self-reflection on an ethical incident

I recieved a phone call from my GF who was travelling on business. We chit-chatted when she mentions she bought a pack of cigarettes. She explained that she buys one normally when shes travelling on business because its very stressful.

My first reaction was a negative emotional response. I didnt like this one bit! My brain was hitting me with a stick yelling “thats wrong!”. Then I asked, why is it wrong, hoping to have something verbalized with which to convince her. My first thought was “health!”. I started acting on my thoughts and verbalized them to her.

For some reason, my brain thought it would be a good idea if I tried to appear to be rational, or perhaps my brain didnt want to anger her so I started “Well, there are some health benefits to smoking such as stress reduction… but”… I realized that I was pulling this information out of my ass with no real basis, and I couldnt find a way to express the badness of smoking, I mean… everyone knows. So I concluded the sentence “but… you know its bad”.

Then I thought… what the hell just happened here. After we finished chatting, I did some self-reflection.

Going back to the initial emotional response, I reflected on it and tried to grasp its nature, and saw that my response was not negative because of how I verbalized it as health issues… but rather because I associate smoking with the banal elements of society. I see white trash with a donut in one hand, and a cig in the other waiting for the next weekend to get trashed from a 36 pack of miller lite. Wasting away life and braincells.

My emotional response seems to stem from me not wanting to associate my GF with those elements, to keep my perception of her in-tact. (Shes a great girl btw if youre wondering).

As it turns out, my thoughts afterwards were just scrambling for justification, and what I actually verbalized was bullshit. I see this effect in much more subtle fashion in myself (and for what its worth, in others). Particularly when we come to believe the bullshit and justifications for emotion that we spout without any examination or self-reflection.

I dont want to fall victim to the fallacy of induction. But I think one could infer some other interesting general statements from this, about:

a. rich vs. poor morality, and the emulation of the habits/values of the rich

b. morality as an afterthought, i.e. morality, if sincere, is verbalized bullshit/justifications put into written word

c. will (to not associate gf with white trash) → emotion (disgust/discomfort) → thought (justification). Though, it goes deeper in that there is a association with “white trash → wasting their lives → i’m better than them and not one of them → they are bad” or something of the sort.

d. then there is “getting carried away by ones words”, in which we come to believe what we say and we become entrenched in it, believing we are coming up with great arguments to convince others of our feeling, but at the same time having long ago ceased in being truly sincere about the arguments.

I would have included some thoughts from famous philosophers, but I didnt feel confident in quoting them correctly. I know Nietzsche would have alot to say here.

I like the analysis of your thought process. I believe that when I was younger that I maintained a similar set of ideas. However, I got over a variety of them.

Frankly, your concerns seem like worries of the middle-class. I have noticed that the upper-class and the lower tend to have many commonalities. It’s funny that you might find a dirt poor unwed mother that smokes and a super rich one as well. The middle-class seems to guard themselves against such trouble pretty well.

A few years ago when I was about 37 I had the revelation that so much worry about health and whatnot was dragging me down. I have always been into physical fitness and healthy living almost to the point of perfection. I then realized that an occasional whiskey and a cigarette were not going to do much harm. In fact, I know that I can occasionally enjoy such products with little threat.

My friends, but not my girlfriend who is from Europe, were all astonished to find me smoking. I would then say to them that I don’t smoke. The puzzled look of confusion on their faces was just great.

I believe that this look is the result of totally buying the idea that one can’t smoke with becoming instantly addicted. This is part of a media driven fear of getting sick. In part this is a reasonable fear but on the other hand one can micromanage oneself to the point of becoming anxiety ridden.

However, I strongly believe in being moderate and not developing habits that are self-destructive. There is a difference between that and having the occasional cookie with red dye no.2 in it.

You made a series of associations which aren’t logically necessary. Don’t worry about it.

You should visit Paris, if you haven’t already. Everyone smokes, even the cool people. Not just the trash.

i think you are really going overboard. if she wants to smoke, it’s her domain. who asked you ? and why did she ?!

arg!

i dont think anyone got my post ;]

Basically my post is about: emotional vs. intellectual reaction.

Due to some associations, I felt a particular emotion and my first response was to justify that emotion, rather than intellectually reason whether it was appropriate.

What I was trying to demonstrate is that sometimes, we feel a particular way and simply try to justify it and adopt it as what our opinion is, when really we know better but sometimes we get caught up in our own words.

Yes, I know my initial reaction was “wrong” and its her domain, etc, etc. I know I know, but its important to note that my intiial emotional reaction was involuntary.

I also wanted to hint at ethics being possibly a part of a larger class struggle. And also, where does the chicken-egg of association/judgment and emotional response end? One could argue that all ethics is social construction with a goal in mind (order, the success of the ruling class, something more mundane, etc , etc).

I’m not sure if you can really criticize your thought process, because it makes sense and you never really want to criticize your own thinking because it can’t change in a second. But if the real reason you don’t accept her decision is because you don’t want to become the so called “white trash”, you need to talk to her about that because she needs to know the actual reason you don’t accept her decision. Maybe this will change her mind, and maybe not. However, you can’t tell her one reason for your feelings when the actual reason is something else. If you tell her the actual reason, it may change her mind and she may listen to you. At the very least, you can clear your conscience and feel better about the way you handled the situation.

