Everyday Ethics

Cloning has been a hot-button social issue ever since the announcement that Dolly the sheep had been successfully cloned.  Visions of Frankenstein’s monster loom in the minds of people who are suspicious of new scientific technology, and there is a strong religious argument against cloning.  However, fans of science fiction have dreamed of the day when Jurassic Park might become a reality.  This became an even more vivid question upon the discovery of a preserved baby mammoth, complete with tissue and intact internal organs.

National Geographic recently wrote a feature article on the discovery of this mammoth, with a supplemental piece on whether we ought to pursue mammoth cloning.  The article was totally inadequate, largely because it failed to raise the relevant moral questions.  Thus, our purpose here will be to do a better job than National Geographic was able to.  We will pursue the tough questions associated with deciding whether we ought to clone the mammoth.

One of my philosophy professors, Dr. Bernie Rollin, is highly critical of those who oppose cloning on moral grounds.  In his view, criticisms of the ethics of cloning tend to take two forms.  Some oppose cloning because it is “against nature,” as though humans have not been manipulating the genetics of other organisms for centuries.  To state Dr. Rollin’s reply simply, if there is something intrinsically wrong with cloning, it’s not clear what.

The other common criticism of cloning tends to be religious, that cloning is a form of “playing God” that makes it morally objectionable.  Even if this criticism were legitimate, a religious concern is not necessarily a social concern unless it can be reformulated in secular terms.  This cannot be done with regard to cloning.  There are legitimate concerns associated with cloning, but they are based on worries about potential consequences, rather than because there is something intrinsically wrong with cloning.

What consequences might we be concerned about?  The most significant ones, in my view, have to do with harm to the animals.  First, if the case of Dolly is any indication, the cloning of a mammoth will result in dozens of failed precursors, many of whom have debilitating health problems, from which they suffer greatly.  Further, the cloned mammoth will be the only one of its kind, and it will be subjected to a life that lacks both social companionship and an acceptable habitat.  The “mammoth steppe” has not existed for a long time, and it is unlikely that an animal like the mammoth would be happy in confinement.  A further worry there is that we have no idea how to properly house a mammoth, because no one has ever done so before.

Dr. Rollin takes the position that if these concerns could be adequately addressed, and we could be sure that negative consequences were kept to a minimum, there is no reason not to pursue cloning extinct animals like the mammoth.  I want to propose a counterpoint.  Lacking a reason against something is not a reason to do it.  If the argument for mammoth cloning is simply “No bad consequences, then why not?” we don’t yet have a good argument for doing this.

In addition, there are good reasons against cloning extinct animals, even if the consequences to the animal could be minimized.  First, I question whether we can ever have certainty that the animal will not suffer as a result of the process of being cloned.  Second, consider who might pursue cloning a mammoth.  One possibility is for food production, the other is as a kind of scientific spectacle.  In both cases, the animal is being exploited for our benefit.  We already do this to millions of animals.  Why create another animal simply for the sake of treating it as poorly as we treat other animals?  Even if the animal lives a good life, it would be created to serve as a means to our own end.

There are two lessons that we can take from considering whether we ought to pursue the cloning of the mammoth.  First, we should be critical of any argument that cites a lack of reasons against something as the equivalent of a reason for it, even when this argument comes from a respected philosopher.  Second, and more importantly, even when the negative consequences of certain actions have been accounted for, we must look at the reasons in favor of pursuing some action.  Even if there are no bad consequences, if we fail to consider how we are treating other morally relevant beings, we risk a moral failing of the deontological kind.  The absence of bad consequences does not always entail moral acceptability.

The housing crisis and the economic mess that followed have led to an interesting, but ethically suspect financial opportunity.  Many homes are now on the market at deeply discounted prices, either because they have been foreclosed on or because their owners are simply trying to get out from under a massive mortgage payment.  Either way, the opportunity is there for the savvy investor to purchase a valuable commodity priced well below its actual (or potential) value.  Economically, this makes a lot of sense.  Ethically, there is cause for concern.

What specifically is the worry?  These homes are available because, at the risk of oversimplification, something bad has happened to their owners.  Thus, investors have the opportunity to turn someone else’s misfortune into a benefit for themselves.  In other contexts, we might question this action.  For example, knowingly purchasing stolen property at a lower price than one would otherwise pay is a case of benefitting from someone else’s misfortune, and we generally disapprove of this action.  In evaluating the ethical acceptability of purchasing foreclosed homes, we might examine this example and try to determine precisely what wrong is being committed.

