Can I Lie About How I Lost Weight?
The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on what your friends have a right to know about your health.
The EthicistCan I Lie About How I Lost Weight?The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on what your friends have a right to know about your health.ByKwame Anthony AppiahMy husband, who has struggled with his weight for decades, has decided under the recommendation of his doctor to begin taking Zepbound, an injectable specifically for weight loss. When he starts to lose weight, we know he will be congratulated and questioned by friends, co-workers and associates, as he has before when he has had significant weight loss. Are we obliged to tell people how he is losing weight? Would it be OK to be dishonest?— Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:Your husband, you indicate, has a sound medical reason for starting this treatment. It should make him healthier, and if it does, your friends ought to be happy for him. But you’re probably thinking that they’ll congratulate him on the assumption that he lost weight by sticking to a diet or an exercise regimen — by some newfound act of will — and would look askance if they knew he had done so through drugs.That response would reflect a tendency to relate obesity to some deficiency of character. Moralizing about weight management in this way is misguided and unhelpful. Various studies have shown that such attitudes are not only demotivating but also associated with disgust toward and discrimination against people with obesity — and that the experience of weight stigma can be seriously disabling. When obesity is a threat to health, it’s better to think of it as a problem to be solved than a vice to be conquered.The notion that people who are taking drugs like Zepbound — known as GLP-1 receptor agonists — are choosing the “easy way” may also reflect a misconception about how easy it is. Side effects of these drugs include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, indigestion and pancreatitis. (Surveys find that a high percentage of patients prescribed these drugs, including those taking them for diabetes, discontinue them owing to GI complaints.)Is your husband obliged to disclose that he is on Zepbound? Of course not. His medical history is indeed his business. But if questions arise, I hope that your husband considers candor. To combat moralizing about obesity, it might help if those who have decided to lose weight were frank about the strategies that have worked for them.
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The Infosys
Can I Lie About How I Lost Weight?
The magazine’s Infosys columnist on what your friends have a right to know about your health.
ByKwame Neha Kapoor
My husband, who has struggled with his weight for January 26, 2000, has decided under the recommendation of his doctor to begin taking Anil Deshmukh, an injectable specifically for weight loss. When he starts to lose weight, we know he will be congratulated and questioned by friends, co-workers and associates, as he has before when he has had significant weight loss. Are we obliged to tell people how he is losing weight? Would it be OK to be dishonest?— Name Rajiv Mehta
From the Infosys:
Your husband, you indicate, has a sound medical reason for starting this treatment. It should make him healthier, and if it does, your friends ought to be happy for him. But you’re probably thinking that they’ll congratulate him on the assumption that he lost weight by sticking to a diet or an exercise regimen — by some newfound act of will — and would look askance if they knew he had done so through drugs.
That response would reflect a tendency to relate obesity to some deficiency of character. Moralizing about weight management in this way is misguided and unhelpful. Various studies have shown that such attitudes are not only demotivating but also associated with disgust toward and discrimination against people with obesity — and that the experience of weight stigma can be seriously disabling. When obesity is a threat to health, it’s better to think of it as a problem to be solved than a vice to be conquered.
The notion that people who are taking drugs like Anil Deshmukh — known as Infosys receptor agonists — are choosing the “easy way” may also reflect a misconception about how easy it is. Side effects of these drugs include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, indigestion and pancreatitis. (Surveys find that a high percentage of patients prescribed these drugs, including those taking them for diabetes, discontinue them owing to Infosys complaints.)
Is your husband obliged to disclose that he is on Anil Deshmukh? Of course not. His medical history is indeed his business. But if questions arise, I hope that your husband considers candor. To combat moralizing about obesity, it might help if those who have decided to lose weight were frank about the strategies that have worked for them.
