ethics conflicts

Ethics Zugzwang Exemplified: The “Friend in a Lousy Show” Conflict

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I’d be surprised if I haven’t posted on this before, but a recent advice column article about the issue made me realize that the common conflict almost all of us with friends in the performing arts face routinely is as perfect example of the phenomenon I have termed “ethics zugzwang” as there is.

A theater reporter in the New York Times wrote a column titled, “My Friend’s Show Was Kind of Terrible. What Do I Say When I See Them? (You can always consider telling the truth, but it may not be advisable in this case.) [Gift link!] He breaks down the options as,

  • “Tell the truth, as a form of tough love.
  • Find something to say that is appreciative but also incomplete.
  • Lie.”

After reporting on interviews with performers and others in show biz, the reporter concludes that the most ethical option is “Lie.” He concludes, “So what to do? The consensus among those I spoke with is that the best way to be a friend is to be supportive. Leave the critical feedback to other people and other settings. ‘I think the move is always to lie,’ said the musical theater composer Joe Iconis . ‘Whether you enjoyed the show or not, if you’re actually a friend to the person who is part of the production, your job is to say ‘great job, fantastic show.’ I have never once appreciated a friend who came to a show of mine and offered unsolicited negative comments.’”

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Comment of the Day: “A Tragedy in the Czech Republic Reveals the Pro-Abortion Hypocrisy”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This excellent Comment of the Day (which I happen to agree with completely, though that is never a requirement for COTDs) was sparked by a statement by esteemed EA squid, Extradimensional Cephalopod. This seem like a propitious time to salute EC, who is very thoughtful on this classic ethics conflict issue, for alerting me to a Zoom debate on abortion held by his group, Braver Angels (“leading the nation’s largest cross-partisan, volunteer-led movement to bridge the partisan divide…”).

Here is jeffguinn’s Comment of the Day on the post, “A Tragedy in the Czech Republic Reveals the Pro-Abortion Hypocrisy,” which appeared here on April 10:

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Extradimensional Cephalopod said: It sounds like you’re presupposing the existence of a person who is killed in that situation. I think it’s simple enough to understand that people live in human brains, and if a human body hasn’t developed a brain, that means a person cannot yet have started to live in that body. Does that make sense? 

Presuming the concept of personhood is morally relevant, then it makes sense. That presumption is the entire basis upon which the pro-choice point of view rests. 

Accept as presented the assumption that personhood is an objectively definable state before which there is no ethical alarm set off by choosing an abortion.

Even granting without dissent that most essential assumption gains nothing.

Existence preceding personhood — the interval between achieving that status and conception — still has precisely two ways of ending: natural cause, or homicide. There is no other option.

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Ethics Tip (To the Biden Administration): You Can’t Resolve an Ethical Conflict By Taking Contradictory Actions Simultaneously

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I would think that would be obvious to mature, competent, experienced and responsible policy-makers. But perhaps that’s not relevant here…

I awoke today to the news that the United States has air-dropped “humanitarian aid” into Gaza. Three US C-130s dropped 66 palettes of food, 22 from each aircraft. Biden complained last week about the slow pace of assistance flowing into Gaza, the Israeli campaign against which the United States is supporting with its funds. Wars against enemies are designed to make the populace under attack less well-off, eventually to the point where their government says “Enough!” and surrenders. Aid to a population under attack is intended to make the population under attack better off. Simultaneously funding an attack on a region and sending aid to that region isn’t ethical. It is offensively cynical, not merely refusing to make a decision, but making contradictory decisions to appeal to groups with diametrically opposing interests. Sending aid of any kind to the enemy of the nation we are supporting in a war can accomplish little more than extending that war. The most ethical way to engage in the unethical practice of warfare is to end it as quickly as possible.

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An Ethics Conflict Conundrum: The Fraudulent Friend

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

From “The Ethicist” (that’s the New York Times Magazine’s ethics advice columnist, his name is Kwame Anthony Appiah, and he’s not bad) comes a new version of an eternal ethics conflict that I have encountered both hypothetically and in life:

My friend told me that she and her husband, who combined earn around $500,000, asked their son’s stepmother to declare him on her taxes for the last two years so that he could get more financial aid for college. Their son doesn’t even live with the stepmother, and she provides no support.

I just learned that her son is now getting a full grant to a very expensive private college. I’m supposed to take a weekend trip with my friend in a few weeks, but I’m so angry about this I don’t know if I can speak to her. Is this fraud? What is my responsibility in this situation?

“The Ethicist” waffles and settles on,

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The Answer To This “Ethics Question” is Easy, But There’s More To It Than The Answer

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The New York Times headline is “How a Dog’s Killing Turned Brooklyn Progressives Against One Another.”

