UNTIL very recently, there had always been a sort of tradition in public life, whereby any politician who was stupid or careless enough to be caught with his or her pants around their ankles would be subjected to a blast of moral outrage. And depending on the severity of their crime, or misdemeanour, the extent of that public backlash would register anywhere on the scale from a slap on the wrist to assured political destruction.
In the 20th century, we saw plenty of politicians unhorsed in this way, from Profumo to Clinton, and then of course, as the new millennium gathered momentum, so too did the crotch-grabbing, misogyny juggernaut that is Donald Trump. And now we find ourselves the observers of a weird new phenomenon in which every established norm of political behaviour is being (on that side of the Atlantic, at least) routinely trampled on.
No doubt, Trump thinks that he’s rewriting the rulebook, although in reality, most of us would agree that he’s simply scribbling all over it with his crayons.
But anyway – I’m letting myself get a bit off course. I only wanted to bring up the issue of political morality, with all its red-top shocks and sleaze, in order to highlight the quieter, and in my view infinitely more pressing, question of political ethics.
In the realm of politics, ethics is to morality what bridge is to the game of Snap! – and it is perhaps because its rules are far harder to grasp, and its results far less raucous and attention-grabbing, that it has been so drastically underestimated and overlooked.
But we, especially in a place Jersey, ignore it at our peril.
Take, for example, our two most future-proof industries: financial services and tech/digital.
These are both extremely broad areas and they cover myriad disciplines, many (if not most) of which have their own professional structures and networks. And so, yes, there’s an argument to be made that there are already global conversations going on around ethics, and that Jersey, in its small way, is a part of that.
And yet, while that may be true, I still don’t think it’s enough.
A good parallel when thinking about this would be to consider the way we’ve handled the Island’s approach to fiscal policy. For years now, our government has employed a panel of independent economic experts who produce forecasts and recommendations, and who work alongside officials and ministers with a view to helping Jersey find a sustainable path through its economic future.
Most of us would agree that this has been, and continues to be, a desirable thing – it is a wise, essential precaution, and more importantly, it is an objective reference point for the government when setting or changing course.
So why are we not doing something similar in the field of ethics?
To me, that is simply baffling. Because anyone who knows even a tiny bit about what the near-future might hold will be harbouring some degree of anxiety about the kinds of complex dilemmas that are going to sprout up alongside the development of artificial intelligence, say, or the increasing curtailment of our freedom to not be observed, monitored and logged in our behaviours.
Surely, then, we need an ethical policy panel, just like the fiscal one, that could help our government set in place the right cornerstones for all of this. Because that’s where we’re at now: the foundation-laying stages.
The next generation will need to map their way through fast-arriving increases in workplace automation and a dozen other thorny challenges, and they’re going to need stable bases to build on.
But there are also short-term concerns that are happening right now. Things that can’t be written off as shiny-robot, sci-fi stuff.
Like biometric data, for instance – what do we think about that? Because we’ll need to come to a conclusion soon enough, once Brexit kicks in, and we find that our legislation might need a couple of tweaks.
Or how about Saudi Arabia? Should we really be negotiating a taxation agreement with them just because they have a (literal) pipeline of wealth that we’d like to tap into?
Or China, for that matter?
We can only expect so much from our politicians in this area. They already have a lot to think about and, as we’ve learned with our fiscal policy, the advice of credentialed experts is an invaluable touchstone when it comes to debating big issues that will resonate far into the future.
In the past, States Members have followed their intuitions and gut feelings on ethics, and by and large, this has probably been an adequate fail-safe for public policy. The sniff test, and all that.
But not anymore. Some decisions that are looming, especially in the realms of digital consequences and personal liberties, will have a much longer half-life than anything we’ve seen before.
And that’s why it’s going to be essential that we do everything we can to get them right.
