Effectiveness and Ethicality

In many cases, being an ethical decision maker parallels congruously with effective and pragmatic leadership.

For instance, as noted by Machiavelli in The Prince, a top priority for a leader is to safeguard and protect their constituents. As a leader plans to update fire and police department training and resources in pursuit of this essentiality, they are simultaneously exercising virtue by following the Common Good and Utilitarian approach - maximizing good and limiting harm by providing improved protection and services to the community. In this situation, ethics do not impede the leader's ability to be decisive and productive because the end goal is both necessary and altruistic, and therefore its means and motivations are rooted not only in practical need but in the common good. 

However, in other situations, the line between ethics and a desire effectively achieve goals can become muddled and blurred. Machiavelli insists that leaders can never live entirely virtuously, and therefore can abandon ethics in the name of achieving a practical and imperative benefit. In WW2, President Truman made a decision that would be contended on ethical grounds for decades: dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This action was done with a practical and necessary benefit in mind - in fact the most important benefit of all in Machiavelli's mind - security and stability for a nation's people. As the bomb allowed the US to reach its goal  - Japanese surrender - only days after the action, Truman's decision was undeniably effective and decisive - but ethical? From a solely national lens, the bomb saved countless American lives by drawing WW2 to a close without requiring a full troop assault on Japan's main island, a mission projected to rack up a death toll of 200,000 troops. Truman had America's interests in mind and he acted to advance them - but ethically, the bomb did not minimize harm as the death toll of Japanese civilians reached an astounding 225,000. Because Truman kept a Machiavellian appearance of virtue in his courageous and unwavering action to bring an end to WW2 and American fighting, he avoided condemnation from his constituents. But ethically, Truman crossed a boundary, sacrificing holistic well being and defiling the moral rights of unarmed Japanese civilians in his desire for a decisive end game. 

Truman's situation exemplifies the occasional need for flexibility in ethical leadership. Some goals and benefits - especially matters of national stability - can trump the need to reach an end ethically, especially in war when action is time sensitive. Although ethically dubious, Truman protected his people, and in the end I agree that his commitment to his constituency outweighed his ethical obligations to his opponent in a time when death on one side or the other was unavoidable. 

Miriam El-Baz