On certification, the codification of ethics, and reading
Tarot
I have at various times been asked to write in more detail
then the posts I have contributed to Aeclectic’s TarotForum my
views on both certification and the codification of ethics.
Quite frankly, I find the task challenging, as much that
forms the basis for those who favour either of these is
fundamentally at odds with an alternate way of understanding
the world.
It should perhaps first be mentioned that amongst the
many who disagree with certification stands some who nonetheless
support some form of codified ‘ethics’. As
may be apparent, I stand clearly against each of these,
for different reasons. That I am lead to include both in
this discussion is partly because every instance of groups
wanting to certify individuals - something that fortunately
remains insignificantly small in the broader world of Tarot
and internal to the organisations promulgating such - unfortunately
also imposes that a ‘code of ethics’ be adopted.
There also needs to be recognition that since the broader
adoption and codification of interpersonal relations in
the medical profession since the end of the second world
war and its attendent atrocities, numerous other professions
have increasingly followed what I would consider an erroneous
train of thought: in the bid to protect, neither ethical
conduct nor ethical considerations are carefully considered,
but rather referenced to the regulatory codified document.
But let’s separate each for now.
Certification
At one level, ‘certification’ means no more
than having obtained a certificate for something or other.
Anyone offering a course or equivalent may want to issue
what amounts to a paper memento of the course
attended, for which satisfactory participation and completion
of work required has been submitted. Though I generally
do not see the value of such memento, as long
as the recipient does not wave it as a flag that promotes
one’s supposed proficiency in reading tarot, fine: mementos are
personal items, not something that suggests some level
of professionalism or that a tarot reading about to be
undetaken will in any manner embody accuracy. Only the
reading at hand embodies this, not the acquired certificate
or endorsement.
To in any manner suggest that certification is legitimate
further inadvertently gives the public the impression that
only particular styles of readings are legitimate: the
styles determined by the certifying agency.
So what are my qualms with certification? in the first
instance, precisely the above.
In addition, unless one uses the setting of a tarot spread
as a means to engage in a psychotherapeutic session - and
in such a case within a particular type of psychology (whether
behavioural, cognitive, experiential, Jungian, or any other)
- then the ‘accuracy’ of a reading will be
a combined reflection of the reader, reading at hand, and
readee, and not whether the individual reader has in the
past performed adequately.
Unlike many a profession, divination is something that
takes place afresh at each instance. A person who reads
for the first time may provide a more accurate reading
than someone with years of experience. Divination is, in
this sense, unlike other professions, and no certification
can, nor, I would claim, should claim to, ever provide
an indication for a reading about to take place.
Certification gives the public the false impression that
the reader is somehow going to provide a ‘better’, ‘more
accurate’, or more ‘legitimate’ reading
than someone without the certification. In that sense,
a lie is perpetrated. In our society increasingly enamoured
by certificates and other forms of accreditation, it becomes
even more imperative to assist in an accurate perception
with regards to reading tarot: no reading can be certified.
Ethics and Reading
There are some who consider that the moral act is determined
by whatever is deemed to bring the greatest amount of pleasure
or ‘good’; others who view the moral act as
that which can be generalised to a general rule or guideline;
yet others who somehow see in morals no more than a reflection
of personal feelings. The first of these is a corruption
of utilitarianism, the basis of which, in any case, seems
to me flawed. The second is examplified in various deontological
ethical views, and seems in essence to be underpinning
a view consistent with those who argue for ‘codes’ with
regards to moral considerations. The third seems to assume
a reductionist framework and relegates all behaviour to
the psychological realm. These last two seem increasingly
prominent in our modern world, and a diminishment of that
which is essentially spiritual.
Let’s return to the deontological ethical position.
I am perplexed by the pervasiveness of Kantian thought
in many areas of life, but more so that in the area of
ethics. In a nutshell, Kantian ethical views suggests that
a moral act is one for which we can take the situation
and universalise it. In other words, by looking at the
situation at hand, and determining its ethical dimension,
a prior reflection is invoked, generalised, and applied.
Either an individual is able to ascertain the ethical
dimension of the situation at hand, or they are not. If
they are, no rule will add insight. If they are not, the
rule will simply be applied mechanically, without reference
to ethical considerations inherent in what is actually
presenting itself.
This is equivalent to the shift that has occurred with
regards to images of Law over the past few centuries. Fortunately,
Tarot has on the whole maintained the earlier form of the
image: that of Justitia or Themis. Justice
faces us with her eyes open, able to see the situation
at hand in order to determine what is required. From around
the turn of the 16th century, the image increasingly became
blindfolded. Though this supposedly indicates a move from
the injustices of favouratism to the application of the
law irrespective of social station, it also, more significantly,
indicates a shift from Justice to Law - and that irrespective
as to whether or not the law is just.
A specified ‘rule’ can certainly reflect
where one stands with regards to general arrangements.
