Dear Prudence: Moral DIsagreements

[minoanmiss]

How do I respond to a person doing something I morally disagree with that they are very excited about? I’ve found myself in many conversations over the past year where acquaintances, coworkers, distant family, or other not-close friends give me an update that makes me uncomfortable.

Examples include: “I’m visiting Hawaii during a drought,” “I’m trying to adopt a baby and fighting the birth mother for custody,” and “I’m going on a mission trip to Uganda to convert people to Christianity.” These are all things I don’t super agree with, but the person speaking often sees as positive or totally innocent. Do I just say good luck? Do I share my concerns? I feel like a self-righteous buzzkill if I react honestly, and like I’m silently endorsing their actions if I don’t.

—Paralyzed By Politeness

Dear Paralyzed,

This is hard to answer because it’s not about the words you say in conversation. It’s about the relationship you want to have with people who do things that you find morally objectionable. And only you can make the calculation about where certain actions fall on the “I would have made a different choice” to “Wow, you’re actually a force for evil and I don’t want to be close to you” spectrum in your mind. I’m guessing that a friend making a poor choice for the environment in a world where we could all stand to interrogate our actions might not rise to the same level as someone committing to a legal fight that you see as seriously hurting a specific child. But I don’t know! Either way, here is your guide.

If you think what the person is doing is so messed up that it makes you question whether you even really want to be friends with them: “Wow, that actually sounds kind of wrong to me!”

If you disagree with the action but not enough that it changes your opinion of the person or your desire to have a relationship with them: “Wow, how long will the flight be?”

Comments

[minoanmiss]

1) This advice is almost completely useless
2) I posted this in part for self-centered reasons. I have a former friend whom I let drift away in part because I found we really disagree on politics (for instance they approve of the 1/6/21 insurrection). Recently a mutual friend contacted me about something valuable that this former friend wanted to give the two of us because they can't use it, and thus about getting me and Former Friend back in touch. I responded to both of them politely but now I need to figure out how much this valuable thing is worth to me vs my integrity, and if I want/ought to tell Former Friend and Current Friend why I let the friendship attenuate (I'm pretty good at keeping in touch with people when I want to be). So I'm extra interested in what people here think of this question.

[p_cocincinus]

I think the advice is actually not bad, because the answer really is related to the kind of relationship you want to maintain and the kind of conversation you want to have in that moment. LW is talking about people that they have a distant relationship with, acquaintances and coworkers and the like, and I can see making the choice to say 'oh, how nice for you' to someone with whom you want to maintain a polite relationship with. If I told my coworker who was excited about her son's missionary trip that I thought missionary work is abhorrent and shouldn't be done in the modern world, I might end up getting hauled into HR.

In your situation, it's a little more complex. Do you know what Current Friend's politics are, or how much they value the valuable thing? I live in an generally very blue city in a county that's got some purple stripes, and I could very easily say to a friend "Yeah, I stopped talking to them when I found out they supported the insurrection," and know they would 100% understand my decision and would be just as horrified with me, and then we could decide together whether having the valuable thing was worth continuing to interact with this person and/or how much of a relationship accepting the thing would make me/us feel obliged to have.

[minoanmiss]

If I told my coworker who was excited about her son's missionary trip that I thought missionary work is abhorrent and shouldn't be done in the modern world, I might end up getting hauled into HR.

You have a good point there. Also, this is the kind of advice about context about which I think Prudence should have gone into more detail.

Current Friend is to the left of me (in ways I admire) let alone Former Friend. Current Friend has also had a lot of stress (everything from multiple family members dying recently to being a woman of reproductive age in these United States) and I'm not sure how productive heaping this on her would be of me to do. If she hasn't discussed politics with Former Friend that may well be a deliberate decision on her part that I shouldn't challenge.

[azurelunatic]

In this specific situation, it's probably not ethically neutral but I think a sensible path would be to say to Current Friend, "I know you might not have picked up on it, but Former Friend and I have drifted apart since January 6th 2021 due to political differences." There's a lot of subtext there, but it doesn't explicitly hit the details of what kind of Terrible FF has drifted into. And then feel your way towards whether Current Friend wants more details about that, or whether that's more than CF wanted to know.

