The Ethicist

“The Ethicist’s” Tender Feelings for Law-Breaking Neighbors and Illegal Immigrants

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Maybe someone needs to check Prof. Attiah’s citizenship status…

A New York Times reader (and you know what that usually means…) writes to “The Ethicist”…

“About a year ago, a very nice family moved into the rental home next door. We have shared food and invited them to our pool in the summer, and we always exchange greetings from yard to yard. About six months ago, the father’s auto-shop location apparently became unavailable. He and his mechanics now work on cars in their yard and driveway. At times, 15 cars line their driveway and fill the front yard, in obvious states of repair — hoods up, engines removed. This “shade tree” business practice is illegal in our city, and the number of cars and the manner in which they are parked violates city codes. We and our neighbors worry it’s driving down the property value of adjacent homes, and we plan to sell within a few years.

I’m uncomfortable raising this with the family because I doubt they can do much without losing income. Moving to a new garage would obviously be costly. And if I talk to them and the outcome is unsatisfactory, I’d be the obvious culprit for any report to the city. Our friendly terms would disappear.

I’m also reluctant to report because the family is from Venezuela. (They mentioned having green cards, though I never asked.) I’m afraid that even a code violation could draw attention from ICE, which has an aggressive, unpleasant presence in my city. Thoughts?”

Yeah, I have some thoughts:

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The “Other Woman” Scorned Asks The Ethicist: “Is It Ethical To Wreck the Bastard’s Marriage?”

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

I’m surprised she didn’t ask if she could cook his little girl’s bunny too, like Glenn Close did in “Fatal Attraction.”

It amazed me that someone like this reads a NYT column called “The Ethicist.” She’s sounds like she’s never heard of the concept. She writes,

Last summer, I was dating a man in our weekender community outside New York City who seemed like a wonderful guy. A month after we became intimate, he told me that he was married but that he had been separated from his wife for a year. He explained that the reason he has not gotten a divorce is that she has cancer and is on his health insurance. He said she had just had surgery and was recovering. Naturally I felt compassion and said I wouldn’t push him. Eventually, I ended the relationship, because I started feeling I wasn’t getting the full story. When I mentioned our relationship to a friend who also knows him, I learned that my instincts were correct. Apparently, he is very much still with his wife, and she is healthy. I am so shocked by this. Should I contact his wife and let her know this is what he is doing and saying? Given that they are both journalists, I would think veracity would be a priority.

Translation: “I hate this lying bastard and want to hurt him, and his wife too. That’s OK, right?”

Uh. no. I haven’t even read The Ethicist’s answer, but Prof. Appiah, for all his faults and weaknesses, surely can get this one right. Let’s see…

Yup. In a mealy-mouthed way, but he agrees.

The Ethicist Answers An Officious Jerk

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

…and much more nicely than I would have,

“Name Withheld” says that a member of her book club typically regurgitates online reviews of the assigned books that she seldom reads, aggressively presents them as her own, and is begging for a slapdown. “In the days before a meeting, she will casually share with me that she ‘couldn’t get into it,’ but she never says so to the other members. I sit there steaming but don’t reveal her duplicity. What would you do?,” she asks Prof. Appiah, the Times Magazine ethics advice columnist in lat week’s column, “A Woman in My Book Club Never Reads the Books. Can I Expose Her?”

“I get why you’re peeved,” the professor says. So do I: she thinks a social book club is a seminar for credit. “Still, the first rule of book clubs is that someone will always show up having read only the first chapter and the last page, armed with three profound observations from Goodreads.” No, that’s the second rule of book clubs. The first rule is to provide a regular opportunity for people to get together and socialize in the context of a structure more potentially engaging than arguing about Donald Trump. “Your job, in any case, isn’t to police her page turns. Cast yourself as the enforcer, and you betray the spirit of a group dedicated to forging connections through stories.”

Bingo.

“But the goal isn’t to humiliate her…maintain your small, imperfect community. One thing you’ll have learned from your books, after all, is that the flawed characters are always the most human.” Yadayadayada. Maybe she’s having cognitive issues. Maybe she’s dyslexic. Maybe she’s lonely and just wants company. Maybe she’s insecure about her analytical ability. The woman’s cheating in her book club exploits literally hurts nobody but herself at worst, and possibly allows her some human contact that she desperately needs at small cost to the other members.

Sure, the inquirer can expose her. To me, however, the fact that she’d even consider it means I’d rather have the book faker in my club than her.

“The Ethicist” Answers the Dumbest Question Yet…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Sure, Prof. Appiah answers the question from “Name Withheld” correctly, because if he didn’t, the New York Times would have to send its long-time author of its weekly ethics advice column to Madam Louisa’s Home for the Addled and Bewildered. But why did he feel he had to answer such an easy question at all? Slow week for the ol’ mailbag, Kwame?

A wife worried about the fact that her husband is sedentary, fat, and getting fatter asked if it was wrong to try to get him to take affirmative steps to lose some weight. “As we both approach 50,” she writes, “I worry that his B.M.I., which is 30, and his B.R.I. (body roundness index, a measure of abdominal fat) are high (he can’t even button some of his shirts around the middle), which could lead to other health issues. I’ve already tried encouraging him to move more and eat better, but I can’t schedule every one of my workouts for us to exercise together, and he dislikes some of the routines I do, anyway. He’s also very sensitive about his weight.”