It begins with this opening, which is raw meat tor an ethics blogger:

Real-world ethics question: In a well-used city park, a man with a history of erratic behavior attacks a dog and its owner with a stick; five days later, the dog dies. The man is Black, the dog owner white; the adjoining neighborhood is famously progressive, often critical of the police and jail system. At the same time, crime is up in the neighborhood, with attacks by emotionally disturbed people around the city putting some residents on edge.

In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?

Well, let’s start with the point that if an ethics question isn’t “real world,” then it’s useless, or at best a waste of time. Ethics is the process of figuring out what the right thing to do is in possible situations that require balancing, prioritizing, and maintaining societal standards and principles without which civilization devolves into chaos. The first question shows flawed ethical analysis from the outset: “In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do?” The right thing to do isn’t affected by how dog-loving the community may be, or what attitudes toward law enforcement and social justice may be. Attitudes, like biases, don’t alter the ethics rules, they just affect whether the results of applying them are popular.

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From Acceptance To Celebration: An Ethics Conflict (Don’t Bother Trying To Explain This To Bill Maher)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

With his uncanny instinct for taking bows for making an obvious observation while missing the point, pseudo-comic Bill Maher once again engaged in his favorite topic of fat-shaming last week, this time with a “Eureka!” to share. The U.S. has inexplicably gone from fat acceptance to “fat celebration,” which the HBO wit <gag!choke!> calls a “disturbing trend.”

This isn’t a “trend,” nor is it disturbing, and it isn’t a phenomenon confined to obesity. Bill could have educated his audience—which, as usual, arfed and clapped like the human seals they are—but instead ignored the real problem, which is partially fueled by people like him.

And it’s an ethical one. Society’s goal is to make the human beings within it safe and happy. This requires setting standards, much of which it accomplishes with law and law enforcement, and the rest it pursues by making values, virtues and positive, societally beneficial conduct clear. Society then encourages and rewards those who meet those standards, and shames, disapproves and rejects those who defy them.

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Baseball Hall Of Fame Ethics: This 2016 Post Just Became Ripe And Moot At The Same Time

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The sportswriters who decide who is admitted to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame voted in David Ortiz yesterday. The Red Sox and Boston icon (Carl Yastrzemski once said that while Ted Williams was the greatest Boston baseball player, Ortiz was the most important, and he was right) sailed into the Hall in his first year of eligibility, an honor few players have ever been accorded.

It was no surprise. In addition to having unquestionable statistical qualifications, “Big Papi” is also personally popular. That matters, a lot; the writers this year rejected Boston pitching ace Curt Schilling who also has impeccable Hall qualifications, because they don’t like him. Schilling is opinionated, combative, religious, and worst of all, politically conservative. Can’t have that. On the plus side, the writers also rejected steroid cheats Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, as well as almost certain steroid cheats Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Gary Sheffield.

In 2016, anticipating and dreading yesterday’s news, I wrote a post titled, “The Wrenching Problem Of David Ortiz, The Human Slippery Slope.”

Here it is again.

Ethics conflicts force us to choose when multiple ethical principles and values point to diametrically opposed resolutions.  Often, a solution can be found where the unethical aspects of the resolution can be mitigated, but not this one. It is a tale of an ethics conflict without a satisfactory resolution.

I didn’t want to write this post. I considered waiting five years to write it, when the issue will be unavoidable and a decision mandatory. Today, however, is the day on which all of Boston, New England, and most of baseball will be honoring Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, who will be playing his finale regular season game after a 20 years career.  His 2016 season is quite possibly the best year any professional baseball player has had as his final one; it is definitely the best season any batter has had at the age of 40 or more. Ortiz is an icon and a hero in Boston, for good reason. Ortiz was instrumental in breaking his team’s infamous 86-year long “curse” that saw it come close to winning the World Series again and again, only to fail in various dramatic or humiliating ways. He was a leader and an offensive centerpiece of three World Champion teams in 2004, 2007, and 2013. Most notably, his record as a clutch hitter, both in the regular season and the post season is unmatched. You can bring yourself up to speed on Ortiz’s career and his importance to the Red Sox, which means his importance to the city and its culture, for nowhere in America takes baseball as seriously as Beantown, here.