In the case of buying stolen goods, there are two possible explanations for what wrong is being committed.  First, one might argue that we are further victimizing the victim.  The person whose property was taken has already been harmed by the theft, and purchasing this property further harms them, perhaps by making their property more difficult to recover.  This is a likely reply that many people might give in explaining the harm of purchasing stolen property, and although it has potential, it requires further explanation in order to get to the heart of the matter.

When we buy property that we know is stolen, we are using people as a means to our end.  In other words, we are failing to take their suffering into account.  Buying stolen property fails to demonstrate appropriate respect for other persons.  Though indirectly, it involves using the victim of theft as a means to our end.  It is right to identify this as a further victimization of the victim, but we need to be clear about precisely what the harm is that we are committing when we do this.  Buying stolen property is a lack of respect for persons.

If the harm of buying stolen property is a failure to show proper respect for persons, we are now in a better position to evaluate the question of whether purchasing foreclosure homes is ethically suspect.  This is a tricky question.  On the one hand, we are clearly using this business opportunity as a means to our end, and there isn’t a sense in which we are showing respect for those who have lost their homes.  There is thus a plausible deontological argument against purchasing foreclosure homes on the grounds that it requires us to violate our duty to respect other persons.

On the other hand, there is a relevant disanalogy between purchasing stolen goods and purchasing foreclosure homes.  Stolen goods involve the actions of a third party who directly victimizes another person.  It is often through no fault of their own that people are robbed; they might simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Foreclosures are not like this.  There is no third-party involvement, and in many cases the owner is directly responsible for having their home foreclosed upon.  Buying stolen property is a victimizing of the victim, but buying a foreclosure home is simply taking advantage of someone else’s mistake.

It’s not clear from this early analysis whether buying a foreclosure home is the moral equivalent of buying stolen goods.  If it is, we are guilty of using persons as a means to our end when we buy deeply discounted homes.  But if it isn’t, we are merely shrewd businesspersons capitalizing on the mistakes of others.  I will not attempt to provide an answer here, but rather close with a question.  If someone else’s error makes them susceptible to being used as a means to our end, does their mistake negate or weaken the generally immoral nature of this action?  Once we answer that question, the issue of whether it’s ethical to purchase foreclosure homes falls easily into place.

Justice is a funny thing.  Sometimes justice is about retribution, other times it’s better understood as a type of reconciliation.  Economically, justice also takes two distinct forms.  Some accounts of economic justice focus on an equal and fair distribution of goods, and many people point to the role of historical and social factors in shaping the uneven economic landscape that we see today.  This is worth thinking about, but conceals an important additional consideration.  Not everyone is equally capable, in terms of their natural ability to do certain things, and an economic scheme that places no weight upon merit would seem to be somewhat incomplete.  Questions of justice should also be understood as questions about merit.

What exactly is merit?  One way of thinking about merit is through the concept of desert.  For example, if I have an agreement that my employer will pay me $400 per week for completing certain tasks, and I complete them adequately, I deserve $400 from my employer.  Many rights also imply some form of this concept.  The right to freedom of speech or the right to a fair trial imply some notion of desert, because these are rights that are seemingly deserved in virtue of certain features that all people, or all citizens, share.

The idea of something being merited also carries normative force.  If I deserve to be paid a certain wage in exchange for doing work, I ought to be paid, and a wrong is committed if I am not given what I deserve.  Here the relevance of merits to justice should become clearer.  By failing to consider merit in our account of justice, we risk violating important rights that are morally significant.

Merit and economic justice are especially relevant to things like the economic bailouts that the U.S. government recently authorized.  Many taxpayers feel that they deserve a say in how their tax money is spent, and that at least some companies receiving bailout funds do not deserve them.  Some might go so far as to say that struggling companies deserve to fail.  Others might respond that the importance of a strong economy and the value of economic health merits whatever action is necessary to bring it about.  Whichever side one falls on, it is clear that we cannot talk about things like economic bailouts without talking about merit.

The most important consideration, one that is often overlooked by those who favor a merit-based conception of economic justice over an equality-based account, is that although merit is important, it’s not obvious that it is maximally important.  Many proponents of a merit-based view suggest that because equality-based distributions of goods would violate a person’s right to keep what they deserve, we cannot support an equality-based distribution of economic justice.  It’s not obvious that this is true, and a case can also be made that equality is more important than merit.

