I don’t.
“My Brother’s an Unpleasant Drunk. Can I Cut Him Off?” the headline to The New York Time’s weekly ethics advice column reads. Well, obviously you can cit him off, but this is ethics: should you cut him off? I must confess, I developed a healthy dislike of the inquirer, who may not be a drunk but is also unpleasant. He writes in part…
My brother is an unpleasant drunk, and he drinks too much. A couple of years ago, I took him and his wife to dinner for his birthday. He drove my electric car there — he wanted to try it — but on the way back, because he’d been drinking, his wife drove while he sat in the back. He quickly became abusive, leaning forward, shouting foul language and physically interfering with her….We are in our 60s and 70s, and he has been argumentative, even when sober, since childhood. I ask myself: Why keep putting up with this? Since that night, I’ve largely severed contact. He has never acknowledged what I saw as outrageous behavior from someone being treated to a nice evening. Now and then he texts, “I miss you,” which I ignore; to respond would teach him that he can wait me out. The truth is, we’ve never had much in common. We can’t discuss politics, religion, art, charity — the things I care about most…life feels too short to keep walking on eggshells around him. His wife still invites me to family holidays. I make excuses not to go. She and I get along, but she reminds me that for him “family comes first” and that I’m hurting him. Maybe I mean to. But the bigger truth is that life is easier this way, and I don’t miss the relationship at all. Am I unreasonable to have cut him off? — Name Withheld
The Ethicist essentially tells the writer (Name Withheld) that he shouldn’t feel bad about cutting his brother off. He writes, “My N.Y.U. colleague Samuel Scheffler has argued that relationships we value generate responsibilities. We treat certain bonds as special; in valuing them, we accept special obligations. Siblinghood is often one of those bonds.”
The Ethicist’s colleague is right. But Kwame Appiah says, nonetheless, “Plainly, this bond has lost its value for you and brings more wariness than warmth. If so, the obligation to sustain it weakens. Your estrangement is an acknowledgment that what you had together has ceased to be worth preserving. It’s not a decision made lightly, and it’s not without its own kind of sadness. Still, this may be one of those cases where absence makes the heart grow fonder — of the absence.”
So much for unconditional love, then. The Godfather would have Prof. Appiah whacked. My Greek mother would have a similar response. A sibling is a sibling, and this guy’s brother is in trouble: he needs him. The last one he should have to worry about alienating is his brother.
Direct family estrangements can only be justified, if ever, by truly terrible betrayal. Acting like jerk when a brother drinks too much on his birthday doesn’t qualify.
“Lost it’s value?” A family bond isn’t an automobile or a stock. Lots of sibling relationships involve sacrifice, tolerance and generosity: this weird one may be my favorite. Bothers and sister, like parents and their children, should metaphorically move heaven and earth to maintain their bonds.
Ethics Alarms 
I suppose you believe that your position on this question is objectively, factually correct, rather than an opinion? That there is no reasonable, rational, justifiable counterpoint? That anyone who disagrees is wrong and must be shamed for their foolishness until they realize the One True Ethics?
Ha! I think it’s totally fine to cut ties with someone who is toxic or harmful. Parents are justified cutting off their kids who steal, do drugs, refuse to get help, etc…
I mean, there’s some sort of obligation up to a point but it’s not unethical to cut someone out of your life if you want.
Doesn’t mean you don’t love them anymore.
Despite the lyrics of the old song, one doesn’t deliberately and gratuitously hurt the ones they love.
If you go by Kant ethics, if everybody cut off family when the relationship became strained or difficult family ties wouldn’t mean anything. As others here have pointed out, while there are extreme circumstances where you need to cut family off for your own safety (and if they cut YOU off you have to respect their wishes), this isn’t one of them. If I had a sibling like this (and thankfully I don’t), I might limit contact, especially around alcohol, and probably have a heart-to-heart about the damage his drinking is doing, but I wouldn’t give him the silent treatment.
Now, now EC, don’t be petulant. The family is a unit of civilization, even more so than other groups and organizations. Rejecting an immediate family member fails both Kantian and Reciprocity ethics standards, and the utilitarian argument for it is weak, as The Ethicist proved. Loyalty to one’s family is as crucial as loyal to one’s nation. History has proved that it is objectively correct, because the obverse results in disaster. Many people are ignorant of history, or don’t realize why it is important.
I do think that it’d be better if everyone has someone looking out for them and helping them be better instead of abandoning them. That said, biological family aren’t always the best people for the job, for your sake or theirs.
