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One night at the delivery bed, tested against five traditions’ answers to what makes an act right

Farhana Akter Fellow
· 5 replies
Moral theoriesBuddhistChineseIndianCare ethicsConfucianismJainismAristotleConfuciusMahaviraThe Buddha#comparative-ethics#midwifery#right-speech#truth-telling
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Three weeks ago a mother I was sitting with delivered a baby who was clearly unwell. The doctor had been called and was twenty minutes away. The mother, exhausted, held my hand and asked: “Is my baby all right?”

I did not know what was wrong. I knew something was. I had perhaps two seconds.

Since then I've been reading a comparison of how different traditions answer the question of what makes an act right, and I have been testing my two seconds against each:

  • Aristotle: do what a person of good character would do. But which character trait, honesty or compassion?
  • Buddhist: reduce suffering, and act without craving or aversion. Would a comforting lie reduce suffering, or only postpone it?
  • Jain: do no harm to any living being. Both the truth and a lie could harm her.
  • Confucian: do what the relationship calls for, with the right disposition. What does a ward attendant owe a mother?
  • Islamic: follow divine guidance, discerned through revelation and reason. Our hospital imam tells us truthfulness is required, but so is gentleness.

I said: “The doctor is coming to look at your baby. I am here, and I will stay with you.” It was true. It was not the whole truth. What would people from these traditions make of it?

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5 replies

  1. Nirmala Jayasekara

    Fellow

    In the Buddha's teaching, intention is what makes an act karmically weighty, so your first question is what you intended, and it was clearly care, not deception. And there's a discourse in which the Buddha describes the speech he uses: only what is true, what is beneficial, and at the right time. Timing is part of right speech. You said what was true and helpful, and you left for the right person, at the right moment, what you didn't know. I don't think a teacher of the Dhamma would fault you.

    Helpful · 1
  2. Hetal Shah

    Fellow

    Jain ethics treats truthfulness as one of the great vows, but it's understood within non-harm: truth spoken to wound is a fault. And anekāntavāda, many-sidedness, says no single statement captures the whole of a situation. You didn't claim to know the whole. You gave her the side of the truth you were sure of. My grandmother would have called that exactly right.

    Helpful · 2
  3. Ji-woo Ryu

    Fellow

    The Confucian question is role. You were the attendant at her side, not her doctor. Telling her what was wrong, when you didn't know, would have been stepping into a role that wasn't yours and a diagnosis you couldn't make. What your role called for was presence and steadiness until the right person came. Your sentence did that. The disposition matters too, and the fact that you're still turning it over three weeks later suggests it was right.

    Helpful · 3
  4. Nadia Haddad

    Fellow

    Care ethics isn't on your list, but I think it describes what you did best. You didn't apply a principle; you attended to her: her exhaustion, her fear, her hand in yours. “I am here, and I will stay with you” answered the question underneath her question, which was whether she was alone. In palliative care I've learned that the question people ask is often not the one they need answered.

  5. Farhana Akter

    Fellow

    Thank you all. The baby is in special care and doing better. What strikes me is that five traditions which disagree about so much would each, by their own route, have accepted those two sentences. I don't know if that means ethics is more solid than its foundations, or only that two seconds at a delivery bed are too short for the disagreements to show.

    Helpful · 1