To start off, I'm going to start off with something I learned about in my Adult Education coursework, and that is Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development. Now I know that there is disagreement about certain aspects of Kohlberg's theory, but well accepted enough that I think it should serve as a good jumping off point. Kohlberg developed this theory by interviewing teenage boys (see the above link for more details) and later extended it to include interviews of subjects of different demographics. He posed the following question and then asked the interviewee what he or she would do in this situation:
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963, p. 19)
Through this process he determined that people generally follow this sequence of moral development:
Level 1: Preconventional morality
Stage 1: Obedience and punishment orientation
> Example: Obeying the mission authorities because of being afraid of being demoted otherwise (and the mission knows what's best and so has the right to demote you if you don't obey).
Stage 2: Individualism and exchange
> Example: Obeying the mission authorities because of being afraid of being demoted otherwise (although you know there are other standards than that used by the mission to determine right or wrong)
Level 2: Conventional morality
Stage 3: Good interpersonal relations
> Example: Obeying the mission because you don't want to raise a stink.
Stage 4: Maintaining the social order
>Example: Obeying the mission because chaos would ensue if everyone were to live by their own individual values.
Level 3: Postconventional morality
Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights
> Example: Obeying the mission because you believe it treats its members well.
Stage 6: Universal principles
> Example: Obeying the mission because it functions biblically.
Now here are my propositions in regards to how Kohlberg's theory fit the Vienna mission (when I was there):
- The mission wanted newcomers to start out with a Stage 1 orientation to it, which would be blind obedience irregardless of any other standard.
- It was probably possible to enter the mission with a Stage 2 orientation as long as one was willing to relinquish comparisons with other potential morality schemes other than those proffered by the mission (for its members to adhere to).
- Once one passed that test, one had begun the process of internalizing the mission's moral structure.
- In addition, once one passed that test one could turn one's focus to the group, which act was encouraged by the group treating the newcomer well as s/he progressed. The newcomer is now in Stage 3.
- As one interacted with the group and internalized more and more of the group's value structure, the individual would begin to give more importance to maintaining the social order (and at the same time start playing more of a control function). This is stage 4.
- Ultimately, the individual comes to believe that the mission treats its members well, thus validating the normative beliefs and values of the organization. This is Stage 5.
So stage 6 is bothersome and maybe some hardcore philosophers or theologians or psychologists could help me out here.
But the other thing that really, really, really bothers/bothered me is how the relationship with the mission starts. Why in heaven's name does one have to start all the way at square one? [Or was I the only one the mission seemed to require this of? Which would open a whole other can of worms if answered in the affirmative.]
And, surely you'd expect a bunch of theologians to have reached a higher level of moral maturity than Stage 1 by the time they came to work for the mission, right? Or am I missing something here? My expectation is that these theologian/missionaries (which comprised the bulk of the staff, including the administration) were otherwise way up on levels 5 or 6.
So they come to the mission, supposedly, at those advanced levels and seem to willingly agree to take a level 1 stance before the mission upon arrival in Vienna. Am I the only one bothered by this? Isn't anyone else concerned or even just a tad bit curious about how this can be?
What went wrong? It seems to me that there had to be something really strange going on if I'm at all right in this description of affairs. Because it seems very strange to me that around 50 theologians could do this, and apparently do it willingly. Of course, if they were afraid of experiencing anything like what I did maybe it wasn't so willingly, either. Or, as I said before, maybe I was the only one this seemed to fit.
***
Now let's look at some moral, ethical and axiological theories and see how the mission stacks up from that approach.
Consequentialism: One judges 'rightness' by the consequence of an act.
> Example: How the mission carries out is work is good because the consequences of it are good.
Rights theory: A right for you to do X implies a correlative duty on others to not interfere with your performance of X.
> Example: The mission has a right to carry out its work (in part because the consequences are good, see "consequentialism" above), so you don't have a right to stop us or otherwise interfere with our carrying out of our duties.
Virtue ethics: Focuses on the character of the person, rather than the action.
> Example: The mission is good because it is a Christian mission and so its actions are likewise good.
Deontological theory: What matters is that an action conforms to an external norm.
> Example: The mission's actions are good because they conform to biblical mandates.
