life, would you have different values?
Kahran: I think so. I think, like, an example would be, like, when I go to my mother's house, I will be cleaner in the kitchen than I will be in my own house.
Divya: But that's just a behavior, right? Like, that's. Is that moral slash ethical thing?
Kahran: Well, it's something that she deeply values, right? She feels like, the cleanliness of her kitchen if a guest was to arrive, is a judgment upon her.
Divya: Okay. So she associates moral value.
Kahran: So in that arena, one associates moral value with it. So then you're considerate differently or maybe a less hypothetical, way of thinking about it. It's like, like if you go and worked for an accounting firm, and that accounting firm has more stringent, rules, around, I don't know, expenses or thinking about, like, what is an office expense? Than, like, maybe you would.
Divya: But I don't think that, like, that, at least for me, that does not fall into ethics per se.
Kahran: Okay.
Divya: More like, let's say, m if you are, you know, somebody who's extremely environmentally, like, I have one friend who is like this. they never order in. He always goes, somewhere on his electric bike to get, like, you know, to. And he. Even when they go for shopping, he will carry his own boxes, and, like, they will always fill stuff, including the five kg things. And like, you know, so much effort goes into it. Now, if, ah, he was working, he's working with a, battery maker, like a, ah, battery refurbisher. So like, you know, giving second life to batteries. His, I feel like his ethics on work side and personal side align here. Right. Like environmentally conscious in his personal life. Environmentally conscious in his Like working for a company that also cares about that. Would you say that that can be like, entirely different for you?
Kahran: I think it can be entirely different, but I think what can happen is like, like, I'm sure that not every person who works for that battery furniture is the same as your friend. Right. They're not gonna all be carrying their own takeout containers to restaurants when they want to take food home and. Right. And like, I'm sure your friend is even in that place is in the top 10%, maybe, right. Or maybe there's 20%. Right. But there still is going to be 80, 90% of people who will be ordering food takeout sometimes. And so what I'm saying is it's possible to work for a place that I think has maybe like, you're not unaligned, but it maybe is more strict than you would be. I don't know if it's possible to go the other direction. I think it can be really hard to go the other direction. And you start to eventually feel dissidents. Like, I have a friend, I think maybe she's technically a distant cousin, who is a food scientist and went to go work for, I think, kraft or one of the big food companies, once you finish school, I don't know. I talked to her after a few years, and she just wasn't in so much of a happy place. Right. I think it's just because it's hard. If you. If you feel like you care deeply about people and you care deeply about the environment, and you're going and working in a place where a lot of what you're doing is figuring out, you know, how do you tweak something to make it more irresistible to people? So they will consume more, so they will buy more of it. Right. And so then they will, you know, buy more plastic and do all these things. And I think that that can be really hard when it's like the company is a broader view of what sustainability is and what it means to do the right thing than you do. But if it's narrower, I think it's more reasonable or sustainable, I guess, is the right word.
Divya: basically, if your morals do not completely clash with your company's morals, you could find a middle ground and you can make some compromise, so to say.
Companies should set out a tighter moral area to play in, right
Kahran: But I think the interesting thing that has kind of occurred to me in this conversation, I think it might be the right thing for companies to be setting out a tighter moral area to play in. because then you'll be able to attract these people who have a broader, moral compass, I guess. Right. But are looking for something that's somewhat aligned. But if you feel too broad, can be a real turn off for people who are tighter than you are. Right. So if you have a really broad understanding of sustainability and what it means to be, I don't know, like committed to reducing, plastic in the stream. But you know, that manifests as saying that like 2% of your packaging is recyclable or something, or made from recyclable plastic. Well, even though that might be doing like something more sustainable than other people in the industry, you're still going to have trouble, attracting people whose moral purview is much more narrow. of course, though, even as I was saying it, I was realizing that if you are, if a person is having to make a choice though, and it's a choice between two bad options, they're going to choose the less bad option.
Divya: Or, ah, that might not even occur to them as a criteria, like a 2% recyclable plastic versus non recyclable. When you're using tons and tons of like packaging material, it makes a difference. But I don't think that human beings would be able to make a decision based on just that. and there are other factors as well. But it is interesting, like I can see how a narrower focus would be more helpful, for a company to the right kind of people.
Kahran: Yeah. And the way you said that also gave me an interesting thought that like, yeah, we human beings are not very good at noticing, right. So you have to give people multiple ways of understanding the same thing for them to understand. If you want them to think you're sustainable, give them many ways to think you're sustainable as you're thinking about morality. And particularly, at least for me, as I was thinking about morality and building organizations and building companies, it's like, where do you carve? How do you think about what are the right kind of things to stand up and say, these are our values, and then, which ones, first of all, which ones are the moral values and which ones will kind of like, you know, give you a sense of what is ethical behavior for us and then I think, as you do that, I think trying to think about how you build multiple examples of that into the ethos of your company. And I think, for me, I think always thinking about the stories and, like, how do you. What are the stories that are going to tell? Those tell the morals, right? What are the stories they're going to tell everyone? What's the most important thing to do here?
Divya: It's very interesting because one of the things that, discusses very early on in that book that I was talking about, the righteous mind, he says that there are, in different societies, there are different moral truths and norms, and people will pick up on moral violations as well as non violation. But the boundary between the two will vary depending on which culture you are a part of. So, they did some experiments where, this was with kids, because it was a developmental study, but, they were talking about how super young kids, you tell them that, you know, this boy is wearing a girl's clothes, but the parents and teacher are okay with it. Then the kid is like, oh, that's okay. so they understand this is a non violation. This is not a moral violation. But then they say that this kid pushed another kid on the playground, and the teacher and the parents are okay with it, and the kid still does not think that it's okay. So the kid has an internal understanding of it's not okay to hurt other people, but it is okay to do non violation as long as other people are okay with it.
Kahran: Interesting. That's really interesting because that would point to, there's, like, some contention that there's, like, laws of nature and laws of mankind. Right. And that almost does support that crew, that. That contention.
Divya: Yeah. You should actually check out the book if you're, like, in interested. There were some. I don't think that there was, like, as clear an understanding of what exactly it was, and it was much more of a, ah, these are the soft boundaries that we can draw between things, kind of a situation. Even though he tried to present them as, like an iron clad case, it really was not that. But yeah, just like, as you were speaking about it and like, you know, what do you keep as values and, like, you know, what do you want to afford? It's almost like, you know, drawing that dividing line between we will do a lot of things, and some of them would be core to us, and those are our moral truths. And everything else is a norm. So we might end up breaking a norm as the world changes, but we will never break our moral truths.
Kahran: Yeah, I think that that's exactly. That's a really good summation. That's exactly how I think about it. That's interesting, because I don't know how many companies really carve out it like that. Right? And I think a lot of the really successful companies now have a sense of personality, and I think a sense of personality really comes from knowing these are our moral truths. This is what makes us different.
Divya: Okay, this was interesting.
Kahran: Yeah. Super fun.
Divya: Yeah. Well, okay. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of thinking on thinking. Our, theme music is by Steve Gomes.
Kahran: If you found any of the topics we talked about interesting this week, we'd invite you to get in touch with us. We'd love to invite you on the podcast or just have a conversation about how these topics apply in your business and in the decisions and problems that you're struggling with. You can get in touch with us on our website, joyous studio.