Whatever position one advocates, it’s important to note two things.  First, one must be prepared to accept certain consequences of their view, even if they are undesireable.  One must also be prepared to explain why what they value is more important than other considerations.  Asserting the importance of merit over equality, or vice versa, requires an argument to support it.  Often, one is best served by seeking a synthesis of important factors, rather than struggling to find an argument that justifies what is really only part of the relevant picture.

We live in a CYA world. Most people are pretty focused on their own self-interest, and this is a very natural thing to do. We don’t like to have bad things happen to us, and when we have the opportunity to protect ourselves, we usually feel like it’s okay to do so. But often, CYA is not the most ethical strategy, and walking the line between self-preservation and doing the right thing can be exceedingly difficult. The temptation to justify otherwise questionable conduct in the name of CYA is strong, and even exceedingly moral people have trouble resisting it.

Consider the following example. My wife and I will be moving to Ohio in August so that I can start a PhD program at Bowling Green State University. She is also pregnant, and her due date is a couple weeks before our moving date. This means that she will not be returning to her job after going on maternity leave. She recently had to sit down with her boss and discuss when she would be returning, so that they could plan accordingly.

The temptation toward CYA was compelling in this case. Had she refrained from revealing that we would be moving, she could have gone on maternity leave, kept her insurance, and received 60% of her pay for six weeks. However, had they asked her the direct question “when are you planning to return to work,” the only way to retain these benefits would’ve been to lie. Otherwise, her last day of work would not be the day that she goes on maternity leave, it would just be her last day, with no maternity benefits, and no more insurance.

The dilemma, one that we both struggled with, was whether it was acceptable to lie, either directly or by withholding relevant information, in order to serve our own interests in this case. We both decided that it was not, and she opted to tell them the truth. Interestingly, one of her motives for doing this was to avoid the stress of having to maintain the lie over a period of several months. Not only is doing the wrong thing troubling at the time, sometimes it can be very stressful over a longer stretch. What seems to be in your best interest often proves not to be, once this is taken into consideration.

Just today we learned that her company is hoping to allow her to go on maternity leave anyway, even though they know she won’t be coming back. So in this case, doing the ethical thing appears to have been the best decision, though it doesn’t always work out this way. Many companies would’ve jumped at the chance to avoid paying maternity leave and insurance for an employee that they knew wasn’t returning, and I feel fortunate that my wife’s company is not among this group.

The more challenging dilemma is when the best consequences for you are achieved by covering your ass, rather than being ethical. Whatever you happen to decide in these cases, keep in mind that a desire to protect yourself does not change your ethical responsibilities, and opting to cover your ass can often have unpleasant consequences as well. The fact that something isn’t the best deal for you doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do.

Rights talk is a common theme in contemporary moral discourse.  We speak freely of having all sorts of different rights.  Our rights may or may not include a right to freedom of speech, life, non-interference, equal pay for equal work, etc.  If somebody cares about it, you can bet someone, somewhere, has described it as a right.  What’s not always mentioned, but well worth getting clear about, is whether certain rights are positive or negative, as well as why this makes a difference to our moral decision-making.

Some rights are negative rights.  Negative rights are typically rights to not be subjected to certain conditions, such as a right to freedom of speech or autonomy.  Negative rights are often some varietal of a right to non-interference.  They impose duties on others to leave you alone and let you do things that are important to you, like speak your mind or make your own decisions.  They also carry a great deal of normative weight, in that we place great importance upon not violating the negative rights of other people.

Some of our rights are not negative, but positive.  Positive rights are usually rights to receive some benefit, such as a right to an education or accessible health care (both of which are controversial types of positive rights).  Positive rights differ substantially from negative rights.  First, negative rights are usually based on something about the bearer.  Humans have a negative right to autonomy because humans are the sorts of creatures that make choices that matter to them.  But positive rights are often not based on things about the bearer.  Some positive rights, like a right to be paid for work that you do, are based on agreements.  Other positive rights are based on idealized conceptions of human interaction, such as a right to health care or clean water.

Most importantly, positive rights are less stringent than negative rights.  While I do you great harm by violating your right to autonomy, it’s not necessarily true that I do you comparable harm by violating your right to health care.  Your right to autonomy clearly correlates to a duty of non-interference for me, but it’s less obvious what my duties are, if any, in virtue of your right to accessible health care.  Positive rights less obviously correlate to identifiable duties for others, and violating them is often seen as preferable to violating a person’s negative rights.

