Questionable Ethics #4
A couple times in this series we’ve responded to articles where Randy Cohen simply seemed to be unnaturally definitive and certain when faced with issues that had lots of gray area. This time, though, I really think he’s just outright wrong. The letter in question:
My listing on ratemyprofessors.com has a few positive ratings, but the majority are from students who gripe about the workload and the density of my lectures. May I suggest to my more-satisfied students that they post a rating on the Web site? NAME WITHHELD, CALIFORNIA
No, says Cohen. It’s “skewing the results” and it’s not ethical. He at least is a little less definitive than usual, quoting a professor who thinks it’s necessary and saying that he “sympathizes” with the position. But really, I think he’s missing the whole point of how the internet works.
How much respect ratemyprofessors.com (or R.M.P., as it’s called in the article), is not clear. To many, posting negative evaluations of your professors on the site is about as worthwhile as writing graffiti about them on a bathroom wall. To others, it’s an honest effort to evaluate professor’s teaching, helpful when many departments ignore teaching in favor of research and other achievements when evaluating professors. I did a little bit of research to try to see which is more true. Looking up professors I know, both from classes I took as an undergrad and those I’ve TAed for as a grad student, I found the ratings correlated pretty well with what I thought of them. On the other hand, the site has a category for rating whether the professor is hot, and whether the class is easy (though they aren’t included in the overall ranking). It’s badly designed, the search function doesn’t work, and the front page sensationalizes bad reviews of famous professors.
If you really do see the site as complete junk, then obviously it’s fine to defend yourself against slander and gossip. That could justify actually lying and creating false users to submit fake reviews. Asking some of the students who like you to say so on the site really is really not so bad.
Even if you think these are good, worthwhile reviews, Cohen seems to not understand how internet polls work. People who have a vested interest in them try to get others to go and vote. You can bet that someone who hated your class put up a facebook status update asking all their friends in the class to submit negative reviews. This doesn’t make the results bad—it just means they measure enthusiasm of those who like/dislike you at least as much as the measure the number of such people. No one would tell presidential candidates that “getting out the vote” was “skewing” the results. You’re supposed to do that. If the reviews submitted represent real positive opinions, there is no way in which anyone is lying.
I think the bigger problem, which Cohen doesn’t even mention, is that such a suggestion coming from a professor to a student won’t appear entire voluntary. No student tells a professor they really hate their teaching. If a student’s view of the class isn’t as positive as the professor thinks, it puts them in a really awkward situation. That is maybe not such a fair way to treat a student. I could imagine, though, that this could be done in a sensitive and reasonable-enough way to prevent this issue. If so, I see no problem with it at all.
Questionable Ethics #3
Welcome back to another edition of Questionable Ethics, where we demonstrate to Randy Cohen and the rest of the New York Times Magazine staff that ethics aren’t something you can simply decree. Let’s get right to it; here’s this week’s column and here’s the first letter.
My daughter, in her late 20s, has a same-sex partner. Most of our very large, very Catholic family knows this except my husband’s parents.They have a summer home, and their rule is that nonmarried children and their opposite-sex partners may not share a bedroom. My daughter and her partner often claim a small room for two, and her grandparents regard the girls, who live together, as good friends. My younger daughter thinks it unfair that she and her boyfriend must sleep in separate rooms. We have a family reunion coming up. Should I say something to my in-laws about my older daughter? NAME WITHHELD
Cohen says that it’s unethical for the writer to out her daughter without her knowledge or consent (unless some crazy monster threatens the globe, but can only be stopped by a lesbian). That seems straightforward enough. Then he goes on to assert that the daughter should “adhere to that rule or find another place to stay.” Sounds like a reasonable call, but what does it mean to adhere to the rule?