Tim’s take is constructive because it is proportionate and sets boundaries while leaving the door open for the situation to improve. It takes the would-be shunner’s life into account instead of being nearly-absolutist in favor of shackling you to someone you might not be compatible with.
Also, Jack, epistemologically speaking, “history” cannot “prove” any way of living is “objectively correct”. What you fail to grasp is that there’s a subtle but crucial difference between “we’ve seen this way lead to stable results in the past and we’ve seen other ways fail, so we strongly recommend sticking with tradition because it’s likely to accomplish our goals in the future” versus “this is the objectively correct way to do things, and you would only want to do it another way if you were ignorant, delusional, or just selfish.” The latter is called dogma, and it not only prevents people from considering alternatives that may prove to be more effective (for the same purpose or a similarly worthy purpose), but it often prevents them from considering that the dogma might actually harm some people and that those people might deserve compassion instead of condemnation for criticizing the dogma.
Dogma is a common mistake that conservatives make. They need to walk back their claims on objective laws of existence if they want progressives to take them seriously. Likewise, progressives need to peel back their own dogma to realize that conservative dogma is often based on useful principles that conservatives themselves may not understand, and so we need to take those principles into account when choosing how we proceed. Just keep in mind that principles are tools, not commands.
I don’t think anyone is obligated to maintain a toxic relationship. The family member’s poor behavior is in the wrong and the one who isn’t living up to their family obligations, not the person cutting ties.
I’d be somewhere in the middle – leaning more toward Jack. To “cut someone out” like that – to absolutely refuse any contact under any circumstance is pretty ridiculous. Is there a situation it’s warranted? Absolutely. If my brother is Jeffrey Dahmer or the likes, there ain’t a single connection I’m going to maintain. Is that reductio ad absurdum? Probably, but it shows there isn’t an absolute position to take.
In this scenario – if drinking is the problem, you can maintain a text message relationship and not be affected by it. You can also “sack up” and be more blantant with your criticism. Why should the good sibling have to alienate the bad sibling? Lay your cards on the table and lead by example. Call the sibling out at every turn and make the relationship be based on a “no bullshit” world view. If the truth and criticism is too much for the bad sibling, they’ll probably do the unethical “cut off” until they’re ready to change their ways and stop alienating themself.
So yes, I tend to aim more at Jack’s direction – mostly because I think there’s better punishment than self-alienation.
Keep your distance. Call out BS. Maintain a level of decorum. Keep the relationship alive by minimum necessary levels.
That all sounds good and reasonable to me.
“Unconditional love”? What is that? What does that even mean? +
To me it is a form of manipulation. If it is unconditional, assuming such a thing exists, then it should be mutual, ¿right?
My older brother has cut off all communication with me, my wife, and our son. Why? Beats me. He told my wife there are consequences for my behavior. What behavior? He won’t say – probably because such “behavior” doesn’t exist or if it does it is solely in his mind. My wife wanted to visit him when we went to the West Coast recently Rebuffed? That is being polite. In fact, he was dismissive and rude to her.
At this point, I have given up trying to maintain contact. Why? Because my attempts have been ignored. Completely. In addition, he has been rude to my wife and our son. If he wants to sever ties to his only remaining brother, well, that is how is and how it is going to be. Does it hurt? Yes. Can I change it? Based on the information I have, no. Our son is a bit more blunt: “He mistreated you and my mom. Fuck him.”
jvb
JohnB writes: “Unconditional love”? What is that? What does that even mean? +
To me it is a form of manipulation. If it is unconditional, assuming such a thing exists, then it should be mutual, ¿right?
FIrst, if you require mutuality, that’s a condition and it is not unconditional love. If this has been scarce enough in your life that you question its existence, here are some examples:
In the human world, new parents often (not always) feel this for their newly arrived infant, whom they perceive as being infinitely precious and wonderful. The feeling doesn’t necessarily continue as the infant grows, and the state of teenager will test any parent’s capacity to love unconditionally! Yet some manage (my siblings who are parents have demonstrated this remarkable feat).
If you have not encountered or felt unconditional love in the human realm, consider the dog. Dogs love deeply, instinctively, and unconditionally. Many of us do not deserve this gift, and fail to reciprocate it (hence not fully mutual). But others (like my partner) assert that the bond they felt with their dog literally made life worth living when other relationships failed (his wife walked out on him soon after he was laid off from his job and was already reeling from this blow).
