How do you want people to know you? As someone who can't get to work on time, sleeps until noon, can't be relied upon to show up because he doesn't have money for gas? Or, as a hard worker, a person who keeps his word, someone who is able to help others?
Erich asks this question in his ethics course and his point is that it's not about "fighting the system" or being a victim of racism, it's about deciding what kind of person you want to be.
Virtue is its own reward. That's not just because you get a good feeling by being virtuous, but also because you get benefits inside and out.
One of those outside benefits is trust. I have a proposal I have been working on until the wee hours of the morning for the past six weeks. It needs to be delivered in Washington by noon on Monday. If it isn't finished before Friday evening I may need to have someone fly to D.C. and deliver it. Here is where the trust comes in.
If you had a proposal worth a couple of million dollars, how many people are there who you would trust would not let you down? I could think of five.
I called one, who unfortunately happens to be out of town on a business trip. Otherwise, she said, sure, she would have done it.
The other four people I did not ask for various reasons. Two I know are extremely busy, one it would just be physically difficult for him to travel and the fifth person I just thought would rather not do it, and I don't mind going if necessary.
What makes you trust one person and not another? Why do people trust Federal Express with proposals worth millions of dollars, when it "absolutely, positively has to be there overnight?" Isn't it funny how many people trust some Fed Ex delivery guy they have never met over their own friends and relatives.
It's because of their reputation, isn't it?
I thought of several other people I know, some of whom would not mind at all traveling across country, staying in a hotel - but I could imagine each one of them making excuses,
"Oh, gee, I tried to get there but the subway system was so confusing!'
Another person I know would call sobbing, genuinely sad to have let me down,
"I tried, I really did, but traffic was just so bad!"
A third would be angry,
"I got there at 1 o'clock and they wouldn't take it. I mean, it was only an hour late and you put so much time into it and they didn't care at all. It's our government. I really told them off for you!"
To be trusted you need two things, competence and integrity. In this case, you need to be able to figure out plane schedules, subway systems, how to print a document at your local Kinko's or Staples AND get up early enough to get to where you need to be. You have to have a fall back plan in case you can't make it by subway, to take a cab.
You also need the integrity that if you have given your word to someone to do something, you make it happen.
Absolutely, positively.
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