Why does this distinction matter?  There are at least two important implications.  First, rights often come into conflict with one another.  When you are making a difficult moral decision that will lead to the inevitable violation of someone’s rights, it might be helpful to identify what sorts of rights are at risk.  If you have the option, you may be better off violating someone’s positive right rather than a much more stringent and cherished negative right.

The other important implication for this distinction is in the realm of public policy.  There is very little resistance to the enshrinement of negative rights into law.  Most of them are already protected, and any that are not safeguarded are usually held in sufficiently high esteem that resistance to granting them the force of law is not significant.  But positive rights are far trickier, and few politicians make the distinction between positive and negative rights, often because of the rhetorical strength of disguising a positive right as a negative one.

For example, many politicians are pressing for a universal health care system, from the claim that people have a right to health care.  This is a convincing statement if one treats a right to health care like a negative right.  Unfortunately, there is no obvious sense in which health care can be a negative right, because there is nothing about being a person that clearly entails a negative right to health care.  However, this does not mean that we cannot have a positive right to health care.  Positive rights can be the product of agreements.  If a society agrees that everyone has a positive right to health care, they are essentially creating this positive right.  However, because positive rights are less stringent, it is an open question what sorts of duties a right to health care would impose on others.

Whatever your views may be on the subject of a negative or positive right to health care, it is clear that the distinction makes a difference for how we think about rights in general.  Not only can this distinction help us to resolve difficult moral dilemmas, it is also a useful tool for recognizing when rights talk is being employed as a rhetorical mechanism for political gains.

In a world of mass media, instant communication, and a myriad of differing opinions about dozens of topics, disagreement is an unavoidable aspect of our lives.  Couple that with the innate desire of many people to “win” in cases of conflict and the widespread lack of reasoning skills that plagues our society, and the stage is set for an ethical faux pas.  As someone who trades in reasons and argumentation, I often find myself especially frustrated by disagreements with unreasonable people, and the temptation is to stoop to their level and respond with the same ignorant contempt that they utilize as a substitute for actual reasons.

Let me begin by clarifying who I am referring to when I talk about “the unreasonable.”  The unreasonable are people who are not capable of understanding what a rational argument is, yet insist on replying to whatever challenge you raise against them.  For example, if you say “the position advocated by person X, which you are endorsing, claims Y, which is not supported by the fact of Z,” the unreasonable will respond by saying “X is much smarter than you, and you just don’t understand Y.”  Notice that this reply is nothing more than an ad hominem attack, and that it utterly fails to account for the conflict between claim Y and the fact of Z.  Further, the unreasonable will feel genuinely vindicated by this non-response.

This is exceedingly frustrating for reasonable people, because we tend to think that reasons make a difference, and that when someone challenges your view with a legitimate argument, you ought to respond with an argument of your own.  The self-righteousness of the unreasonable, coupled with the insulting and derogatory nature of their typical responses makes it tempting to set your own standard of civility aside, and explain to them specifically why they are not only wrong, but also mildly retarded.

Despite the temptation, it is probably best to avoid putting the unreasonable in their place, for the following reasons.  First, it won’t do any good.  These people are not capable of intelligent, rational thought, and cracking the edifice of their ignorance is impossible by even the most compelling reasons.  Explaining to the unreasonable that they are failing to respond to your argument will only feed your frustration further, for the simple fact that they will continue to not understand, and to utilize the same obnoxious response strategy.

Further, and more importantly, being treated poorly by someone is not sufficient justification for treating him or her poorly in return.  I have an acquaintance with whom I’ve been engaging in a discussion about political and social philosophy.  I began by pointing out several glaring contradictions in the view of the individual whom he frequently cites.  Because he is unreasonable, his response was to inform me of how much smarter this person is than me, accuse me of elitism (somewhat inexplicably), and inform me that I am simply not capable of understanding this person’s philosophy.

As a philosopher, I find it hard to believe that I am simply incapable of understanding any philosophy.  It is my job, after all, and I’m rather good at it.  More importantly, this reply fails to address any of the philosophical problems that I raised in my initial criticism.  My temptation was to explain to this person that he is an undereducated buffoon whose personal issues motivate his tendency to respond to all challenges with personal insults.  However, this clearly wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do.  His disrespectful treatment of me does not justify my treating him in a comparably disrespectful manner.

