When people think of the importance of imagination, a myriad of creative opportunities come to mind—writing a novel, making a film, designing an engineering breakthrough. Very few of us, however, think about using our imagination to become more ethical. It turns out that in human development—becoming ethically mature—our imagination is our most powerful ally.
Brian P. Hall in his seminal work Values Shift talks about the importance of imaginal skills in both achieving our individual and communal goals and becoming ethically mature. Each person has a preferred ethical lens, a favorite way to interact with the world. And, research has shown that for each ethical lens, the path to maturity requires a mind-shift—changing the way that we look at the world—to reach the next level.
Hall asserts that the hardest shift to make on the journey to ethical maturity, a maturity that will allow us to achieve our goals, is from being guided by external prompts to being internally motivated by a vision of how we are contributing through our work and how we can get along with others on the journey. He describes the shift as changing our world view from “the world is a problem with which I must cope,” to “the world is a creative project in which I want to participate.” A question that can help get past the fear of change is one that prompts that imagination: what would it look like if…?
The first step in making that shift is the commitment to see the world differently. Jane Loevenger in Ego Development describes the change as from seeking to reach success as defined by others to living by our own self-evaluated standards and measuring our progress against our chosen long-term goals. This path of ethical maturity parallels the goals of the Results Lens, classic consequentialism, where the sign of ethical maturity is moderating desires in order to acquire that which is important, not just stuff.
Martha Nussbaum, a well-known consequentialist, describes this step as building the capacity for change. And, imagination is the most effective tool: What would it look like if I saw myself able to be kind of person that I respected—that I want to become? And then the follow-up question is: What changes in both self-concept and in behaviors would be required to live into that vision? What goals would I pursue if I didn’t see myself limited by the vision others have of my success? And then: What would it take to begin to make that goal a reality?
Once the commitment toward a goal has been made, two related shifts are required. One involves developing one’s own self and the other involves learning to play well with others.
The best known path for those seeking ethical maturity through the path of self-development is that of Lawrence Kohlberg who maps the journey for those who resonate with what we call the Responsibilities Lens, classic deontology. People in this lens determine what is ethical by using their reason: individuals using their reason determine the principles by which they will live.
For Kohlberg, however, the shift to ethical maturity requires setting the destination as living into our principles while caring for others. The required mental shift is from following the rules without considering the overall system—which often results in people playing on the edges of the law as well—to fulfilling our responsibilities while upholding the social order and maintaining the welfare of the society. In this mental shift, we move from a preoccupation with self to an acceptance of our place in the community while committing to working with others to build a thriving community for all.
The path for learning to play well with others is not as well known in the academic ethical maturity literature, although in the spiritual and psychological literature the path is well trod. Norma Haan is the ethicist who mapped the path for the Reputation Lens, classic virtues theory, where the task is for members of the community to define what counts for ethical excellence in a given role. As we develop the capacity for ethical excellence and courage, the mental shift involves moving from compromising to include others that are “good” and excluding those who are “bad” to committing to the shared agreements and rules of the community, because all people can fall from grace.
This shift results in changing the focus from determining who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “acceptable” and who is “not,” to accepting that people have different world views, different goals they are pursing, and at different levels of ethical maturity. For this shift imagination is again key as we develop our personal voice to stand for particular values and expect to be treated with respect, the antidote for enmeshment, at the same time that we do not automatically exclude others from community who do not share those values.
While each of us has a preference for a particular ethical perspective and thus find the path to ethical maturity from that perspective easier, in order to move into truly living from a sense of personal purpose as we work with others to build a thriving community, we have to make the mental shift required by the final ethical perspective, the Relationship Lens, classic justice theories of ethics. For this perspective, members of the community determine both what is procedurally required to achieve fundamental fairness as well how the resources of the community should be equitably allocated.
Janet Hagberg has mapped this path in her book Real Power. The goal for this movement is the proper use of personal and organizational power as we learn to consider and care for those with no power. The mental shift that is required is moving from getting affirmation of worth and prestige from symbols of power to getting power by being competent, reflective, and strong. To make this shift we have to reject the allure of the resting point of the virtue ethics perspective where we accumulate respect in the community—but that respect feeds the personal ego—and the resting point of the duties perspective where we becomes successful in our chosen career—but that success feeds on itself in the relentless acquisition of more accolades.
The first step in changing world view is to imagine a different reality. This reality can be created as we see how others whom we admire live or as we realize that to reach our next goals we will have to change. For all of us change is difficult. To ease the difficulty of change, we can use our imagination and try on a new world view before we commit to doing the work to actually live into that new vision of how to relate to ourselves and others. And we then circle back to the question posed at the beginning of this conversation: what would it look like if…and we fill in the blank with our new vision for what might be possible.
Go ahead and try it. You might find that you like what you see from a new vantage point.