You’re right though about the way you’re mind handles the situation- I think most people are the same way. They don’t want to sound like they are making a decision based on a prejudice even when that is the actual reason. Unfortunately, people are going to give the wrong reasons in order to make themselves sound better and make themselves feel better. So, in that sense, you’ve made a good point that applies to everyone’s thought processes, whether they realize it or not.

anvil,

I like this post because its reinforcement for what ive been saying all along. Youre experience reminds me of a conversation I was having with my parents recently.

I was explaining to them my philosophical thinkings and the like, and I, out of habit, began with my most contraversial subject. I always do this because it points out exactly what I want to see change in people. I started by telling my parents how morality is really arbitrary and the only way to logicly justify a set of ethical rules is if they are what you want, in that morality is only self-serving, and conversely, if for any reason you want to murder, and you are aware of the possible consequences and are still willing to take the risk, than this is as justified as any morality.

I was disapointed by the reaction. I would have expected it from my mother, but not my father and brother… Their reaction was outrage, and disgust. IMEDIATLY! First they all sort of looked at each other… than asked me to reitorate as if they didn’t hear or understand what I said. And then I could see it in their eyes looking at me as if I were crazy… It was what you call an emotional response, though I would call it a PROGRAMMED emotional response. It was programmed through years of hearing it from their parents and society, and years of negative and positive associations. Ive used this movie as an example several times now, but have you seen “A clockwork orange?” Well, in the same way that he went through behavioral programming, thats how the process of induction works with us, though especially at a young age, our minds are much more senstive and need far less “motivation” to accept a principle as an absolute.

This is the battle between nature and nurture. People are brought up and are molded, nurtured to be a certain way. They are spanked when they do something “wrong” and given treats when they do something “right.” And often times this information is accepted as absolutes. An association is created between “wrong” and pain, and “right” and pleasure. And then wrong and right are associated with many apsects of the world to create a system by which to live. Its like programming a robot. “Do this, not that.”

What happens is that those associations created are still perfectly rational, logical reasons to act in the way you are tought to act. Because those associations actually make you FEEL pain and pleasure. So for instance, as my father has said numerous times, if he was presented with an opertunity to steal, even if he knew 100% that he would get away with it, he would not do it, because he just feels “uncomfertable” with the idea of stealing, as if theres just something “wrong” or “unclean” about it. I have used this analogy before, but what is going on is that the nurturing my father went through when young is like a police man in his head. Instead of having a real police man punish my father if he does anything illegal, society instills morality, a substitute for enforcing laws that just programs people to react positively or negativiley to certain concepts such that they may avoid or persue those concepts. So the police man inside my father’s head pretty much “punished” my father for considering theft. This punishment manifests itself as the uncomfertable, negative feeling my father expressed towards the idea. And it is exactly this same manifestation of the internal police man that caused the reaction to my amoral rationalizations. They have been tought that killing is wrong and to be disgusted by it. So when I rationalize murder in that way, you can see the horror in their eyes. And I made certain that it wasn’t worry they felt. I dug deep to really see the cause of their reactions. I told them its not like im gonna go out killing people, dont worry, im just applying logic to all facets of life. My mother responded by saying: “But cant you see that killing is just WRONG? What gives you the right to take another person’s life? What if it was your son or daughter that somebody killed?” These are all the classic rationalizations used to support morality, all rationalizations that fail when given even menial consideration. My father attempted some more logic on the question, circullar logic that I pointed out to him, at which point he became frustrated and called me a moron for not seeing what is so obvious…

This is exactly what I think happend to you anvil. It is obvious to me that the anti-smoking campaign has worked in many respects. It has become “un-cool” to smoke. Im not saying it should be cool or not, im just saying its another arbitrary societal turn perpetrated by the media. What I find funny and curious is the way a TV is able to influence us. Remember how I said that you would get spanked or provided a treat to create the association with pleasure and pain? Well, its not like a TV is going to say: “Dont Smoke” and then reach out and smack you… So what does the media use to create the association? Commonly, I see it using social consequences. Those comercials where the girl walks to the kid to talk to him, but then sees he is taking out cigarettes, and then turns around. Thats a big factor in how they get to the kids. And then, no one wants to die or be in pain, so they barrage you with possible consequences and statistics, but its the way they do it. I would have no problem with a commercial coming on the TV saying: “Just FYI, smoking kills X people/year. The more you know, the better off you are!”

But no, those Truth commercials always reveal a very hardened bias. All anti-smoking adds do that, quite obviously, because they are ANTI-smoking… But thats the thing… Its rhetoric. Its not trying to get people to listen or accept what you say based on the strength of your arguments or any level of logic, its all about the presentation, and how best to manipulate people. All of advertisement is like this. And it amounts to nothing more than brainwashing in my opinion, for those that succumb to it.