Resisting the temptation to chastise the unreasonable is a difficult thing to do, but consider the consequences if every unreasonable person was justifiably replied to with a comparable degree of contempt and irrationality.  The very institution of reasonableness would be corrupted beyond repair.  Those of us who are reasonable have a duty to maintain a certain degree of propriety in our personal conduct, even if the unreasonable refuse to return the favor.  If what the reasonable really want to do is encourage the unreasonable to change their ways, the best way to do this is to demonstrate that no amount of ridiculous conduct justifies their behavior.

The Miss USA pageant is certainly not something that most people interested in philosophy pay attention to.  Frankly, I’m a little shocked that they can find enough women to participate in this thing, since it’s clearly a contest that evaluates women as objects.  That aside, the recent Miss USA pageant produced an interesting sound bite from the first runner-up, Miss California, which raised a compelling ethical question.  Are people in positions of public prominence obligated to only mainstream, inoffensive political and social views?  Is there an ethical problem if express themselves in a way that is “un-PC”?

Le t me fill in some background, for those unfamiliar with the issue.  Miss California was asked a question about gay marriage, specifically with what she thought about the fact that many states have now made gay marriage legal.  Her response was that marriage should be between a man and a woman.  This was met by a chorus of boos from the crowd, and a scowl from one of the openly gay celebrity judges.  Later, she credited her politically incorrect reply with costing her the competition.

Several interesting questions emerge from this.  The first one comes from the reaction of one of the judges.  He expressed disgust with Miss California’s reply, explaining that the “correct” answer was that legalizing gay marriage should be up to individual states.  First, if a person is asked their opinion, how can there be a correct reply?  The only way to answer correctly is to express your actual opinion.  This judge’s comment reflects the insidious nature of contests like Miss USA.

In addition, why is declaring that gay marriage should be handled state-by-state less objectionable than thinking that marriage should only be between a man and a woman?  Wasn’t states rights the justification for secession during the Civil War?  It’s far from obvious that citing states rights is the “correct” answer, never mind being the politically correct answer.

The bigger issue from the standpoint of ethics is whether there is anything wrong with public personalities holding and expressing controversial opinions on social issues.  Part of the negative reaction received by Miss California’s reply seems to be that she openly expressed a controversial opinion, and the Miss USA people don’t want to be represented by someone with any kind of controversial view.  For marketing purposes, public personalities are better off having vague, ambiguous views about social issues, because there is less chance that anyone will get upset and be less likely to buy products as a result.

The problem here is that while the marketing suggests that uncontroversial opinions are preferable, ethics goes the other way.  If a person is asked about a controversial social issue, and they deliberately conceal their controversial views, they are lying to you.  This is especially problematic in the case of public figures, because they have an exorbitant amount of influence upon public opinion.  Not knowing what a public figure thinks about significant social issues has potentially dire consequences for those who don’t agree with them.

What the Miss USA debacle demonstrates is that the outcry that we often see over public figures making controversial statements is properly a matter of business and marketing, rather than ethics.  If I’m looking for a spokesperson, I want someone that everyone likes and that no one finds offensive.  But if I am looking for someone to publicly represent me and exert their influence over public opinion, I want to know what they really think, and they are obligated to tell the truth when I ask.  So despite disagreeing with her actual views, kudos to Miss California for taking her responsibility as a public figure seriously, whatever the consequences for her marketability may have been.

Most people agree, for a variety of reasons, that there is something wrong with killing another person.  There are clear cases where killing is deemed acceptable, such as wartime, but this is not because killing is not bad in those cases.  To claim that killing is sometimes acceptable is just to claim that sometimes the wrongness of killing is outweighed by other considerations.  This does not negate the intrinsic wrongness of killing that most people find plausible.  Whether certain cases of killing are morally acceptable depends on the reasons one has for thinking this is the case.

With this in mind, we turn to recent current events involving pirate activity off the coast of Somalia.  For some time now, Somalia has been in a state of civil unrest, with even the most basic needs of its people not being met, and with few opportunities for improving one’s life.  Some individuals, the argument goes, are turning to piracy because they have no other means of supporting themselves.  The need to survive has driven some Somalis to take extreme action, capturing ships and holding them for ransom in the hope of improving their own dire life circumstances.

We will set aside whether or not survival is a good reason to engage in piracy.  Our question concerns the recent decision by the United States to use snipers to kill several pirates holding a U.S. citizen hostage.  The order was given by President Obama to kill the pirates if the commanders on the ground deemed it necessary.  They did, and the pirates were shot by snipers, leaving the hostages unharmed and allowing for their return to the United States.