[minoanmiss]

*takes notes* Thank you :)

[lethe1]

If I told my coworker who was excited about her son's missionary trip that I thought missionary work is abhorrent and shouldn't be done in the modern world, I might end up getting hauled into HR.

You might be getting hauled into HR?? Why? You are entitled to voice your opinion just as much as your coworker is allowed to brag about her son's missionary work.

[melannen]

It's a fundamental element of religious faith for some people, and therefore you could get caught in the same guidelines as anyone else telling their coworker that something about their religion is abhorrent. (Even if some parts of religion are more objectively abhorrent than others.)

But HR's first move would probably be to tell you *both* to stop discussing religion at work.

[lethe1]

It's a fundamental element of religious faith for some people

You mean proselytizing? I don't think that has a place at work, so yes, I hope HR would tell them to stop discussing religion.

[melannen]

Yes, some versions of Christianity believe that you have to proselytize outside your community to be a good Christian. So telling a co-worker that their mission trips are abhorrent hits the same HR principles as telling a Muslim coworker that visiting Mecca is abhorrent. (Are those actually morally equivalent, no, but HR has its own moral universe.)

They also should not proselytize on company time, of course.

[jadelennox]

Yeah, I agree that the advice is useful to me. I have lots of friends whom I love dearly who make choices I wouldn't. Hell, if I scolded everyone who shops at Amazon, or who works at Google, I would have zero friends. And nor do I think those are appalling choices, to be clear, they're just ones I wouldn't make, just as I make choices every day that my friends disagree with!

But there are some things I think of as actively evil. "Travelling to Hawai'i during a drought" isn't (to me) evil, it's making choices the LW wouldn't make in a complex and fucked up world, where tourism is both harmful and vital for Hawaiians. "Fighting the birth mother for custody of a baby you want to adopt" is, in most cases, go directly to the evil box, do not pass go, do not collect $200. If I knew someone doing that and they weren't dissuadable, I wouldn't want to be friends with them or with anyone who still is friends with them.

In a co-worker case it's different, agreed. You can't tell your coworker that mission trips are evil, but you can ask them to not talk about it in the workplace, and you can possibly involve HR. But, say, if your co-worker told you they're trying to convince family to buy crypto (evil, sometimes socially acceptable, and not technically religious) you'd have a harder time getting HR involved.

[ellen_fremedon]

If you just want to shut a discussion down at work, it is usually possible to frame the request as "I find this topic difficult and would appreciate it if you stopped bringing it up, as a favor." I've done that with things that didn't have a real-world moral valance (I had to ask one coworker at old job if we could not discuss Donna Noble's Doctor Who story arc because his takes were so bad, and he clearly thought I was off my rocker but he also never brought her up again).

[melannen]

Your question is something I have faced myself more-or-less, because I'm from a subculture that is all about hand-me-downs, and is also, let's say, politically mixed.

But it is not that unusual for me to hear "cousin's ex's aunt wants to get rid of $thing and we thought of you, could you use it?" (And vice versa - "We have $thing that is theoretically valuable but very few people can use, I remember that a person you used to invite to your Christmas parties was into $thing, I don't remember their name but you probably have contact info, do you think they'd be interested?") Passing things around that way does have some effect on social ties, don't get me wrong, but they are (often deliberately) very weak social ties, and it's more of a pay-it-forward than pay-it-back sort of transaction. In that sort of situation I probably wouldn't think twice about anyone's political affiliations or moral choices.

I also sometimes think that maintaining those sort of weak social ties with people who have bad politics can be an ethically good act, not a violation of my integrity at all. Interacting in positive ways with people whose ideology opposes reality is often a key part of giving them the tools to crawl out of their echo chamber, and having those interactions be based around really weak social ties like mutal-aid sorts of things is a way to do that without having to actually, you know, listen to them talk about it, or staking any of your own emotional well-being or integrity on them not being assholes.

On the other hand there are people who aren't used to that same sort of culture who use that sort of gifting as a starting point to try to build a stronger relationship, or who will think of it as a debt owed, and that's an entirely different situation.

So I guess the point I am rambling toward is that if you think "put you back in contact" means "this person wants to rebuild the friendship back to where it was and wants to start with a gift", it's a different question than "we know the friendship is attenuated, but this is the sort of interaction it can still support along that tiny remaining thread, and we just want to find somebody anywhere in our extended network who can use $thing".

