Questionable Ethics #1
I’m generally a fan of advice columns. They’re sort of my replacement for gossip. I don’t want to scrape around for the dirty secrets of my friends and acquaintances, but it is reassuring to read about other people’s complicated lives and sordid problems, and realize that whatever difficult times I think I’m facing actually aren’t so bad. It’s also interesting to compare my reactions to the advice of the columnists and see how my instincts measure up to the supposed Zeitgeist.
It’s only supposed, though; most advice columnists at least appear to operate under the assumption that they offer just another opinion—perhaps a very worldly opinion, having read hundreds if not thousands of letters about people in similar situations—but an opinion nonetheless. Not Randy Cohen! A columnist for the New York Times Magazine, he purports to explain what is ethical. Period. That’s why he’s called The Ethicist. (Sounds like the most boring possible superhero.)
It’s possible that Cohen doesn’t personally believe that he has the definitive answers on all questions of morality. A Times Magazine focus group may have decided that the column could appeal to its readers’ desire for some pseudo-intellectual snobbery by reminding them of the good ol’ days of Philosophy 101. Or it might be a complete accident. I still enjoy the column anyway. However, I do think it’s worth pointing out that morality is not as clear-cut as it usually sounds in Cohen’s answers. My coblogger A and I are going to start a series which we’re calling Questionable Ethics. Each week, we’re going to examine the complexities of the situations described in “The Ethicist,” with the hopes of elucidating some of the nuances that Cohen ignores.
(We’re not the first people to attempt to supplement this column with an alternative point of view. I used to read and enjoy Gawker’s “The Unethicist,” but that doesn’t appear to be running anymore. And anyway, our approach will be a bit… different.)
I want to say first of all that there’s a lot of dispute about the meaning of “ethics” versus the meaning of “morality.” Are they synonyms, or are they completely different concepts? We’re not going to mess with that one. There is certainly a usage in which they are synonymous. We’ll mean the same thing when we talk about a “moral system” or an “ethical system,” a set of rules by which one determines right from wrong. Being “moral” or being “ethical” will mean taking actions that are considered good. The real point here is that there isn’t one single road map to ethical/moral behavior; there are numerous systems (many written down by philosophers, and theoretically infinite unwritten possibilities) that prescribe the path to follow.
This week, Cohen looks at three questions. The last two are fairly straightforward, so I’ll focus on this first letter.
When my flight to Guangzhou, China, landed, health officials in full protective gear boarded and used noncontact sensors to take the temperature of each passenger. Before landing, a questionnaire was distributed, asking if I had a fever or cough, if I noticed anyone near me with flu symptoms and, if so, to provide their seats or row numbers. Was I obliged to inform on other passengers? They got the same questionnaire. LARRY LOCKER, POMPANO BEACH, FLA.
Cohen says that the Chinese officials “did not ask [Larry] to point out members of Falun Gong” and pronounces that he ought to cooperate, since lying would be equivalent to “[covering] up a potential disease carrier and [abetting] the spread of flu.” To Cohen, it’s very simple: there’s a health threat, so you follow orders. But it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Remember that Larry isn’t flying home to Florida. American health officials might not have been working under perfect procedures either, but at least in the United States there is a relatively transparent system of oversight, and of checks and balances. Overeager government regulations can be overturned in court. You aren’t supposed to be detained without cause, and you have the right to challenge your detention. You can tell your story to the press and get publicity.
None of these checks exist in China, and their overzealous quarantine procedure to prevent the spread of H1N1 swine flu has been widely criticized. They’re willing to lock people up for days if they have a “fever” of 98.9 degrees Fahrenheit (not even necessarily a high temperature when you consider that 98.6 degrees was actually Fahrenheit’s own body temperature, and that normal body temperature varies slightly from person to person). They’re willing to quarantine large groups of people solely on the basis of their having been on the same flight with someone who showed possible flu symptoms. Is it worth subjecting someone (or, potentially, your entire flight) to days of quarantine because someone in your row had a tickle in his throat from those dusty airline peanuts?
You might say that it is. Swine flu spreads fast, and harsh quarantine procedures might be the best way to fight it. Or you might believe that these measures are too strict, and the cost of one or two people with flu slipping through the cracks is worth the benefit of all these dozens of healthy people able to enjoy their travels and carry on their normal lives. Who’s to say? It’s easy to argue that in a democracy like the United States, an individual ought to defer to the decision of the government. China’s government doesn’t have that moral legitimacy, so the decision of whether or not to obey it is not as cut-and-dried.
Cohen says that “when asked if you have a duty to give honest answers to health officials working to deter a pandemic, the answer is yes, you do.” But that’s his answer. The study of ethics doesn’t speak in a single voice.
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[...] unmentioned in Randy Cohen’s New York Times Magazine column, “The Ethicist.” (See here for a bit more background.) This week, Cohen covers two dilemmas about [...]