There are several potential responses to this incident.  One is to argue that engaging in piracy negates a person’s right not to be killed by others.  This is the same type of argument one might give to justify executing criminals.  The idea is essentially that although it is prima facie wrong to kill another person, this can be negated by certain types of negative actions, such as piracy or murder.

Another reply is that although killing these pirates was wrong, it was preferable to either allowing them to kill their hostages or paying them the requested ransom.  This is a consequentialist argument, in that the central point of each claim concerns an appeal to the better consequences of killing the pirates.  On this line of reasoning, although it was wrong to kill the pirates, this was the best available option.  The decision to kill the pirates was a choice between better and worse, rather than right or wrong.

A third, somewhat different reply might be that killing is always wrong, and that this is no exception.  This is a Kantian type of argument, whereby what matters is not what consequences prevail, but what we, as individuals, do.  Killing someone is the wrong thing for me to do, whether or not it would produce good consequences.

A fourth reply, which I personally favor, is the claim that the wrongness of killing is simply being outweighed by other considerations.  I am quite comfortable saying that it is always wrong to kill, and that we need compelling reasons for why we sometimes ought to kill despite the wrongness of this action.  On this view, killing pirates is wrong, but the rightness of protecting the innocent and creating a deterrent to future piracy outweighs the wrongness of killing in this particular case.  This view allows us to maintain that it was wrong to kill the pirates, while also claiming that in this particular case, it was the right thing to do.

Although I have advocated a particular position here, it is not my primary intention to do so.  What is really worth stressing, regardless of what view one takes of this incident, is that there are many reasons that might be relevant to whether a certain action is wrong in a given case.  Further, by thinking about everyday instances of controversial actions with moral significance, such as the killing of hostage-holding pirates, we can better develop our ability to recognize what sorts of reasons make a difference.  This way, when the time comes to make a difficult moral judgment, we are better trained to do so.

I apologize in advance to those who visit this site expecting to read something overtly philosophical.  This will not be that sort of piece.  Rather, I want to talk a little bit about the trials and tribulations associated with trying to make a career out of being a philosopher in the 21st century.  In addition, I want to talk a little bit about choices, and the possibility that one can actually be done harm by having more options to choose from.  This is a controversial idea in our world of infinite choices, but one that is worth thinking about philosophically.

First, the emotional rollercoaster.  As of Tuesday night, I was third on the waiting list at a fairly prestigious university, as well as holding an excellent funded offer from a school that is dynamite in ethics, my specialty area of study.  By 11 am on Wednesday, I got an email from the graduate admissions director of the school where I was wait-listed and was told that they had one spot left, that it had been offered to someone in front of me on the wait list, and that this person had until 2 pm to decide.  Otherwise, the position was mine.

Let me give some background to help clarify why this was so emotionally taxing.  My original waiting list position at this school was 19th.  I took this to be a de facto rejection, and assumed that this school was out as a possibility.  Mind you, this school is especially appealing because it is not only a good program, it is also in the state where I already live.  Going there would’ve allowed my wife to keep her job, us to keep things our health insurance and stay in contact with many of our friends, etc.  All this was made more significant by the fact that we are expecting our first child in August.  The stage was set for maximum drama.

As of a couple weeks ago, I had visited the school that had accepted me with the best funded offer, compared it to my other options, and was basically in the process of finalizing my decision to go there, when I got word that I had jumped to 8th on the aforementioned waiting list where I was once 19th.  Eighth became fifth, which soon became third, and on the morning of the 15th, I saw that at least two people had already turned down offers from this school.  My chances were starting to look really good.

Bear in mind, my wife and I had already processed the disappointment of being so far down on the waiting list, as well as the chance to stay in our home state and the associated benefits of doing so.  We suddenly found our selves shocked back into considering this possibility as a live one, only to have it plucked from our hands again when I received an email just after 2 saying that the last spot had been taken.  We were made to deal with the same disappointment twice, the second time with a far greater degree of hopefulness attached.

Don’t get me wrong, now that it’s all over, I’m very happy to be going to the school that wanted me all along.  It’s a great fit for my interest, they offered me a good deal, and I think we will be happy and do well there as a family.  I’m also confident that I will be a skilled and employable philosopher when I am done there.  But the experience has left me wondering about the possibility that sometimes having more options, even possible options, might be a bad thing sometimes.