For example, I personally do not want to engage in readings
for minors. I recognise this as simply a personal preference
that, in any case, may in some areas of the world also
have legal ramifications. It does not where I live, however,
and even it it did, would reflect the law, not the ethical
dimension of the situation.
If I were to ‘codify’ my preferences, they
would become a ‘code of preference’, not a ‘code
of ethics’. To seemingly justify a code with reference
to ethics is at best disingenious, and at worst confuses
ethics and justice with codes and law.
I am reminded of a relatively recent incident of a Chinese
official who applied for assylum in Australia, with the
Chinese embassy responding that China is a country with
a ‘rule of law’. My immediate thoughts were
certainly that here was an instance of covert threat: ‘we
catch you and you will be subjected to whatever instituted
laws rule, whether this be torture, incarceration, or death’.
Of course, no claimed ‘codes of ethics’ are
rules of such magnitude. The similarity is that whereas
in the example there is an implied equivocated slippery
slide from justice to law, in the ‘code of ethics’ there
is a similar slide and equivocation between ethics on the
one hand, and rules or ‘duty’ on the other.
Writing ‘duty’ reminds me of the manner in
which Kant elevates this term to sublime heights with rules
and law to which we must all submit, something his English
contemporary, Bentham, also carried. I find the section
expounding such in Kant’s Critique of Practical
Reason one of the most dangerous statements and against
the opposite impulse of love and freedom. And it is these
qualities of Love and Freedom that are necessary when engaged
in reading.
Love becomes the open-ness that accepts and sees into
the cards at hand the pertinent reading - and that cannot
be codified.
From whence this rush to codes?
In the opening paragraphs I mention the apparent spread
of a codification of claimed ethical considerations as
a consequence of some of the atrocities during WWII, including
those by, unfortunately, some in the established medical
profession (one would like to think in only Nazi Germany,
but unfortunately far more pervasive). It is also seemingly
the medical establishment that consequently were the first
to broadly adopt ‘codes’ as though they were
in themselves ethical considerations.
Despite this, the waters of time quickly flowed, for
it seems to me that the major shift has only occured over
the past twenty years following the introduction of such
publications as the Journal of Business Ethics.
In fact, Mark Frankel’s ‘Professional Codes:
how, why and with what impact’ in the Feb/March 1989
issue of that journal seems to be a rather strong seed
that has made this plant virulent.
The proposal undoubtedly paves a path filled with good
intentions, wanting to advocate positive aspirations, broadened
understanding of the offerings and limits of a profession,
and provide a regulatory framework within which its members
are seen to operate. The problem is that the code is simply
a set of rules, even if arising from reflections of the
moral dimension of specific situations, but not itself
ethics.
The Ethical dimension of the situation at hand
If Kant can be said to have presented the most pervasive
form of deontological ethics, W. D. Ross can be viewed
as having made them more forcefully common amongst those
who draw from the philosophical body of published thought,
with recourse to what he calls prima facie duties.
Yet here, in cases where the situation at hand presents
conflicting ‘duties’, he has recourse to the
moral intuition of the individual. Truly, deontological
ethics seems rather an unstable beast without the backbone
of something far more sensible: that of the moral insight
into the situation at hand via the moral reflections of
the concerned individual.
One of the most astute criticism of Kant’s deontology,
and by implication on ‘codes of ethics’ in
general, is from Rudolf Steiner’s most important
book Philosophy
of Freedom. Of course, he there provides not simply
a critique of the thinking involved in Kant, but also makes
a positive contribution...
...and shall close on a quote from that work:
[...] On closer inspection it will at once be
seen that at this level of morality driving force and motive
coincide; that is, neither a predetermined characterological
disposition nor the external authority of an accepted moral
principle influences our conduct. The action is therefore
neither a stereotyped one which merely follows certain
rules, nor is it one which we automatically perform in
response to an external impulse, but it is an action determined
purely and simply by its own ideal content. [...]
Such an action presupposes the capacity for moral
intuitions. Whoever lacks the capacity to experience for
himself the particular moral principle for each single
situation, will never achieve truly individual willing.
Kant’s principle of morality -- Act so
that the basis of your action may be valid for all men
-- is the exact opposite of ours. His principle means
death to all individual impulses of action. The standard
[must]
be what, for me, is to be done in each individual case.
[...]
People vary in their capacity for intuition.
Situations in which men live are varied. Conduct will depend
on the manner in which his faculty of intuition works in
a given situation. The sum of ideas which are effective
in us, the concrete content of our intuitions, constitutes
what is individual in each of us, notwithstanding the universality
of the world of ideas. In so far as this intuitive content
applies to action, it constitutes the moral content of
the individual. To let this content express itself in life
is both the highest moral driving force and the highest
motive a man can have. We may call this point of view ethical
individualism.
The decisive factor of an intuitively determined
action in any concrete instance is the discovery of the
corresponding purely individual intuition.
R. Steiner, Philosophy
of Freedom (1894)
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