The Ethics of Indifference
Most ethics are normative, all telling you what you should and should not do, often highlighting that fact what you are doing is wrong or evil. *yawn* Some ethics are descriptive, more of an account of how people reason about moral situations. The ethics of indifference theory is like the latter type, but with the twist that it points out that most people don’t reason about moral situations.
Most people behave in pretty much morally acceptable ways. We don’t lie constantly, we don’t cheat on our partners, we don’t steal, we don’t kill people and stuff… mostly. But this is just because we are mostly indifferent to many of these opportunities. It is all very good to be faithful to your spouse if you don’t have some super attractive Lady trying to seduce you. And from what I gather (maybe I have depraved friends) when that choice is presented a significant number of people succumb to it. You might be a morally righteous vegetarian, but that is probably because you’re indifferent to eating meat in the first place. Most meat eaters do so because they profess that they aren’t indifferent, they really enjoy eating dead animals. I don’t shoplift, but that is because I have the money to afford to pay for the goods, or I just don't want the crap in the first place. Etc, etc, etc. I’m sure with a little effort you too can think of countless instances of so called good ethical behaviour really just being the application of indifference.
Now, I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, I don’t actually care. But it is interesting to point it out, so I have.
4 comments:
Hmm... does that mean that morality is defined as necessarily doing hard stuff that goes against the grain? i.e. does the fact that it's easy render an act morally neutral? (look out! it's the motivation/consequences question again!)
Hmm... I don't think so. For instance planning a perfect murder is hard work that goes against the grain. Most people don't murder people, and those who do seldom do it perfectly.
I wasn't suggesting that it is immoral to be indifferent, nor is it even amoral. Far from it, I even said so in the final line of the post. This is just ethics with less ought and more is.
There's some argument that that's what Jesus meant when he said 'if you hate your brother in your heart, you are guilty of murder' and 'if you look at a woman with lust in your heart [loins?] you are guilty of adultery'.
Obviously what you do and don't do are significant, but a man who spends his entire life looking for an opportunity for adultery that never comes is pretty clearly worse than a man who rejects a ton of advances but slips up once ot twice.
Maybe. Feh, I'm not even sure this is relevant...
I think Katherine may have meant that someone's strength of morality can be measured through their resistance to breaking personal ethics when some form of temptation or motivation makes it inconvenient or difficult to follow those ethics. Someone who behaves morally when it's convenient is not necessarily moral; just like a friend who is only a friend as long it's convenient is not a real friend.
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