Perhaps the daughter and the girlfriend ought to admit that they are “nonmarried” and claim separate rooms. This will be confusing to everyone, since they have been sharing a room in the past. It effectively forces them to come out to the grandparents, which we’ve agreed is an unethical thing to do. (Ditto if they opt out and find their own room. What for? everyone will ask.) Additionally, the odds are pretty small that this family lives in a state where it is possible that this couple can currently become married. So they can’t stay in separate rooms as a nonmarried couple, and they can’t share a room as a married couple. It’s hardly ethical to compel a person to comply with a paradoxical rule like this.
Maybe this daughter simply can’t win with her grandparents. They disapprove of her sexual orientation, they disapprove of sex before marriage, they disapprove of same sex marriage. Yet she is (I assume) in a caring, committed, long-term relationship with someone she wants her extended family to get to know. At some point, one may certainly argue, the daughter is justified in defying rules which are oppressive and unfair. The spirit of the law her grandparents have laid down is that committed relationships are important, and promiscuity is to be discouraged. She is obeying the spirit of the law, and harming no one by ignoring the letter.
On a different course, one might point out that it’s unlikely the grandparents have no idea that these two young women are a couple. They’ve lived together for years. The friend always comes along on family trips, and is coming to a family reunion. I’ve never had that kind of relationship with a roommate, and I don’t know any people who have. One could suggest that the most ethical thing to do is to encourage the daughter to explain the situation to her grandparents, and allow the grandparents to decide which of their “family values” is most important: no homosexuality, no sex before marriage, or actually valuing your family.
Letter number two:
I locked my bicycle to a fence outside my building a few times over two weeks. One morning, it was gone. My landlady had the police remove it, claiming she tried to alert the owner by letting the air out of the tires. She left no note. At the precinct, an officer said she told them the bike had been there for three months. Fortunately, I reclaimed it undamaged. Unfortunately, the police cut the locks: replacement costs are $150. Should my landlady cover that? NAME WITHHELD, NEW YORK
Cohen claims that while the landlady had the legal right to have the bike removed, the ethical thing is for her to replace the broken locks and apologize. However, several points of fact are left ambiguous here. Perhaps they were trimmed out of the letter before publication. I am left wondering: does the fence count as part of the rental property? If so, then surely the writer is entitled to use it, just as one would have use of a lawn or a driveway that came along with a rental. Unless there was a clearly signed and established rule that bikes were not to be chained to the fence, it’s no more ethical (or legal) for the landlady to take the bike than it would be for her to go into the writer’s apartment and walk away with the television set. Of course, the entire building is technically the landlady’s property, but these rights of (reasonable) use are what is signed over in the lease.
If the fence is somehow distinctly part of the landlady’s property—for example, the writer rents a room or two in the landlady’s house, and all the other rooms in the house are considered solely hers—then it would appear that she acted completely within her rights and behaved appropriately. If you leave a bunch of your personal stuff on your neighbor’s porch without informing them, you effectively gave them your stuff. They have no obligation, legally or ethically, to tape a sign on it and wait ten days to see if anyone claimed it. That would actually seem kind of crazy. They are free to throw it away if they want to. The landlady’s actions could be seen as analogous to that sort of situation.
In the absence of answers to these questions, I don’t see how it’s possible to determine who is at fault, and who owes what to whom, and I don’t see how Randy Cohen can purport to have such authoritative knowledge on what is ethical here.
Questionable Ethics #2
This is the slightly belated second installment of our series covering the ethical ambiguities 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 disclosure.
The first letter is from an intern in a district attorney’s office who is often taken for the DA or an ADA when making phone calls. Cohen explains that getting mistaken for the prosecutor is apparently a common problem, even for public defenders, and suggests that we don’t have an infinite obligation to disabuse people of their silliest misconceptions. One ought to make an honest, concerted effort to explain one’s actual identity—merely saying the words one time is not necessarily enough, but something like a preface to every sentence is unnecessary. This seems like reasonable advice that most would agree with.
