Reflections on an "Applied Ethics" reading: Passive Morality

In my Applied Ethics course, taught by the illustrious Prof. Karla Pierce, we recently read two short pieces, an essay by Alice Walker entitled "Am I Blue?" and an excerpt from Ted Kerasote's Bloodties. Both stories dealt with the issues of animal rights and welfare, with Walker's piece describing her relationship with a neighbor's horse and how its life paralleled that of the enslaved, and Kerasote's discussing the experience of hunting, and how he turned to it as an alternative to "supermarket vegetarianism" due to the vast numbers of animals killed as a byproduct of our industrialized farming techniques. While the pieces served to lead our class into a discussion of the Moral Community and who or what is and should be a part of it, it led me to ponder once more the issue of our passive morality...

Every action we take has consequences.

Let me clarify that: every action we take has moral consequences.

What we eat, what we wear, how we travel, how we are entertained, where we live, how we decorate, where we work, what we buy and where we buy it; the list could go on for pages. We are a social species, and today the influence of our actions – particularly for those of us living in first world nations – extends globally. If our goal is to live the best life possible, the most fulfilling and morally just life, then we cannot ignore these things. We must consider them. But finding, and more importantly doing, the right thing is no simple task.

            These are not the great, blatant issues of active morality. This is not the case of whether or not to get an abortion, to react violently to some offense, whether or not to stop at a wrecked car or rush to save a child from a runaway vehicle; these are not issues wherein the results of our action or inaction are clear. These are issues of passive morality, where the deep running consequences of our day to day actions must be studied and pondered if we are to understand them.

            Let’s just take one’s diet for example. One of the most common changes people make to their passive lives in the interest of greater ethical living is becoming vegetarian. Recognizing that the sanctity of life extends to the rest of the animal kingdom, appreciating that even animals have feelings and emotions and desires, many choose to stop eating meat entirely; and it’s not as difficult as some might think. Nearly every restaurant today has some meatless alternative other than salad, and most every supermarket has a variety of tofu, tempeh, and other healthy alternatives to meats.

            But wait: what about the thousands of animals – rabbits, mice, baby birds, snakes – caught up and slaughtered in the massive combines of industrial farms; the road kill littering highways upon which the trucks transport crops; the exhaust of those trucks; the insecticide and fertilizer pouring into our waterways; the indentured servant farmers of poor countries where many crops are imported from. Okay, maybe you could buy only locally produced organic food… but that can be ridiculously expensive, require a lot of time researching and shopping, and may not even be a possibility depending on where you live! And what about eating out? What then?

            This is just in regards to whether or not to eat animals. When we return to the above list of passive moral decisions we can quickly see everything gets more and more complicated and difficult with further consideration.  For someone to perform every passive action of his life to the highest degree of morality, he would have to begin independently wealthy and then devote his life to researching and studying where things come from and how everything is affected. And even then, even then, what good would he be truly doing for the world? What talents would he share, what causes could he fight for, if he had to spend so much time working to do everything else justly?

            The implications are daunting. The impossibility of it all is enough to drive us to throwing our hands in the air and walking away, claiming that we might as well just forget about it and get on with our lives. Problem is, we can’t. Ignorance can’t be restored, and once we recognize that our every action has a moral consequence, to do nothing will slowly but surely eat away at us from the inside.

            So the solution? Do something. Maybe you don’t always eat vegetarian, or buy organic or locally produced food, but sometimes you do. Maybe you don’t always take where your clothes come from into account when shopping, but sometimes you do. Maybe you don’t always walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation instead of driving, but sometimes you do. If we expect ourselves to do everything, we will always fail. But if we do something, anything, to adjust our lives then we will know that we have not given up.

            I know I’ve said all of this before, but I’m saying it again because it truly is important.

            No, doing some things sometimes won’t make any big difference in the world. And yes, if everyone did some things sometimes it would. But that’s not the point.

            The point is to live the best possible life you can live, and part of that is making the decision to do right. And doing right isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being aware. It’s not about making a difference in the world. It’s about making a difference in your world. It’s about not giving up.

I can’t do everything, but goddamit you better bet your ass I’m gonna do something. 

I can only hope you'll join me.