The Power of Ethics: The Art of Making the Right Choices in Our Complex World

In today’s world, many companies put profit above people’s health and their safety, technologies create risks for society—often with minimal consequences for those who are supposed to take responsibility. In private life, we also think about how to ensure data privacy on the internet and protect children from unwanted information, how to make choices about what to buy and from whom, how to respond to the injustice we witness at home and at work. Susan Lehto, a professor of ethics at Stanford University, studies some of the most complex ethical dilemmas today, explains a four-step decision-making process, and also describes six forces that drive nearly every ethical choice in practice.

“Ethics is an integral part of all life decisions and of lifelong learning, from kindergarten and primary school to higher education, workplace training, and professional development. Ethical competence doesn’t depend on academic degrees, specialization, or socio-economic circumstances… We are capable of making choices that provide hope—and everything needed for that is right beside us, within arm’s reach. Your story and the stories of everyone whose lives you touch, as well as the story of humanity as a whole, depend on your choices.”

Susan Lehto

Table of contents

Introduction. On the front line of ethics
Chapter 1. Excluding binary thinking
Chapter 2. Distributed power
Chapter 3. Contagion
Chapter 4. Collapsing pillars
Chapter 5. Blurred boundaries
Chapter 6. Truth under threat
Chapter 7. Ethics on the fly
Chapter 8. Resilience and recovery
Epilogue. The future of the ethics front line