To me, this makes the mistreatment of dogs by their owners particularly cruel and unethical. Other animals (cats?) have much to recommend them as pets but many do not seem to offer the unconditional love that dogs do.
“Does it hurt? Yes.”
With a mere four words you’ve convinced me that you do indeed still love your brother, even under these conditions. Also, you didn’t explicitly say that you’d like to reconcile with him but from everything you did say it’s pretty easy to infer that you would.
So yeah, I think that’s unconditional love.
And I’m very sorry that things between you and your brother have devolved into what it is now.
I’m very grateful that my relationships with my own brothers have always been good. I think we can trace it back to my mother’s family who–to put it bluntly–were like the worst-ever reality TV show before there ever was such a thing and we all learned from their (bad) example that we didn’t want to be like that.
–Dwayne
P.S. Seriously . . . a complete shit-show of cliques, jealously, grudges, pettiness, and malicious silence. My mother was one of TEN children.
Technically, truly “unconditional” love would be directed at all living things, if not everything, because limiting it to only certain entities means it’s conditional.
The mostly-unconditional love most that people are familiar with comes in at least two flavors:
1) Identity-conditional: It doesn’t matter what someone does as long as they remain basically the same person with the same general moral principles. The motivation behind this love is that someone deserves love because of who they inherently are, and they don’t have to accomplish anything to earn that love.
2) Relationship-conditional, where you’ve made a commitment to a person, so regardless of how they change or what they do you maintain your relationship with that person.
I don’t think these kinds of love are inherently unrealistic or a bad idea, but I don’t think it’s healthy to expect every family or romantic relationship to involve unconditional love. As with everything else in existentialism, “love is as love does,” so the real question here is what “unconditional love” would compel us to do for someone else.
si, you are saying Michael was wrong for having Fredo whacked?
I can just see Michael pulling a Costanza at the suggestion.
-Jut
I meant to reply directly to your comment but for some reason it put my post in the main chain. See my response below and Jack’s follow-up if you didn’t get the alert.
I do believe in unconditional love but I accept the fact that people tend to reduce to an absolute minimal level of involvement with family that have caused extreme distress.
I have a brother who walks in highly progressive circles and publicly suggested I was a Nazi for an idea I floated. I told him he was way out of bounds and the forum he chose to convey such a claim was shared by mutual colleagues.
I don’t go out of my way to contact him but I have told other siblings that they should not have to choose between us when inviting us to family gatherings. I have no problem being cordial and if he was in a distress I wouldn’t let him go it alone if asked or if required and couldn’t be asked.
I don’t really know if we can unring the bell and whether he chooses to reach out is up to him. I cannot control his actions and my overtures will be limited to family engagements.
There’s a Sicilian/Italian joke in there somewhere…
While I haven’t seen the whole movie, the snippets I’ve seen tell me that Michael was out of line even by Mafia standards. Fredo wasn’t a clever schemer, he was just a sucker who got played. While it made sense to remove him from family responsibilities, killing him, or even cutting him off completely, was, well…overkill.
Michael’s killing of Fredo marks his mutation into a monster, and crossing the line his father regarded as uncrossable.
Killing the heads of the Five Families as he stood as godfather to his nephew was pretty awful, too.
jvb
I note how important it was to the author that The Ethicist and his readers know he drives an electric car and cares deeply about art and charity.
Yeah, that was among the reasons I decided I would rather be friends with the drunk brother…..
What a timely inquiry to the NYT Ethicist. My half-sister (we share a biological mother, my having been put up for adoption as a baby and she and I connecting some 7 years ago) is heading to court tomorrow. She’s been charged with felony domestic violence. Her minor sons, having seen enough of her beating the crap out of their father while in a drunken rage, videoed the entire incident with the younger of the two boys calling the cops on his mother.
This is on the heels of my last interaction with her a few months ago which involved her physically attacking me in three different locations in a Vegas hotel as I made every attempt to get away from her. I should have been the one to press charges. Might have saved her sons the trouble. I had zero hesitation in completely cutting her off and feel not an ounce of guilt over it, either.
My relationship with my father is tenuous at best. I have come very close to cutting off all contact with him. I figure the extent of my obligations as a daughter are to make sure he is housed, clothed, and fed; being that he is 90. But remaining in an unhealthy relationship with a paranoid narcissist? Nope. No obligation there.
(I’ll be honest, I’ve often wondered if there’s something wrong with me. When I’m done with a relationship, I’m done. There’s no anger, no vengeance, no nothing. There’s nothing. I’m done. And I never go back.)