In today’s post, I am exploring the notion of “doing the right thing.”

We encounter this expectation everywhere in workplaces, personal relationships, and civic life. The phrase appears in mission statements, performance reviews, and everyday conversations. At first glance, it feels simple and reassuring. Of course we should do the right thing.

In regulated industries, this mantra becomes even more clearly pronounced. Every procedure, every record, and every audit echoes that expectation. It appears in training sessions, quality policies, and compliance frameworks.

I want to add an important layer: do the right thing for the right reason.

The distinction may seem subtle, yet it initiates a reflexive turn. It moves us from mechanical compliance to ethical responsibility.

A statement by itself carries no value. “Do the right thing” means nothing until someone makes it their own. The phrase appears to describe a fact, but it actually expresses a value judgment. Value enters only when a person acts from conviction, not from blind obligation. The second part, “for the right reason,” is where responsibility begins. It asks a crucial question about why I am doing this. That question transforms an empty slogan into a deliberate act grounded in personal values.

If I follow orders or check boxes without reflection, I might appear to do the right thing. But in truth, I have surrendered ownership. From the perspective of cybernetic constructivism, meaning is not handed down from the outside. It emerges within the observer. As Heinz von Foerster showed in his work on observing systems, we do not simply receive reality but construct it through our interactions and decisions.

When we speak of “the right thing,” the phrase suggests precision, as if a decision could fit reality without error. In practice, this rarely happens. Thought and reality belong to different domains. A decision formed in thought appears complete because ideas do not encounter resistance until they are acted out. The flaws surface only when they meet real conditions.

This is the illusion of completeness in the right thing, the comforting belief that something can be fully correct. It persists because thought gives us a sense of closure that reality cannot guarantee.

Here is where the phrase “for the right reason” matters. It does not make the decision perfect; it acknowledges that it never was. Adding this second part challenges the belief in absolute correctness and invites humility about what we can know. It says you cannot guarantee the outcome, but you can own the reasoning. That ownership gives the action its integrity. The emphasis shifts from claiming completeness to accepting responsibility. This matters because it prevents us from confusing the clarity of thought with the complexity of life.

I want to focus on this more with a question: When the time comes, can I do the right thing? This question seems simple, but it hides a deeper issue. What exactly is the right thing? We often talk as if the right thing exists “out there,” waiting for us to discover, a fixed fact like the boiling point of water. But this assumes that what appears complete in thought will remain complete in practice. That assumption is an illusion.

In many situations, the right thing is not given. It is what von Foerster calls an undecidable.

The Nature of the Undecidable:

Von Foerster introduced this term for questions that cannot be answered by logic, rules, or computation alone. An undecidable resists algorithmic resolution. Regulations provide structure and consistency, and they are essential. Yet they do not eliminate undecidables. They never will.

Undecidables exist because the variety of real-world situations far exceeds what any rulebook can anticipate. In cybernetics, variety means the number of possible states a system can take. The more possible situations, the greater the variety. And the world does not just throw edge cases at us. It quite often generates entirely new scenarios. Each innovation, each unique user context, and every unexpected failure mode creates conditions no standard procedure can fully capture.

No rulebook, whether corporate policy or government regulation, can provide ready-made answers to every question. Rules may reduce some complexity and provide crucial guidance, but they cannot close the gap between their finite scope and the indefinite creativity of reality. That gap is where undecidables live, and where human judgment becomes indispensable.

Von Foerster put it clearly:

“Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide.”

This is not a logical contradiction. It is an ethical imperative. The undecidable is not an error to fix or a loophole to close. It is an invitation to take responsibility. And responsibility cannot be delegated to systems or rules.

Many people resist this truth. We want the comfort of certainty. We prefer to believe the right thing exists as a fixed point, like a law of physics. If that were true, we would not bear the weight of decision. But ethics begins where algorithmic certainty ends. When we say “Just tell me the rule,” we try to trade agency for comfort. And in doing so, we risk betraying the very principles we claim to uphold.

The uncomfortable insight is this: the right thing has validity only as something we decide and own.

A Practical Question:

In the medical device industry, when I encounter an undecidable, my first question is always:

“How does this help or hurt the end user?”

That question brings the undecidable into focus. Regulations cannot cover every nuance. They can only guide. The decision remains mine. The responsibility cannot be outsourced.

Doing the right thing for the right reason is not about perfection. It is not about moral grandstanding. It is about intentionality, the choice to act from internal commitment rather than external command. It is the courage to decide when certainty is impossible and when existing protocols do not apply.

Von Foerster understood this deeply. When he spoke of undecidables, he was not describing a flaw in logic or a failure of system design. He was describing the essence of ethical life: that there are decisions no one can make for us. This insight formed the heart of his second-order cybernetics, which places the observer and their responsibility at the center of any system.

The Ladder We Must Throw Away:

Here I must acknowledge an irony. In adding the phrase “for the right reason,” I am still using the word “right.” By doing so, I risk introducing the very assumption I wanted to question: that rightness exists as something fixed and pre-given. This reflects a pattern throughout the article, where language itself hints at the various complexities we grapple with in an attempt to grasp or cope with the external world.

This is where Wittgenstein helps. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, he wrote that the propositions in his book were like a ladder. Once you have climbed it, you must throw it away. These propositions were tools, not eternal truths. They guide you to a vantage point, and then you move beyond them.

The phrase “do the right thing,” and even my expanded version, “do the right thing for the right reason,” works the same way. These are useful as orienting principles in regulated industries. They provide direction in moments of uncertainty. But if we cling to them as ultimate truths, we miss their purpose.

Like Wittgenstein’s ladder, their role is pragmatic and temporary. They guide us to a place where we can make responsible decisions. Once we understand that responsibility cannot be outsourced to a phrase or a rule, we can discard the ladder, not by abandoning the principle, but by letting go of the illusion that the phrase absolves us of thinking.

The deeper insight is this: the right thing does not exist as a given. It exists as something we must decide. And that decision, by its very nature, will always belong to us.

The next time you hear the phrase “do the right thing,” pause and ask:

What undecidable am I facing, and will I have the courage to decide it for the right reason, knowing that even the word “right” is only a ladder?

Final Words:

The tension between following rules and taking responsibility is not a flaw to fix. It is a fundamental condition of ethical life in complex systems. Von Foerster’s cybernetics teaches us that we cannot escape this tension by creating better rules or more comprehensive procedures. The variety of situations we face will always exceed the variety our systems can anticipate.

This does not diminish the value of regulations. They provide the backbone of responsible practice and create the conditions for ethical decisions. But they cannot substitute for judgment when the genuinely novel situation arises.

The courage to decide undecidables belongs to every professional who encounters the limits of the rulebook. When we recognize that meaning emerges within the observer, we are called to decide thoughtfully, with full awareness of our role in shaping the meaning of our actions.

This is neither comfortable nor easy. But it is the price of genuine ethical responsibility. The ladder remains useful until we no longer need it. The goal is to reach the place where we can make decisions worthy of the trust placed in us.

Always keep on learning…

If you enjoyed this post and find my work valuable, I would appreciate your support. You can explore more of my ideas in my latest book, Second Order Cybernetics, Essays for Silicon Valley, hard copy available at the Lulu Store.