“Is it wrong for me to try to get him to take Ozempic?,” she finally asks. “I’m hoping that losing weight will help boost his energy levels, which might lead to more self-care. I know it’s not my body, and I’m not his doctor, but as his wife I also know it will fall to me to care for him if health issues arise.”

Ignore her concentration on Ozempic; she’s not asking about the risks involved with that medication or about the perils of quick fixes. She’s asking if it is wrong (this is The Ethicist she’s writing to) for a spouse to try to get the man she has vowed to love and to cherish to be responsible and take care of himself before it’s too late. Ozempic, Weight Watchers, jogging, whatever: how can a wife’s diligent efforts to somehow convince her husband to get healthier be wrong, as in “unethical”?

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“The Ethicist” Finally Gets a Difficult Question…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Kwame Anthony Appiah, the philosophy professor who currently writes the New York Times “The Ethicist” advice column, went off the rails (like so may other people I could name) during the Presidential campaign and the post-election freakout, but there are small signs that he’s recovering his professional equilibrium. Boy, I sure hope so.

Last week he was asked by an “emotionally and physically abused” ex-wife, now happily married, if she has a moral (she means ethical) obligation to warn the woman her ex- is now dating about his proclivities as she experienced them. She’s not a friend, but the inquirer and the girlfriend “travel in the same professional circles,” whatever that means.

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Amazing Stories of The Great Stupid: “Interracial Dating as a Sociopolitical Strategy”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This headline on a New York Times “The Ethicist Column” justly attracted mockery across the conservative media spectrum: “As a White Man, Can I Date Women of Color to Advance My Antiracism?” One could do a packed seminar on what’s wrong with that question. You can do whatever you want to do within the law. Whether you are white or not doesn’t change that fact. Dating to make a political statement rather than dating because you want to develop a personal, intimate, lasting relationship with someone else is a Kantian ethics violation, using a human being as a means to an end, thus demeaning and manipulating that person.

This is a victim of The Great Stupid, crying for help without realizing it. My favorites excerpts from the head-exploding letter to Prof. Kwame Anthony Appiah from”Name Withheld”(“a straight white dude and recent college grad who has very progressive beliefs and is looking for a committed partner who, in time, can equitably raise a family with me”):

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“The Ethicist” on Ogling [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Now that “The Ethicist” has finished his mission of pandering to the Trump Deranged among Times readers, he is moving on. I wonder if that ex-Washington Post cartoonist will draw a carton showing him “bending a knee” to the new President? At least his latest topic is a legitimate one as opposed to “Should I shun my mother because she supports Trump?”

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Is This the Silliest Question “The Ethicist” Has Ever Bothered To Answer?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Here’s the headline: “My Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?”

Not being an idiot, “The Ethicist” answers as any rational person might: “Nothing!” Who cares what anyone else does in their discourse, or not, with a Supreme Being? The complaint makes as much sense as “My neighbor insists on wearing his lucky hat when his favorite team is playing; what should I do?”

Apparently what bugs this ungrateful wretch is that the old lady who lives next door not only prays for her but keeps talking about it. The inquirer says that she has told the old woman that she doesn’t believe in religion. Why would she think that would make neighbor less likely to pray for her? Obviously she needs saving: as a godless heathen, the object of the prayers is putting her immortal soul at risk. I don’t understand why she isn’t grateful; after all, when the stakes are so high, it only makes sense to hedge your bets.

“I’m trying to ignore this but it’s really bothering me that she can’t respect my wishes,” Name Withheld writes. Yet the religious neighbor has no reason to respect someone else’s wishes regarding her own personal conduct. The only legitimate objection I can see to this prayer ritual is that the neighbor being prayed for takes it as an insult. If that’s her beef, then she should say to the old woman, “That’s nice that you care about me, but please, if you insist on praying for me, keep it to yourself.”

That’s what The Ethicist suggests too, but adds, “Still, instead of requiring that your octogenarian neighbor change her ways, I wonder whether you might change yours — and learn to accept this woman for who she is, hearing her prayers as a sincere expression of her loving feelings toward you.”

Or a sincere expression of moral superiority?

What, If Anything, Is The Ethical Response To This Trump Derangement Victim’s Letter To “The Ethicist”?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I came so close to not finishing this pathetic lament from someone who has been lied, gaslighted and manipulated to the edge of madness. I’m not going to even bother to read Prof. Appiah’s answer: I thought he had finally stopped picking crazy Trump Derangement inquiries for his weekly column to pander to the Grey Lady’s warped reader base, but he’s back at it with this one.

She wrote, [Gift link! Merry Christmas!]

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Ethics Quiz: The Offensive Compliment

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This quiz comes from the latest inquiry to “The Ethicist.” I disagree with much of Prof. Appiah’s answer, as I often have lately, but I do concede that the question is worthy of a serious ponder.

On their way out a restaurant, a family group was interrupted by a stranger who had also dined there. He said to the inquirer’s comely daughter-in-law, “With all due respect, you are very attractive.” The inquirer rebuked him saying, “That is wholly inappropriate, sir.” The inquiry continued,

“My cousin snapped at me that it was only a compliment. My sister got mad at me for upsetting my cousin. My daughter-in-law appreciated my reaction but said that she has had “way creepier men say way creepier things to her.” I responded to them all that a stranger has no business commenting on the looks of a person, good or bad, and that this man would never have said a word if any man had been standing with us. Who is right?”

Before I give you The Ethicist’s answer and mine,

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….

“Are spontaneous  compliments on a stranger’s appearance per se unethical?”

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