Book Review by Jack Falt
How do we know right from wrong? To be morally mature we must know
why our actions are right or wrong. Our psychological type will greatly
influence the way we make moral decisions. Blake Burleson, the author of
this book, is a university lecturer in world religions, sports ethics,
Christian scriptures, and African studies; and he is qualified to use the
MBTI® instrument. He brings all of these skills together to look at
how personality affects our personal ethics.
The perceiving functions, sensing and intuition, relate to what a person should do. The judging functions, thinking and feeling, relate to how a person should do it or how they should decide. By looking at the function pairs each has its own focus: ST - Duty, SF - Care, NT - Justice, and NF - Compassion.
As a Jungian, the author sees the opposite functions as being independent. When using the thinking function, we cannot use the feeling function in the same instant. When we use the thinking function we are deciding with our head and our heart is pushed aside and visa versa. In the Western world the thinking-feeling dimension is the basis for our philosophy. Thinking is the ethic of justice while feeling is the ethic of care. Being able to evaluate from both perspectives (just not at the same time) is the ideal way in Western culture. The author uses Star Trek characters to personify these functions. The Vulcan Spock represents thinking without feeling, and Dr. McCoy represents feeling without thinking. As a teacher of sports ethics, the author describes two well-know football coaches to illustrate his point: Vince Lombardi (heart) and Tom Landry (head). Each of these men have had excellent success motivating their teams but in quite opposite ways.
In Eastern philosophy the focus is on the difference between sensing and intuition. Sensing looks at the present facts while intuition looks at future possibilities. Confucian belief embodies sensing with its focus on the cultural way of acting. Taoism represents intuition. It is taking no action contrary to nature. It is a more ‘live and let live’ way. The author uses Scotty and Captain Kirk from Star Trek to represent sensing and intuiton. In the sports realm the author uses Phil Jackson, NBA coach, as an example of intuition and his assistant coach Charles Rosen as an example of sensing.
When we look at Western culture with its emphasis on thinking-feeling philosophies, thinking and feeling are equally distributed among the population (with a gender bias). With the Eastern culture this not so, as sensing is about three times more prevalent that intuition. This also affects our own culture. The sensing question is: What should I do? As the dominant way of perceiving, it has paid off in technology and material success, Yet intuition has provided the genius for technological innovation. So even though Western culture has a thinking-feeling emphasis, the related more prevalent sensing function has a greater impact on our society.
The author then looks at the four function pairs (ST, SF, NT, NF) and shows how they relate to four main philosophies. ST - Duty is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant’s unconditional duty. It is doing the right thing consistently. Thus, there are no exceptions to the rule. SF - Care is the philosophy of W.D. Ross’s prima facie duty. When confronted with following two conflicting rules, one evaluates them from a more personal point of view with one having precedence over the other.
NT - Justice is the philosophy of J.S Mill’s utilitarianism. What action will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people? If confronted with conflicting demands, the choice is made on which produces the best outcome for the most people. NF - Compassion is the philosophy of Joseph Fletcher’s situation ethics. One is obligated to make all decisions on the basis of love. Now you can see why different philosophers came up with different ways of looking at the world. They likely had different function pairs in their personalities. This would make an interesting research project.
The author finishes the book by looking at a sport coaching dilemma and how each of the function pairs would evaluate it. The book does an excellent job of using the lens of function pairs to see the origins of our philosophies. If my philosophy instructor had only used something similar, I might have stayed awake and passed the course.
While I found the book quite readable, I did have to read it a second time to grasp the concepts, but it was well worth the effort. This is a book I would strongly recommend both for your own personal understanding of the world and also to know where the people you work with are coming from.