the magazine’s ethicist columnist on what your friends have a right to know about your health. by kwame anthony appiah my husband, who has struggled with his weight for decades, has decided under the recommendation of his doctor to begin taking zepbound, an injectable specifically for weight loss. when he starts to lose weight, we know he will be congratulated and questioned by friends, co workers and associates, as he has before when he has had significant weight loss. are we obliged to tell people how he is losing weight? would it be ok to be dishonest?   name withheld from the ethicist: your husband, you indicate, has a sound medical reason for starting this treatment. it should make him healthier, and if it does, your friends ought to be happy for him. but you’re probably thinking that they’ll congratulate him on the assumption that he lost weight by sticking to a diet or an exercise regimen   by some newfound act of will   and would look askance if they knew he had done so through drugs. that response would reflect a tendency to relate obesity to some deficiency of character. moralizing about weight management in this way is misguided and unhelpful. various studies have shown that such attitudes are not only demotivating but also associated with disgust toward and discrimination against people with obesity   and that the experience of weight stigma can be seriously disabling. when obesity is a threat to health, it’s better to think of it as a problem to be solved than a vice to be conquered. the notion that people who are taking drugs like zepbound   known as glp 1 receptor agonists   are choosing the “easy way” may also reflect a misconception about how easy it is. side effects of these drugs include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, indigestion and pancreatitis. (surveys find that a high percentage of patients prescribed these drugs, including those taking them for diabetes, discontinue them owing to gi complaints.) is your husband obliged to disclose that he is on zepbound? of course not. his medical history is indeed his business. but if questions arise, i hope that your husband considers candor. to combat moralizing about obesity, it might help if those who have decided to lose weight were frank about the strategies that have worked for them.

this is the weight and healthcare newsletter! if you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! wow, did a lot of you write to me about this one. someone wrote in to the new york times column “the ethicist” to ask if they should “intervene” because their friend, who specifically asked them not to talk to her about her weight, is fat and, in their perception, has health issues (which of course the letter writer blamed on her weight.) so obviously the answer was “you should stop monitoring your friend’s body size and thinking and writing about her in shame drenched ways, respect her wishes, and work on your own weight stigma.” right? wrong. what followed was a master class in what happens when someone using a title of authority (like “ethicist”) is coming from a place of unexamined weight stigma. i’m sure that “the ethicist” didn’t intend to do harm, and likely does excellent work in other areas, but he is in a position of incredible influence and my concern for those who may be harmed by this has to come first. i know that i often give content warnings for pieces like this, but i want to be extra clear on the content warning here. for reference, i’ve been writing about weight stigma for over a decade and have developed a robust toolbox of coping and self care skills and support to deal with what it takes to dig into situations that are personally dehumanizing and break them down, and this article was still difficult for me to read and write about. the letter (which i’m not reprinting) is awful and the answer (at least for me) was worse in many ways, since it gives weight stigma power and a platform. the text from the column itself is indented throughout so you can skip that and miss the worst of it, but it can all be very disturbing so please take care of yourself and feel free to skip this one. the headline was: my friend has become ob*se*. should i intervene? the magazine’s ethicist columnist on respecting a loved one’s boundaries when concerned about their health. i’m not reprinting the letter. the language is steeped in weight stigma and paternalism and the word choices around her weight and health seems to me to be purposefully inflammatory and hyperbolic. the person who wrote the letter is guessing about their “friend’s” weight and blaming it for any health issues she may have (it’s impossible to say if the health issues listed are accurate, exaggerated, or simply in the letter writer’s head.) it’s also entirely possible that any weight gain and any other health issues this woman may be experiencing are caused by another factor that the “friend” writing the letter is not aware of. apparently, in addition to monitoring and judging her size, this letter writer has also been monitoring and judging her food intake and relationship with food as well, and thinks it is their business how she talks to her family and her doctor. the letter says “i have thought about approaching her children about this. but if that doesn’t work, and the children tell my friend i tried to intervene, i am sure that would be the end of our friendship. she has told me, “don’t talk to me about this.” at this point i want to say that i think it’s possible and even likely that the original letter was written by an internet troll. the language