So how might these be applied to the Vienna mission context (as I knew it from 1987 to 1989)? Here are some possibilities of where ethical concerns might be especially pertinent:
1. how the mission portrays itself to various outsiders (e.g., supporters back home, local Austrians, believers in Eastern Europe, etc.);
2. how the mission assimilates new members;
3. how the mission carries out its ministry;
4. how the mission functions in general (e.g., its culture, organizational structure, etc.)
Here's my take on it (based on my experiences and observations with the mission from 1987 to 1989):
The mission used "virtue ethics" in its relations with supporters back home, but used "rights theory" to justify its demands regarding newcomer assimilation. The content of its teaching and textbooks reflected a "deontological" perspective, but it used "consequentialism" to justify how it carried out its ministry. The details of various administrative aspects of its work would probably have involved a mishmash of different ethical positions, depending on the specific task.
In other words, the mission's teaching involved a "do as I say, but not as I do" element and the mission presented itself deceptively (i.e., other than it really was in its day in day out functioning) to supporters back home.
Now I may be naive, but I do know that the Vienna mission was far from the only organization (even conservative Christian mission organization) that this could be said about. But I think the difference in this case is the pervasiveness of the inconsistencies, the level of intentionality of the inconsistencies, and the size of the gap these inconsistencies represent between what actually was going on inside the mission and what was presented to others.
***
Supposedly, then, these morally advanced theologians go back to Stage 1 to enter the mission and then continue on up to Stage 5 (or maybe 6 if that's possible) all the while internalizing more and more of the mission's values and norms, so that then they also become part of this whole ethical process, including working to preserve the organization.
Now, I should say that if my experience was very dramatically different from everyone else's in the mission (which, as I said before, would open a whole other can of worms), then my description here of the mission is all wet, but the mission somehow was able to interact with me in a way that gave me this understanding of its nature, values, and how it operated.
And as for myself, I think I entered at Stage 2 and stayed at Stage 2 for the duration of my time with the mission. The mission might have thought I'd gotten to Stage 3 or maybe Stage 4 for a while (about three-quarters of the way through my term with them). If they thought that way, it would mean they probably misinterpreted my taking social initiative, not realizing that I was doing this irregardless of what they thought was "best" for the group, but rather just because I was living by the same standards as I had before I arrived in the mission, which included a general desire to reach out to others and be a positive presence in general. So I think I was doing it because of individuals that I wanted to invite over to get to know more or just spread a little kindness around or the like; but I did not do these things for some mission-centric motivation per se.
I think the only viable options for me would have been Stage 2 or Stage 6. As an idealist after the manner of St. Augustine, Stage 6 would have been my normal position, but that would have been completely untenable for the Vienna mission. So for purposes of my relationship with them, I set aside the "universal principles" that I would normally hold to. However, I could NOT deny that such principles existed or that they were actually preferable even. So that leaves Stage 2 or 6, because Stages 3, 4 and 5 are based on something other than an external normative ideal. At least with stage 2 I could still hold on to the acknowledgement that another ideal besides what the mission offered existed. There was no way I was going to go so far as to completely let go of that other ideal. Also, I think that even in Stage 2 if the mission asked anything that too clearly contradicted the other normative ideal, I wouldn't go along with such a demand.
So then, I suppose one could argue that I was really in Stage 6, but I don't think so because even though I might normally function in Stage 6 (which isn't to say that I always abide by it perfectly - that is, I do sin from time to time), if I were really functioning in Stage 6 I would have taken more offense by the things that bothered me in the mission. After all, even though I didn't understand a lot that was going on at the time I understood enough to know to resist it and also taken a stand if I'd been so inclined. In this way, there might have been a discrepancy between my thoughts and my actions, in as much as my conscience was thinking Stage 6 (which is how I determined the mission was wrong), but I acted out Stage 2. In this case, it could even be said that I sinned, in as much as "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" and I perhaps acted against my better judgement. At any rate, you couldn't say I followed in Bonhoeffer's footsteps in this situation, because if I had I would have stood up for what I knew to be right despite any potential cost to me. And I didn't do that.
The other thing I would just mention here in passing is that I hope you can see through this kind of insight into my psyche that I might not have been a very easy target for the KGB to recruit any more than I was an easy victim (if you will) of the mission.