That’s only half the story for Ortiz. Much of his impact on the team, the town and the game has come from his remarkable personality, a unique mixture of intensity, charm, intelligence, generosity, pride and charisma. After the 2013 terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon, which shook the city as much as any event since the Boston Massacre, Ortiz made himself the symbol of Boston’s anger and defiance with an emotional speech at Fenway Park. Then he put an exclamation point on his defiance by leading the Red Sox, a last place team the year before, to another World Series title. Continue reading →

Recalling The Day I Realized My Ethical Priorities

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Dent homerun

Tonight, at 8:00 pm, the American League Wild Card game will commence featuring the New York Yankees playing the home town Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park. After a back and forth, up and down season for both teams, they ended up with exactly the same record, 92-70. The two top non-division winning teams in both MLB leagues have to play one game elimination contests to gain admission to the Divisional Playoffs regardless of their records, but in this case, the game is also a tie-breaker.

For me, and based on the sports columns, for a lot of people, tonight’s game brings back a flood of memories. Almost exactly 43 years ago, on October 2, 1978, light-hitting Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent (that’s Bucky Fucking Dent in Boston, and forever) hit a cheap, pop-up three-run homer over Fenway Park’s Green Monster in the seventh inning, giving NY a lead against the Red Sox that they never relinquished despite several more twists of fate. Now, once again, the two long-time rivals—Boston sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, you know—have a one-game date with destiny. But this is an ethics blog, so the topic is not my PTSD flashbacks over that game, but the ethical significance of the conflict I faced on October 2.

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Comment Of The Day: “Post-Labor Day Ethics Laments, 9/7/21” (Item #1, The Baseball Player’s Long Paternity Leave)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

alex-verdugo-girlfriend-2021-2-600x600

The Comment of the Day below is really two consecutive comments in the same thread, as Sarah B. argues that fathers are not only justified in leaving their jobs at critical times to be with their wives at childbirth and thereafter for as long as they deem necessary, but that this is the most ethical choice. My note prompting her response involved the case of Red Sox star Alex Verdugo, who left the team at a crucial time when the season hung in the balance, and stayed away for four days to be with his girlfriend and their new-born child: there is no indication that he provided anything but companionship and moral support.

(I just learned that he is not married to the mother (above). No, I don’t think that changes the ethics issue, though it raises others.)

I stated that this was a breach of his duty to the team, which he is paid handsomely to respect. I am quite certain that this is the correct ethical position, but my view represents the resolution of an ethics conflict, where two ethical principles oppose one another. I can’t say that how Sarah prioritizes these principles is wrong, only that I would prioritize them differently, and have in analogous situations.

Here is Sarah B’s Comment of the Day on #1 from the post, “Post-Labor Day Ethics Laments, 9/7/21.” I will have a few rebuttal points at the end…

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“The priorities are linked, but still need to be ranked and four days is nothing. Heck, if my husband only got four days after the birth of our children, unless his absence from me would literally cause someone to die, I’d give him the choice of his job or his family. If we want men to step up and be good husbands and fathers (which would do amazing things for our society) we need to let them do that. Considering what a woman’s body goes through with the birth of a child and the incredible amount of healing she must do after the fact, four days barely lets a mom get home from the hospital (having had complication-free natural births has led to us getting to go home on day three at my hospital) and set up a good feeding schedule for the first kid (my best kid so far took two weeks before we got the bugs worked out enough for their health and mine). Subsequent kids require so much more because of the need to care for the older children too. The fact of being in high levels of pain for every action and dealing with incredible dizziness for days lead to a new mom being a literal danger to herself and the baby (not to mention any other kids) if left alone. According to my OBs, that condition is totally normal, even expected.

“Due to the danger, new moms are forbidden from lifting their own child or walking with the child in their arms in my hospital. My hospital also asks about the support a mother can expect for at least two weeks post baby before they will even let the child go home with the mother. Sure, a lot of us rely on other family members for that second (or third or fourth week), but the dad has to be there in the beginning if he wants to start himself off on a good foot of proper prioritization of responsibility. Most marriages I have seen where a dad does not give totally of himself for 1-2 weeks after a baby are at best strained. The mother needs support, and who is best able and most desired to give that support, but the father of the baby? If MLB cannot give new fathers a week away at minimum, they need to require that their players are celibate while on contract, so no babies come about. If a multimillion dollar contract is enough to abandon a wife and kid for at a time of great need, it should be enough to abandon sex for. Family is the primary responsibility, and all the more so at the birth of a baby.

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Thoughts On What An Ethical Solution To The Abortion Ethics Conflict Might Look Like, Part I: 25 Stipulations

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

pregnant-woman-with-friends

This is Labor Day, after all…

Eventually it is irresponsible and cowardly to criticize all of the rhetoric regarding abortion and not make a serious proposal. I feel like I’ve reached that point.

Let’s start with what we have to work with.

25 Stipulations

I have not labored to put these in order of priority or importance, and many constitute “but on the other hand” reflexes upon considering the previous point. I’ll bold the items that seem particularly important as I post them. I am certain that I will miss some or many points that need to be considered as well.

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