Think about it.  Since I didn’t actually make it off the waiting list, and having the possibility was extremely stressful for my wife and I, it probably would’ve been better if this whole scenario had never presented itself in the first place.  Accepting the school that I am now going to is the final outcome either way, the only difference is that one scenario involves a whole bunch of stress and uncertainty that the other lacks.  In this case, the possibility of more choices was decidedly worse than having only one choice.

This is by no means a definitive argument that choices are always a bad thing.  Often they are a good thing, especially when the choices are live options that vastly improve upon one’s prospects.  However, this example does indicate that more choices are not automatically better than fewer ones.  In our society, choice is often depicted as the ultimate expression of freedom.  The more choices we have, the better off we are.  It’s thus worth reflecting a bit on whether or not all that freedom is really such a good thing.

As a side note, congratulations to all my fellow PhD applicants who will be going somewhere you are excited about this fall.

Anyone hoping to attend a PhD program in philosophy this fall is familiar with the date of April 15th.  This is the day that funded offers must be either accepted or rejected, and as I write this, that day is tomorrow.  As of two weeks ago, I was fairly certain of my fate.  I had a funded offer in hand from a program that I was very excited to be going to, and no prospects on the horizon that might have trumped it.  My journey appeared to be over, and I was grateful.

Fast-forward to April 14th.  I still have the aforementioned funded offer in hand, but have refrained from formally accepting.  Why, you might ask?  Because somehow, my top choice, where I was a depressing 19th on the waiting list, has emerged as a legitimate alternative.  I am now 3rd, with what has been described as a “decent” chance of getting an offer, whatever that means.  In a matter of days, I went from a certain future to the painful burden of waiting-list purgatory.  The good news:  I know I am going to a program that I can feel good about.  The bad:  I don’t yet know which one.

It has been amusing to watch the role of the blogosphere in all of this.  Many angry individuals have posted threatening comments to persons like myself, alternately begging or threatening us to accept or decline our funded offer.  Personally, I find my position to be a perfectly reasonable one.  I am holding out for one legitimate possibility that would without question trump my funded offer.  If that doesn’t happen, I’m taking what I’m holding.  However, those who have been sitting on multiple funded offers for months because they “just can’t decide between Rutgers and Princeton” are truly jackasses, and I fully support telling them so.

In the background of this anxious scenario is a looming moral dilemma that I find myself struggling with.  It is possible, as often occurs, that my wait-list possibility will be unable to give me a definitive answer on the 15th, and I may have to accept my funded offer in the meantime in order to secure it.  Even then, it is possible that I will eventually be accepted off the wait-list at the other program, in which case my desire would be to accept this new, better offer.  However, I would also likely feel that my initial acceptance of the first offer constituted a contractual agreement with the other school, and that I have a duty to honor this agreement.

I am told that it is not at all uncommon, nor deeply frowned upon, for people to initially accept an offer and then retract this acceptance after April 15th has passed, in order to accept a late-blooming better offer.  There is something reasonable about this.  After all, the decision about where to earn your PhD affects the next several years of your life, as well as your potential future prospects.  It seems silly to let something like a sense of duty override such an important life decision.

On the other hand, there does seem to be something objectionable about making a commitment that you only intend to keep if it ends up being in your interest to do so.  This is not how contractual agreements generally work, and it would be a huge problem if contracts did function this way.  Further, being someone who keeps his word is important to how I define my deepest self, and it is troubling to even consider acting in opposition to that ideal.  Breaking my word would be akin to denying an essential part of who I am.

Thus, the seeds of a moral dilemma are planted, and everyday stress is made worse by a dose of moral stress.  In some sense, this is simply a clash of difficult normative questions.  Are duties absolute, or are there instances where self-interest can be overriding?  Is there even anything wrong with acting in one’s self-interest when external circumstances (like a deadline) are what prompted the possibility of moral indiscretion in the first place?  Are contractual agreements binding even when they are coerced (again, by a deadline requiring an answer)?

Thankfully, I do not need to resolve these questions in order to make a decision about where to seek my PhD in philosophy, though I may have to think about them later in order to feel comfortable with some of my possible choices.  The irony is that being a decent philosopher is a big part of why this potential dilemma is even a possibility, yet it is also what makes it such a troubling scenario.  I guess it’s simply the price one pays for trying to live ethically, rather than merely studying ethics.