However, Cohen adds an odd caveat that I think is not so universally acceptable. He writes, “If this were a situation in which the person being interviewed might respond differently, then you would have to continue to clarify your job title, even repeatedly, even at the risk of becoming an old bore.” But… when is that? How does one recognize one of those situations, without having psychic powers? A statement like this can hardly be considered an ethical rule if it is next to impossible for a human being to follow.
Additionally, though, particularly in the legal context, I can see a good argument for doing precisely the opposite. If you are gathering information about a trial, and suspect that witnesses are cooperating with you because they believe you to be from the prosecution side when you are actually from the defense, so much the better for you! The defense should have equal access to that information, and shouldn’t have to bend over backwards so that even the most stupid of witnesses can have the opportunity to obstruct justice. Similarly, if witnesses are telling you things only because they believe you to be in a position of power instead of just a lowly intern, probably they are trying to curry favor, politically or otherwise. Better that their information gets received while no corrupt back-scratching is promised. If someone imagines they’ve been promised favors when they haven’t, that’s their own fault. I’m not sure I am convinced by this, but a reasonable person certainly could conclude that if “the person being interviewed might respond differently,” one has no more moral obligation to clarify one’s identity than in any other case.
The second letter is the following:
I volunteer as a Sunday-school teacher at my Catholic church. While I consider myself Catholic and understand Catholic beliefs, I do not agree with all that the church teaches. When a student asks me about a topic on which the church and I differ, may I reply with my own beliefs in addition to the official doctrine? B.J.,WASHINGTON
Cohen answers that B.J. may, as long as the differing beliefs are presented impersonally as things which some modern Catholics believe. He says it is morally acceptable, and suggests it is morally obligatory, to include this because it is “objectively true, pertinent to the discussion and informative for the students.” While I do personally like the idea of a Catholic Sunday school class including an explanation of the ways many Catholics disobey the Pope, the principle Cohen’s defending here seems so counter-intuitive that I am sure it is not the only possible ethical ruling on the issue.
Cohen says that in a class meant to teach a certain set of material, it is ethical to stop and explain why and how some people disagree with the material being taught, provided that people truly do disagree, and that their disagreement is “pertinent” and “informative.” This sounds like a lovely abstraction, but we would not accept a biology teacher who set aside curriculum time for creationism, or a history teacher who made sure students knew that many people out there don’t believe the Holocaust ever happened, because they would not be doing their jobs (even though these statements are surely true, pertinent, and informative). Perhaps we can imagine a limited context in which these lessons would be acceptable: debunking the claims against evolution made by ID proponents, or discussing the complex sociology of racial hatred—that is to say, pointing out that some disagree with the curriculum, and then explaining why they are wrong.
But this is certainly not what is being proposed in the case of B.J., who is also in a unique situation teaching Sunday school. In that context, even if it is not delivered explicitly, the message is still, “You should believe this.” Presumably, the “this” that B.J.’s church wants the students to hear about is Catholic doctrine, not the ways in which some of the congregants disregard it. B.J. is teaching under the auspices of the church, and so might reasonably be expected to check with the religious education coordinator about what was expected and allowed. This would give the church ample opportunity either to give the go-ahead and assuage B.J.’s concerns, or to inform B.J. that they’d rather find a different volunteer.
One might also take a stand on more basic principles and argue that one has a moral obligation not to propagate beliefs and ideas one disagrees with—that is to say, it would be unethical for a Muslim or a Jew or an atheist, or even for a Presbyterian or a Lutheran, to agree to teach a Catholic Sunday school class, since doing so would misrepresent their own identity and act against their own interests. (This would not be true if a non-Catholic was teaching an academic course, perhaps in comparative religions, which discussed Catholic doctrine. In the Sunday school setting, the teacher is a religious authority figure, at least attempting to instill beliefs in students.) From this ethical perspective, B.J.’s struggles and doubts about proper behavior may be seen as evidence that teaching the class is already too much of a moral compromise.
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. Read more
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