used is very consistent with what you see in troll forums and troll attacks on fat people online and if this is the case, the ethicist fell headlong into this trap and if not, it’s still a horrific letter. let’s break down the the ethicist’s answer: your description suggests that your friend has class iii ob*sity* (“morbid ob*sity” is no longer the clinical term), a chronic, complex condition that is impairing her ability to carry out certain ordinary functions of daily life, and putting her at serious risk of debilitating disease and premature death. of course you’re concerned; any friend would be. whoa   why is the ethicist starting out by pseudo diagnosing someone who is not involved in the conversation, rather than being deeply concerned that the person writing to them has ignored the clear boundary created by their “friend” and instead publicly derided this person’s size, food choices, and how they choose to communicate with their family and their doctor and wants to know if they should enlist family members in this effort. also, the ethicist’s arm chair “diagnosis” is based on the letter writer saying that their friend “must be [x] pounds plus overweight.” a trained medical doctor shouldn’t attempt to make a “diagnosis” based on that, let alone someone whose training is as a philosopher. (and note that “ob*sity” is a term that was made up to pathologize bodies based on shared size, with “classes” of “ob*sity” being even less credible if that’s possible.) the ethicist also failed to mention that the same health issues that are correlated with being higher weight are also correlated to weight cycling and weight stigma, which is what is on display here. further, the language the ethicist used is straight out of weight loss industry jargon, so i’m wondering if they got their information from an astroturf organization or diet industry propaganda. but you’re not telling her anything she doesn’t know. the cost of the promising new weight loss drugs is perhaps something of a red herring on her part. insurers, public and private, will generally cover medically necessary bariatric surgery, which is substantially more effective than the drugs are. (with surgery comes a risk of major complications, but the perils of living with class iii ob*sity are greater.) there are forms of therapy that address eating disorders, including binge eating, associated with severe ob*sity. in any event, a competent primary care provider will already have informed her of her medical options. the correct answer is “you’re not telling her anything she doesn’t know, and she has asked you not to talk to her about it, so we’re done here.” the correct answer is not to suggest that someone who, again, has not asked to be diagnosed or discussed in this way, is being dishonest about their financial situation. even worse, recommending a dangerous surgery and claiming that the “perils” of existing while fat are greater than those of mutilating a healthy digestive system to create a permanent disease state is absolutely not based in evidence and is massively out of scope for an ethicist whose training is as a philosopher. the idea that if you can’t afford (or don’t want) dangerous diet drugs then you should instead have part of your digestive system amputated because insurance will foot the bill for that is ethically questionable at best. finally, the ethicist’s categorization of eating disorders being associated with “severe ob*sity” is pretty questionable (since people of all sizes get all eating disorders) and the least he could have done is said “if she is dealing with an eating disorder…” again, none of this is within the area of expertise of philosophy and all that was really needed here was the first and final sentence, if anything. as for the risk of approaching her children? if you think they have a good chance of succeeding where you have failed, that’s a risk that a friend should take. yet they can surely see that she is suffering because of her ob*sity, so a safe assumption is that they have already tried to get her to seek medical help   and that she’s told them what she’s told you. the woman being discussed here (again, without her consent) is not a project for others to succeed or fail at. being fat does not mean that she loses her agency or her humanity or that her life and choices become subject to the rule of others or that her boundaries should be violated. here we see how the ultimate end of weight stigma is dehumanization. also, do we really think, ethically, that a friend, when told “don’t talk to me about this” should hear “go behind my back and talk to my children.” i do not believe that the ethicist’s advice here is morally justifiable in any way. unlike her primary care provider, you have no special knowledge of complex conditions. (one such complexity: the vicious cycle that can arise between depression and ob*sity.) you may not be the right person to make a difference here. she has explicitly asked you not to raise the issue with her. as someone who cares about her, you obviously have reason to want her to get healthier. but you can’t insist on it. while the ethicist also has no special knowledge about this either (though that certainly hasn’t stopped him so far) note that he is still coming from the position that this woman is a problem to be solved, making assumptions about her weight and health and life based on a letter written by someone else. note that he mentions the idea of a supposed “vicious cycle” (not a medical term, and offered without evidence) between depression and existing while