Topics Ethics

Question What is it about some situations that make certain problems ethical or moral in nature, and others not? It can't be merely that different parties are involved in a situation - the decision as to whether to ask a person on a date or not is not an ethical one, but a social/emotional one. Harm doesn't seem to be sufficient either - accepting or refusing an invitation to a date likewise doesn't seem an ethical question, even if the person, if rejected, might enter a deep depression. So what is it that differentiates ethical problems from the rest?

Accepted:
October 27, 2010

Comments

You might draw two distinctions here: between a situation and some way of responding to, or acting in, this situation; and between some situation or conduct requiring moral reflection and some situation or conduct being morally problematic.

Pretty much any social situation requires some moral reflection: there are almost always conduct options that are wrong in that situation. For example, you might ask someone on a date in a insulting way, suggesting that you'll pay the meal only if you can have your way afterward; or you might decline a date in a humiliating way, saying that you would not want to be seen dead with so ugly a person. Such responses are morally wrong, and you need to be aware of this and avoid them. You also need to be aware that you should not ask just anyone on a date, not your student and not your friend's partner, for instance, and that you should not accept a date with such people even when they ask you out. So while many cases of offering and accepting/declining invitations on a date are morally unproblematic, you still need a little moral reflection to assure yourself that the present case is a morally unproblematic one and that you can just decide as you wish.

You contemplate a case where you are invited on a date and know that by declining you would plunge the other person into deep depression. You say that this sort of situation does not raise an ethical question. Really? A person falling into a deep depression is surely a very terrible thing to happen; and surely it would be greatly preferable, morally, if you could avoid causing this disaster. Now I agree with you that you cannot reasonably be expected to date (and perhaps marry!) someone you don't like just to avoid such a depression. But should you not at least try to find a diplomatic way of helping the other person over the crush s/he has on you?

When people act badly, in a moral sense, this can be traced back to one of three failings: (1) people understand that what they are about to do is wrong, but they do it anyway; (2) people incorrectly judge that what they are about to do is morally permissible; and (3) people do not morally reflect on what they are about to do -- perhaps because they judge it to be "not a moral question" or perhaps because they simply don't think. In my view, this third sort of failing causes more harm and suffering in the modern world than the other two. The world would be a far better place if we all paid more moral attention: in our daily interactions and also to what goes on outside our immediate perceptual space. (For example, it may seem morally entirely unproblematic for a guy to buy himself that metallic-blue Jaguar he had always wanted ... until you ask yourself whether he might not have bought a less polluting car and donated the savings to an organization that is working on protecting the health of victims of the Haiti earthquake.) I don't think that there is, in our world, any substantial morality-free space of the kind you wish for.