An ethically clueless woman asked the New York Times advice columnist “The Ethicist,” aka. NYU’s Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy prof, an even more ethically clueless question than his usual inquirers.
She said that a friend of her teenage daughter obviously has a serious drinking problem, passing out, falling down and urinating on herself. Should Mom alert the girl’s parents?
“…Her parents, however, are known to be very strict, and the girls fear that telling them will result in severe punishment rather than support, or that it will ruin their friend’s trust completely.As a parent, my instinct is clear: If this were my daughter, I would want to know so I could intervene before something catastrophic happens. But I worry about blowing up this girl’s home life or driving her behavior further underground if her parents react punitively rather than therapeutically. Do I have a moral obligation to inform her parents, even if it might mean harsh consequences for her? Or does my duty lie in guiding the teenagers on how to handle this among themselves?”
What a moron.
Oh no, clearly your duty is to wait until this girl dies, or lets untreated alcoholism ruin her life, because you wouldn’t want her to stop trusting her friends like your daughter! Not only that, but we all know that the ascendant Left doesn’t believe in harsh consequences for anything, not even murdering one’s children. By all means, leave the girl’s fate in the hands of a bunch of teenage girls! They are renowned for solving complex problems with impeccable judgment. Look at this from the drunk girl’s perspective, ideally after about four shots of bourbon.
The woman actually employs the Golden Rule, which is ideally suited for ethics issues like this, then tries to talk herself out of the right response because of toxic empathy. Buried in The Ethicist’s typically wordy response (he has a column to fill, after all) is this definitive point:
“It’s hard to see how she can get the assistance she requires without her parents knowing.”
No, that’s impossible to see.
The girl’s parents must know. How could they not? Eesch.
I have four children and they were really good at hiding evidence. There were some dangerous activities going on at home, including drinking and I had no clue. They did not tell on each other. I heard stories years later.
My youngest son has recently endured life-threatening health crises because of alcoholism. I have always thought he drank too much, but I had no idea how bad it’s been – no one tells me, and he is very good at disguising his drinking. He is an addict – manipulative, deceitful, charming. The entire family has been enabling one way or another for decades, mostly without realizing it. He held down a job for thirty years, coached several of his children’s basketball and baseball teams, attended church. He seemed to be functioning quite well. His wife did not reveal. I don’t know if we could have convinced him to get help , but I would have preferred to know years ago. Perhaps he could have been persuaded to go to meetings or rehab. We’ll never know.
A teenager with a drinking problem requires immediate help. The only ethical, moral course of action is to tell the parents. With treatment she will have a fighting chance at a healthy, successful life. The ethicists response should have been much more direct.
As with most of his answers.
Oh My, GL.
Based on my exciting work as a liquor store clerk, I have drafted a two page essay on how to drink (slighly) more safely. I have yet to post it online–especially since my boss probably wouldn’t like it.
Alcohol abuse disorder (drinking too much and binge drinking) is now clinically distinguished from alcoholism, which the clinicians seem to prefer limiting to situations of physical dependence.
It’s not a vitamin. But it’s not new.
One of the core lines in my little essay / guide is “Treat alcohol with respect. It is a powerful and dangerous substance.”
My essay also mentions that the LD-50 is dangerously low. A decade ago research concluded that about 2,000 individuals died every year in the USA from acute alcohol poisoning. 2/3ds of the victims would fail a diagnosis for alcoholism (physical dependence).
This was in the newspaper. A motivated reader could probably track down the original study.
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I actually think it takes decades for the average person to learn how to drink responsibly.
Some people don’t face that challenge because alcohol is simply not very enjoyable to them. Thomas Sowell wrote (somewhere) that alcohol makes him unpleasantly sick before he is pleasantly drunk–thus he has never really been at risk of over-indulging.
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For some people they are best off simply not drinking at all. I know some people like that who won’t stop. And I know people who concluded they should abstain and they simply won’t touch the stuff.
Others can benefit from “harm reduction” and simply working to limit their consumption.
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If the young lady in question is a teenager she is not yet legal. Not that such a situation tends to stop people. Teenagers get willful. Some of them, at least.
The parents should be informed so that they know. Every family situation is different.
Many teens benefit from not drinking until they are legal. Or ideally, in their mid 20s when their pre-frontal cortex is fully developed.
Others are probably better off simply having an all consuming and demanding goal that crowds out drinking to excess. Ambition and a good internal locus of control pushes some youngsters time and energy elsewhere. Athletics, medical school, something–can get in the way of drinking too much for some of us. My Ph.D. studies probably helped in part. “I didn’t come to Iowa City to drink” sometimes ran through my mind as I walked past the carousing undergraduates on a Thursday night.
It’s not “one size fits all.”
I tell the newly legal drinkers who come into my place of employment, if I can get them to listen…
“Now that you’re legal, nobody’s trying to slow you down.”
Thanks for reading. have a great Labor Day.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
I think the opposite approach may have some merit. My parents allowed us to drink from a quite young age, maybe 5 or 6. By ‘drink’, I mean we were allowed to have a small amount of sweet wine at holidays (by small, I mean about a shot). My father also liked homemade apple cider, as that had been common where he grew up. If you put fresh apple cider in the fridge for a week or so, it gets a little fermentation (1-2% alcohol). It gets a little bite and it is carbonated. I was allowed to drink this as well, about a small glass at a time. My parents rarely drank, but they wanted us to learn to drink responsibly. I never had an urge to drink a lot. By the time I was a teenager, the only alcoholic beverages I had ever had tasted good, were sweet, and I had never had enough alcohol to become even slightly intoxicated. I never liked beer, and my Kentucky relatives taught me the proper way to drink fine Bourbon (straight and in small sips). I later found out that my father never drank because he metabolized alcohol fast enough to get a hangover before becoming intoxicated. I found out much later that I was the same way.
I vary rarely drink today. I have too many responsibilities and it just seems more trouble than it is worth. I have a bottle of wine in the fridge I have been using for cooking. It has been there 2 years. I probably need to make sure it isn’t vinegar before I use it again.
If alcohol is not mystified, its abuse is less rebellious, at least for some people. My brother an cousins all had the same alcohol treatment as children and none of them drinks to any extent.
Has there been a time Appiah has actually correctly advised someone on ethics? Not counting soft balls (which he has even managed to miss).