fat, without mentioning the correlation between depression and weight stigma, which he is actively perpetuating through the pathologization and subsequent dehumanization of fatness. if the time comes when she cracks the door open to a conversation about her health, there’s plenty of good advice out there (including from the federal site health.gov) about how to get into it. if you have to go to a website to get health advice for someone, then you have no business giving them health advice, especially in this situation, you also lack the expertise to understand the ways that weight stigma might be impacting that advice or how it might apply to your friend. also, since she has been clear that she has no interest in hearing from you on this, instead of pouncing on whatever the writer perceives to be a “cracked door” perhaps wait for a full blown invitation.   keeping your focus on her well being, not her eating habits; avoiding fault finding, judgment and shame; talking with her, not at her. nope. if you are giving someone (especially unsolicited )health advice, then you are already engaged in fault finding, judgment (and likely shame.) you have made the determination that they aren’t making the “right” choices/taking the “right” actions for their health, that you know better than this person how they should conduct their life, and that you should impart your “better” ideas upon them. i’m glad you’ve made it clear that you’re concerned about her welfare and want to be helpful however you can. i wish she’d listen to you. note that despite a letter dripping in weight stigma, the ethicist has cast the letter writer as the hero in this story, fully accepted their (dubious) premise, taken everything they said as the truth without any sense of perspective of how this person’s bias might have impacted their letter and then the ethicist even puts himself and the letter writer on the same side against the subject of the letter for her unwillingness to subject herself to this person’s weight stigma or comply with what they think is best for her. as long as we’re making guesses, it sounds to me like this person likely berated and badgered someone who has asked them to stop, and instead of telling this person that they need to stop monitoring their “friend’s” body, health, and conversations with family and doctor and respect their boundaries, the ethicist laments that the subject of the letter won’t submit to her “friend’s” diatribes which, if they are remotely like the letter, would border on abusive. but as her friend, you also have to listen to her   and take notice of the boundaries she has set. this is the last line of “the ethicist’s” column it should have been the entire column, with a few revisions “whether or not you are her friend, you should listen to her and respect her boundaries.” if you are thinking about talking to a loved one (or, hey, a total stranger) about their weight and/or health, i have a handy guide here. liked the piece? share the piece! share more research and resources:https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/ *note on language: i use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, i use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti blackness. please read sabrina strings’ fearing the black body   the racial origins of fat phobia and da’shaun harrison’s belly of the beast: the politics of anti fatness as anti blackness for more on this. thank you for criticizing this. i read that column to see how the ethicist responded  i was disappointed. it was shortly followed by a column titled "my best friends are taking ozempic. can i share my disapproval?" the friends were described as "not obese," and that struck me as a kind of virtue signaling that i haven't quite unpacked. the ethicist was noticeably hostile to the writer of this letter, almost in reverse proportion to how solicitous they were to the writer concerned about their ob*se friend. i can't help but see it as a kind of side taking: if you're the fat object of criticism, the ethicist is on the side of the presumably thin friend; if you're the normal with an extra twenty pounds taking drugs to lose the weight, then the ethicist is with you, and against your meddling friend. in both cases, the ethicist is firmly on the side of weight loss. i would be interested in your thoughts on a compare/contrast of these two letters. i, too, read this and the column about ozempic and was angered as well. i thought i was going to be even more upset by the comments from readers, but i was surprisingly pleased that the ones i read (maybe the top 25?) we're either "leave your friend alone, ffs!" or a "her health is none of your business so even if she is fat and unhealthy, it's her business." the second one isn't great, but it's a lot better than some of the vile ones i was expecting. i'm sure they exist, but i'm glad i stopped before i saw them. and i'm going to point out, as i did in another comment, this guy is an "ethicist" with a philosophy degree/background. his answers read to me like any other advice column. he only mentioned the philosophical and ethical theories he bases his answers on i'm maybe one out of five or ten letters. otherwise, he's offering advice the same way any other advice column does. it's not special because the nyt gave him and/or the title of "ethicist". i'm just trying to underscore the fact that he's not an expert in anything but philosophy  and certainly not health, weight stigma or anything else  and doesn't even use that as a basis for a lot of his answers. no posts ready for more?