[lilysea]

For me, it's about how unjustifiable I think the actions are AND also about how bad I think the actions are

Eating red meat every single day (which means massive carbon emissions), without a genuine medical need [like Anemia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Endometriosis, or multiple food intolerances] to do so? Not a good choice, but I wouldn't cut off a friend over it.

Deliberately telling transphobes about the details of a specific "Drag queens read to children" event in the hope that they would turn up and be harrassing/disruptive? If I was certain that signalling the transphobes was deliberate (and not just an accidental by product of publicising the event to parents/kids who wanted to go and have a good time) I'd cut ties immediately

Voting for One Nation (Australia's party for really vile racists) - I'd cut ties immediately

Telling me they planned to keep buying JK Rowling books because the Potter universe was really important to them? I'd feel uncomfortable, but we'd still be friends

Telling me they refused to get themselves/their kids vaccinated against COVID, even tho their doctor said it was fine for them to get vaccinated and there was no medical reason for them not to do so? I would cut ties

Telling me that they had *deliberately* leaked the new address/phone number of someone else to an estranged parent/estranged ex? I would cut ties

"I’m visiting Hawaii during a drought" = okay, that's not ideal, but for all I know the money they will be spending will be the difference between a local person living in Hawaii being able to buy food and pay rent, or not being able to

"I’m trying to adopt a baby and fighting the birth mother for custody" = I'd need to know more to make a judgement. Does the birth mother have a history of drug/alcohol abuse and/or child neglect/child abuse? Then I'm okay with fighting the birth mother for custody. Is the birth mother a good parent apart from being young and/or poor? Then I am very much NOT okay with fighting the birth mother for custody.

"I’m going on a mission trip to Uganda to convert people to Christianity" = nope nope NOPE. Anyone who is this Christian is NOT likely to be a good person for me to be friends with, for reasons including that I have massive trauma around Christianity and also that I'm bisexual. Also, going to Uganda to try to convert people to a new religion feels racist as fuck. If Ugandan people wanted to convert to Christianity, they're perfectly able to decide that for themselves by themselves, without random white arseholes inserting themselves in what is none of their business.

[lethe1]

Agreed with all of this.

[rmc28]

I agree broadly, but also in some of these areas where I'd need to know more to make a fair judgement (dietary needs, birth parent's history), I feel like I don't have any right to know. So e.g. I don't want to put myself in a judge-ing position or mindset over anyone's choice of food or diet, because whether they have medical stuff going on or just really really like roast beef isn't my business.

(We can also get into super-frustrating areas like my autistic children being labelled 'picky' for having very strong preferences about food textures - is that a 'medical' issue because of their sensory processing or 'just a preference'? So much going on about gatekeeping and authority and who gets to decide things.)

[lilysea]

We can also get into super-frustrating areas like my autistic children being labelled 'picky' for having very strong preferences about food textures - is that a 'medical' issue because of their sensory processing or 'just a preference'? So much going on about gatekeeping and authority and who gets to decide things

I would definitely regard sensory processing as a medical issue.

There was a teenager with severe sensory issues in the UK who went Blind due to a highly restricted diet (milkshakes and packets of chips only) due to sensory issues - sensory issues are potentially very serious.

I also wouldn't judge someone if they said "I need to eat red meat every day for health reasons" - I don't need to know *what* the health reasons are, I trust people that whatever they consider to be "health reasons" is highly likely to be valid.

I would only judge someone if someone said "I eat red meat every day, and I could easily swap to chicken/fish to reduce my carbon footprint, but I can't be bothered/why should I have to/why should I do it if no-one else is?"

[castiron]

Plus given that according to Wikipedia 85% of Ugandans are some variety of Christian already, they really don't need random white folks jumping in to convert the other 15%.

[melannen]

Yeah, but that actually comes back around to the "need to know more" part. LW obviously knows very little about religion in Uganda *or* mission trips, but still feels a moral obligation to judge. Most "mission trips" from most US churches these days are more like voluntourism than proselytization. If this was a real conversation, the person was probably going to a community with an established sister church and doing something like construction or landscaping work.

There's still a whole grab bag of moral and ethical issues with that, don't get me wrong, but LW is probably very wrong about what's actually going on.