I'm actually curious about what you all believe about right and wrong as they apply to trivial things - say, do I buy my groceries from Food Lion or the Harris Teeter? Is it my responsibility to find out which is the more ethical/moral choice? Or does morality only depend on what you already know - if you shopped at Food Lion, and that money was being used to nuke rainforests, does ignorance of this fact shield you from being wrong? Or does it matter at all?
Phillip
3 comments:
interesting q's phil,
still thinking on where I stand
... still writing on this; hopefully will have it up 2morrow
1) Do we have an obligation to determine the morality of our trivial actions?
My answer to that question is no in the sense that it is impractical to enter an ethical discourse for each and everyone of our innumerable actions (deciding b/n Harris Teeter or Food Lion, brushing teeth, typing on keyboards, breathing, etc...). However, as Phillip pointed out, any of our actions, even the trivial ones, could be linked to wrong or suffering without our knowing; ( e.g. consider Phillip's Food Lion example or for another example consider that simply by breathing and sneezing, Columbus and other explorers/conquerors of North America perhaps killed hundreds of thousands of Native Americans unknowingly with their germs). As such, mankind's ignorance is often a root cause of wrong and suffering in the world. So, though I don't believe that we have an obligation to determine the morality of our trivial actions, I do believe that we have an obligation to not be ignorant, to seek knowledge, and to act knowledgeably in order to minimize the possibility that our actions are wrong or cause suffering.
In other words, we have an obligation to learn the truths in our lives and societies so as to improve the human condition. Learning about cultural tolerance, learning about freedom and justice, learning to obey traffic laws and other social contracts, and in general, learning from the store of wisdom humanity has accumulated over the millennia minimizes the chance that we will do harm to ourselves and others. Furthermore, the commitment that many have made and that many continue to make to seeking new knowledge brings to light discoveries that make the world a better place: e.g. cures for germs, traffic lights, human rights, etc... So, while we don't have to ask ourselves whether trivial actions such as our breathing could be bad, we can avoid doing wrong and can do some good by seeking to be more knowledgeable about the world.
2) Does ignorance of what is right or wrong in a given situation excuse you from being held morally accountable in that situation?
I believe that in general, there can be situations in which ignorance is a compelling enough excuse to absolve one from moral accountability. In those situations where the following ignorance does not absolve one from moral accountability, the degree to which your ignorance renders you morally accountable in a situation depends on the exact nature of your ignorance; that is how and why you were ignorant. So in some situations, ignorance is no excuse, and in others, ignorance qualifies as a valid excuse, and there cases that lie in between. (I've posted examples of such cases in the comments.)
3) Does ignorance matter in ethics?
I couldn't think of any realistic, practical cases where it wouldn't matter. In the comments I have posted an unrealistic hypothetical case where ignorance may not matter to the ethics of a situation.
This thread is continued in “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?”.
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