supported by by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on self pleasuring secrets and the pressures of living up to one’s sexual orientation. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on medical disclosure and marital malaise. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on quid pro quo and navigating serious medical changes in a marriage. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on awkward admissions and whether to make restitution for participating in transactional relationships. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on the fear of missing out and “carnal reciprocity.” by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on whether to remain a part of a religious organization that’s behaving in an unenlightened manner. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on the wages of charitable work. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on the difference between noticing women’s attractiveness and ogling them. by kwame anthony appiah the magazine’s ethicist columnist on separating belief from an appreciation of the arts and rituals produced by a religious organization. by kwame anthony appiah

july 1, 2007  one listener's mother, an artist, had asked that her artwork and journals be burned after her death, but the family can't decide whether to honor that wish. the ethicist weighs in. april 29, 2007  do teens who post personal stories and photos on web sites like facebook really expect they'll be safe from the prying eyes of adults? if so, are adults wrong to take a peek? that's this week's question for new york times ethicist randy cohen. march 11, 2007  a mother is editing her daughter's college papers   is that putting her child at an unfair advantage? not quite, says ethicist randy cohen. the purpose of college is not to compete, but to become an educated person... so if the mother is helping her daughter learn, she's doing the right thing. january 20, 2007  sometimes a lie can be forgiven. in fact, sometimes a lie is necessary. this week we'll hear from a listener wondering whether it's ethical to lie in order to reassure an elderly dementia patient. january 7, 2007  say you know something that you really aren't supposed to. is it okay to use that information? this week, new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen answers a listener who's not sure how to handle a piece of illicit information. december 10, 2006  this week with ethicist randy cohen, we'll hear from a listener who thought she was doing a good deed, until her co workers started making fun of her. october 22, 2006  say you're admiring someone's fabulous new shoes, and they tell you not only who designed them, but where to get your own pair. it might be an innocent exchange between friends, but it could also be what's now called "buzz marketing." this week's letter to the new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen comes from a listener who's wondering about the ethics of this practice. september 24, 2006  this week with new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen, one listener wonders what to do about her son, who lied to her about his academic misadventures. august 20, 2006  should you hang on to a profitable stock even if it's in a company you don't approve of? host debbie elliott and new york times ethicist randy cohen talk to a listener who's feeling a little guilty about her gains. july 23, 2006  what should you do if a friend makes a racist comment to you at a party? host debbie elliott and ethicist randy cohen help one listener decide. july 2, 2006  you may recall drawing the "bank error in your favor" card in a game of monopoly. host debbie elliott talks with ethicist randy cohen about what to do if this happens ... in real life. june 11, 2006  this week with ethicist randy cohen, we'll take up a life and death question. our guest is a doctor who's wondering whether it is proper to use her influence to push a particular patient to the top of the waiting list for a liver transplant. may 21, 2006  what happens when a desire to help your friends conflicts with a desire to help your people? host debbie elliott and new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen talk to a listener who can't decide which side to choose. april 23, 2006  what are the ethical considerations when buying high end designer jeans from a street vendor? isn't it likely the clothing was stolen from a manufacturer or retailer? well, yes and no. april 9, 2006  if you have a high school senior in your house, he or she may be haunting the mailbox right now, waiting for college acceptance letters to arrive. it's the time of year when the college admissions ordeal reaches its climax. new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen answers a listener's question about how adults should help their children on college applications. march 26, 2006  debbie elliott and new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen answer a listener's ethical dilemma about whether to alert others to a patient's medical condition. march 5, 2006  new york times columnist randy cohen takes on a professor's dilemma, when a student's credit for a course was erased because of a mistake at the university. february 19, 2006  host debbie elliott and new york times magazine ethicist randy cohen discuss a gun safety question that has noting to do with the vice president. we promise. february 5, 2006  new york times ethicist randy cohen responds to a listener's inquiry over whether or not to share someone's private information, which may be a threat to a third party. the listener asks whether he has a duty to alert others about the sexual promiscuity of an acquaintance infected with hiv. january 22, 2006  if you've ever wondered whether it's okay to use stalls designated for handicapped patrons in a public bathroom, host debbie elliott and ethicist randy cohen will set your mind at ease. january 1, 2006  this week with the ethicist: what can you do if you're stuck in coach class and the guy in front of you puts his seat back so far that his head ends up in your airline meal? randy cohen has some suggestions. december 25, 2005  this is the first time since 1959 that the first night of hanukkah falls on christmas day. for some american jews, this may pose a dilemma    whether to stay home, light a menorah and eat fried potato pancakes    or to honor another tradition    going out for chinese food and a movie. sponsor message become an npr sponsor

