Everyday Ethics

At the risk of alienating most of my family, I want to share a recent conflict between my sister and my father regarding the status of her cat.  This is interesting not because of its controversial and tendentious nature, but because it demonstrates the way in which definitional disputes are relevant to everyday ethical concerns.  The goal will be to point out how philosophical reasoning can help you to resolve these types of conflicts.

The situation is this.  My sister bought a cat, and then moved into an apartment where pets are not allowed.  She got caught with the cat and was told she had to get rid of it.  The cat ended up with my dad, with the agreement that my sister would take the cat back when she moved to a place where pets are permitted.  Now that the time has come, my dad, who has grown quite attached to the cat and has been caring for it for over a year, wants to keep the cat.

The philosophically interesting aspect of this conflict is that my dad and sister, although they may be unaware of it, are actually disagreeing about what the definition of ownership is.  Once this is resolved, or at least addressed, it is possible that the conflict itself can be circumvented. 

We should say a bit more about this conflict over the definition of ownership, as it will be helpful in making sense of how philosophical discourse can help.  For my sister, purchasing the cat conferred ownership upon her.  She owns the cat because she bought the cat.  It became her cat, and this status was never relinquished despite the transfer of physical possession of the cat.

My dad is operating with a much different definition.  For him, caring for and having an interest in the cat’s well-being constitutes ownership of it.  On his view, caring for the cat equates to being responsible for it.  If you are responsible for something, and it is something that can be owned, you own it.  While my sister views ownership as a conferred status that must be specifically relinquished, for my father it is a dispositional set supported by physical possession of the object.

If this is accurate, one way of approaching this is for my dad and my sister to try to find agreement on what really counts as ownership.  If one of them is advocating a view that they don’t actually support, it seems that the conflict should logically fall away.  For example, if they both actually agree with my father’s definition of ownership, my sister cannot reasonably defend her right to the cat based on a definition of ownership that she doesn’t agree with.

To be fair, resolving disputes in this way is probably not going to work unless both people are highly rational and philosophically oriented.  However, realizing the true nature of disputes like this can help those involved to formulate an effective strategy for resolving the conflict.  It may not work to convince the other person that your definition is the right one, but it might be helpful if you are at least aware of the basis for the claim being defended. 

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.