“DANGER, Other Woman…DANGER!!!”

Today, syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson (“Ask Amy”) answered a query with admirable directness, properly defining the proper  use of ethics alarms for a woman who was puzzled about what to do when the answer should have been obvious. Unfortunately, Amy adopted the letter-writer’s incorrect terminology for an ethics alarm, based on the help-seeking “other woman” in an adulterous relationship writing that her relationship was beginning to feel “icky.”

As we have discussed here many times, “ick” and unethical conduct are not necessarily the same thing.  Humans naturally assume that what is strange or instinctively repugnant is wrong, but that assumption always needs to be tested by sound and objective ethical analysis. The best current example: to heterosexuals, gay sex is “icky,” but that doesn’t make it unethical or wrong. When Amy uses the term “ick-o-meter,’ what she means is “ethics alarm.” Continue reading →