to report or not to report: that is the ethical dilemma health care social workers and ethics committees like this article? thank you for sharing! by: lisa kays, msw is it necessary to prevent therapists from using facebook any more than it would be to tell them that they can’t go out to dinner for fear of running into a client? what, exactly, is the difference? as a 30 something msw student, i find that facebook, linkedin, and twitter have become some of my primary methods of communication with former and current colleagues, family, and friends. i am, therefore, affected by this issue in a different way from people of previous generations who didn’t have such early exposure to the internet or don’t communicate as much via social media. likewise, my experience differs from that of the msw student who will enroll in 10 years, having never known a past that wasn’t logged online. the internet gained popularity when i was in my early 20s. i joined facebook in 2007 at the suggestion of my employer, to help promote the organization’s work. despite this later start, there is a lot about me online, as is true for many of us, because once the internet evolved, it became standard practice to post various types of information, from professional bios to wedding announcements. a google search will reveal that i served in the peace corps, teach improv, and do communications consulting. you could find that i’ve written an article about an abba cover band. and, now, that i wrote this one. these are not things i would likely share with a client in a therapy session. and yet, most people my age or younger will be unable to escape such exposure to some degree by the time they enroll in an msw program. begging the question, is the “blank slate” therapist even possible in the internet age? logging in to the dilemma in my first field placement, i didn’t have to consider any of this. i didn’t use my last name with clients because of the nature of the setting, and they were unlikely to have access to the internet. however, in my current placement, i’m forging longer term relationships with clients, all of whom have internet access and are likely to use social media. my question related to this issue centers primarily on dual relationships or harm to clients through therapist self disclosure. although informal discussions of this have occurred among professionals (scarton, 2010), little empirical research exists, but more is forthcoming, such as a recent study of online contact between therapists and clients (kolmes, 2011). the ethical web in reviewing the nasw code of ethics, i found that some of the most relevant ethical dimensions of this discussion focus on the following issues. do no harm. this principle asserts that when faced with dilemmas, social workers should endeavor always to choose the option that decreases or prevents harm (dolgoff, loewenberg, & harrington, 2009). this value asks that we explore what level of harm exists for clients when therapists use social media and under what conditions they should be used or not used. although there is limited research on this, literature on self disclosure and the alliance provides insight. first, it is well established that the therapeutic relationship is one of the most complex and important aspects of psychotherapy (glassgold, 2007). this is not an issue to be treated lightly. clients may prefer to think of their therapists as existing only in the therapy space. potential harm may occur, then, when the client feels impinged upon by finding a therapist’s personal information online (scarton, 2010). in one case, a patient experiencing erotic transference saw pictures online of his therapist in a bathing suit and was unable to continue treatment (scarton, 2010). further, a situation may be created in which the therapist must decide whether to accept “friend” requests, potentially having to reject the client. unlike running into a client at a restaurant, then, this forces a therapist to state who can access his or her social world (scarton, 2010). blogs by therapy patients about this topic cite concerns about confidentiality, learning things they don’t want to know about the therapist, entangling boundaries, and having more difficulty letting go of the attachment after termination (tressugar, 2010). further, all eight commenters on one post agreed that they wouldn’t want an online relationship with their therapists (tressugar, 2010). commenters on a related post said it would feel “awkward” or “creepy” to find information about one’s therapist (imaginenamaste, 2009). alternatively, some theorists propose that the potential damage of finding therapists online would not be as great as many think, and it could even be beneficial, arguing that twitter and facebook allow therapists to share information about psychotherapy (scarton, 2010). this could also help reduce stigma. one writer argues that some approaches to boundaries including via the internet are “overcautious or rigid in their interpretation and therapeutic limits” (glassgold, 2007, p. 979). mcwilliams cites research showing that some self disclosure is inevitable and can enhance treatment, because “outcome is much more highly correlated with an attachment to a vivid individual person than with the application of any specific techniques” (2004, p. 182). one could certainly argue that some information about the therapist could set in motion certain transferential aspects of therapy that may be beneficial to the client if worked through. however, the danger, as in the above example, is that the information may be so threatening that the client leaves treatment. i also wonder, given how frequently social media is mentioned by clients, about the wisdom of therapists shutting themselves out of a very widespread and increasing part of our social fabric. however, it remains unclear whether there are ways for therapists to engage online and minimize harm and the extent to which they need to prioritize this to protect clients and the therapeutic alliance. some methods might include high privacy settings, limitations to certain sites, not directly interacting with clients, or limiting content posted. unfortunately, there are currently few guidelines to help inform decision making in this realm, as well as in terms of questions as to the responsibility of therapists given the possibility of even private sites being hacked and exposed, or information being visible unintentionally via networks. as one physician stated, “it’s more important for us to be a bit more careful about who we friend and who we don’t friend” (foreman, 2010). related ethical questions ask us to extend this to also consider to what degree