It's Day 332 of the Year 2018 CE
So, November 28, 2018 - for my reference if nothing else.

It widely believed that doctors swear an oath that begins with "First do no harm." That's very possibly why the large industrial corporate hospitals don't let them get involved in the admissions process, but that is another tale for another day. It is possibly also the the reason that some religious hospitals isolate them from involvement in formulating certain medical policies and decisions, which is also another story for another time. In fact, that isn't part of the Hippocratic Oath, but that doesn't really matter for my purposes. What I want to discuss is the use of that principle as what I am going to call an "action maxim".

OK, a maxim can be considered to be "a short, pithy statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct." but that's not what this is about. Wikipedia, in part, gives us the following:

A maxim is a concise expression of a fundamental moral rule or principle, whether considered as objective or subjective contingent on one's philosophy. A maxim is often pedagogical and motivates specific actions. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as:

Generally any simple and memorable rule or guide for living; for example, 'neither a borrower nor a lender be'. Tennyson speaks of 'a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart (Locksley Hall), and maxims have generally been associated with a 'folksy' or 'copy-book' approach to morality.
...
Deontological ethics
In deontological ethics, mainly in Kantian ethics, maxims are understood as subjective principles of action. A maxim is thought to be part of an agent's thought process for every rational action, indicating in its standard form: (1) the action, or type of action; (2) the conditions under which it is to be done; and (3) the end or purpose to be achieved by the action, or the motive. The maxim of an action is often referred to as the agent's intention. In Kantian ethics, the categorical imperative provides a test on maxims for determining whether the actions they refer to are right, wrong, or permissible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_(philosophy)

I'm not going to go full bore into the Kantian Categorical Imperative, nor endorse it, and I am especially not going to address Kant's absolutism, beyond saying that it is, in my opinion, not remotely necessary to the functining of his categorical imperative. There is no reason that maxims fulfilling his categorical cannot be conditional or relativistic. So what then is this categorical?

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

Essentially, the basis, motive, purpose, intent and goal of your actions should be such as would be proper for anybody and everybody to adopt and act on in similar circumstances. The much vaunted "golden rule" and many of its predecessor and successor formulations arguably should qualify, except for the fact that history shows us that populations do not abide by such rule except in somewhat rare or trivial instances.

So, as separate from any old pithy aphorism, I use "action maxim" to denote those maxims which I believe fit Kant's categorical, rules of action or decision that should always be followed, by all comers under appropriate circumstances. i believe that "do no harm" and/or "first, do no harm" fills the bill. This is no trivial matter, as I will attempt to explain. One often hears the "What difference will it make?" objection query to a proposed course of action. For example, it was recently "Bank Transfer Day". If you attempt to persuade people to shift their funds out of banks it is quite common for people to point out that their action, even that of their whole family, or neighborhood, is chicken feed to any sizeable bank. This argument for inaction pops up in every aspect of living. Eschew ozone depleting chemicals? What difference will my action make. Recycle, compost, plant a tree, conserve energy, conserve water, all of those campaigns and ideas routinely run into this counter-argument. And this, then, is the answer. Do not, yourself, actively abet and perpetuate the problem. Perhaps the trite old "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem" is an over-broad formulation, but clearly we should not actively engage in behavior that causes harm. Once we accept that, we can then attempt to discern the fine points of what acts and activities do and do not cause such harm, but first we need to resolve to do no harm, or at least as little as possible.

Thus, all of us should be dedicated to "first do no harm", even indirectly, as an action maxim. Long before trying to ascertain how to maximize the total good, we need to stop abetting the bad. "Don't fuck it up!" is, after all, an instinctive motto.

(Image: Caduceus symbol by Jon Tester -- public domain)

OK, it's an open thread, so go for it ...