Moral standards slip again

Several events have served recently to highlight the importance, in public life, not only of high moral standards, but also of clear moral reasoning.

Of course, we naturally and rightly expect those in positions of authority — and especially in the NHS, which symbolises and embodies many of our highest moral values — to display a certain moral integrity.

Stories such as those of financial scandals over computers in Wessex and the West Midlands, or the payment of over £200,000 of public money to underwrite the removal costs of an NHS manager, or the Conservative Party member unlawfully appointed to chair two different health authorities are therefore deeply disturbing.

More disturbing still, however, is the remarkably poor standard of moral reasoning which those in public life seem able to manage. Two recent examples make the point.

First, we had Education Secretary John Patten (as well as shadow health secretary David Blunkett, whom you would have thought would know better) up in arms over sex education lessons given by a school nurse in Leeds. The facts of the matter do not seem to be in dispute. Children asked various questions about sexual activity. The nurse answered them clearly and honestly. Mr Patten was ‘incensed’.

The moral principle which the Education Secretary wishes to defend in this instance is difficult to spot, but is obviously important to him since this is an issue he has returned to since.

Perhaps he believes that children should not have sex or, to go further, that nobody should have sex before they are married. All well and good. Both of these are entirely tenable moral beliefs. But these children were not having sex — merely education. Assuming Mr Patten understood this, it was still enough to ‘incense’ him.

Perhaps he believes that such education is unacceptable because it might increase the risk that children will indulge in sex at a young age. If this is the case he is, plainly, wrong, since the evidence that exists all indicates that the more openly children are educated about sex, the olderthey are when they begin their own sexual lives.

Or perhaps he believes that open and honest discussion of such things is, in and of itself, wrong. If so, he should tell us plainly the moral reasoning behind such a view, so that we know exactly what sort of education the Education Secretary could support.

Second, we have had the spectacle of various health service managers and doctors attempting to justify, in various ways, why certain treatments should not be available to old people. Again, we never seem to get to the moral principle at stake behind such assertions.

We are told that younger patients gain precedence because ‘they are more likely to be at work’. And so of course, are men — should they go to the front of the queue? And the well-educated? On this line of reasoning we would relocate NHS resources to the areas with lowest unemployment rates.

Then we are told, perhaps more convincingly, that older patients should give way because ‘the treatment is less effective in the elderly’. This is often presented as a ‘clinical decision’, and therefore beyond the bounds of public debate. But of course it is just as much an ethical — and debatable — judgement as a technical one.

If we are to have explicit rationing of health care, let us at least recognise the moral nature of the decisions to be made — and let us have people capable of reasoning coherently and explaining clearly the moral principles which guide their actions.