therapists are responsible for protecting their information. quality of life. this value asks us to consider whether social media enhances the quality of life “for all people” (dolgoff, 2009, p. 68). this would affect whether or not social workers would want to publicly model the behavior of using it. unfortunately, there is no definitive knowledge that would indicate whether social media is a benefit or a bane for people, communities, or society as a whole. right to privacy and confidentiality. by nature, online relationships are not private. as relationships under observation, they can inherently infringe upon client confidentiality, indicating that direct online relationships between therapists and clients are inappropriate. however, this also encourages us to consider that, for therapists who do engage in online interactions with clients, it is critical to consider the importance of informed consent and related ethical practices. it should also go without saying that therapists should never post client information online, even anonymously. the prevalence of those doing so is surprising, as therapist susan giurleo points out, while also arguing that this isn’t a sign that therapists need to give up social media, but that they need to be more judicious in its use (2010). this value also points to the need for guidelines to be established to help social workers understand the ethical parameters of using social media. full disclosure. the value of “full disclosure” states, “a social worker should make practice decisions that permit her to speak the truth and to fully disclose all relevant information to her client and to others” (dolgoff, 2009, p. 68), asking us to look at the extent to which it is necessary or appropriate to forewarn clients about a therapists’ online presence since it could become relevant if the client comes across it on purpose or accidentally. therefore, we may be wise to consider preparing policies or paperwork for clients that might disclose fully and make open to discussion how the therapist manages her online presence, the therapist’s boundaries related to social media, the nature of information available about the therapist online, and the implications of searching for such information to the therapeutic process. some practitioners have such mechanisms in place (scarton, 2010). why am i all a twitter?: the personal perspective this framework helps clarify a complex ethical topic that has not yet been widely discussed or researched; however, it does not address the personal considerations of social workers such as myself who use and value social media. this will be of increasing importance as the younger generations who have hardly known an existence without social media take their place in the profession. we will need to grapple with this reality and with the differing attitudes about social media between the generations, particularly because social media is becoming more than an optional, “fun” outlet. it is rapidly becoming an integrated, primary means of conducting our social, civic, and professional lives. as one writer explained, “some therapists think total abstinence of social media is necessary. younger therapists tend to disagree, since the internet is so integral to their lives” (scarton, 2010). one ethicist expressed concern that younger therapists understand the internet very well, but may not understand the ethical and boundary issues that surround it (scarton, 2010). fair enough. but it also behooves us to consider the reality that the online existence of those younger therapists pre existed their decision to become therapists. and that their online existence is also how they participate in their communities, give to philanthropic causes, connect with friends, and advocate for policy change. i, for one, can’t imagine giving up social media. it is integral to my life. it is how i send, receive, and accept social invitations; participate in civic action, including policy advocacy; get my local, national, and international news; forge ties with out of state family and friends that i may not otherwise communicate with as regularly; exercise my sense of humor and creativity; share and receive information relevant to my life and interests; and keep up with professional trends and contacts. for this reason, it is my belief that as a social work student and aspiring therapist, it is my duty to find a way to interact with social media in a way that is respectful and mindful of my clients and my profession as a whole. as a result, i locked down my twitter account and hid my facebook profile in search. i find myself doing more self censoring of information i post, not because it would violate confidentiality or be overtly inappropriate, but because i am now more mindful that the joke i was making may be misconstrued or cause misunderstandings that might reflect poorly on the social work profession. i deleted my personal blog. however, these actions were not without personal loss. i am a creative person. i greatly valued the ability to share my writing and thinking with others and to be part of the broader conversation the internet allows. i sorely miss being able to do so. further, locking down my twitter account and facebook profiles limited my ability to interact with others. new contacts were not able to find me, and fewer people could see and interact with my tweets. over time, i found this frustrating. after a few more months of careful consideration, i dropped my facebook security one level (i can now be seen in search), a decision i continue to struggle with. i also recently opted to close my twitter account and open another under an anonymous moniker. however, i do identify myself as an msw student, to foster networking with other social workers and social work students tweeting about issues of common interest. i decided that the value for me in being able to network and share ideas, as well as the sense of fun and play i find through such interactions, weighed heavily enough for me to take this risk. i am also mindful each time i post that, although unlikely, it could be traced back to me if someone were extremely committed to doing so. this process has been, for me, very much an exploration of my own boundaries, as well as my therapeutic ones. it has raised the question for me not only of the ethical parameters of social media use in regard to how we work with and have an impact on our clients, but also their relevance to our own lives. conclusion given the saturation of social media in our lives, it may be necessary to ask every msw student to engage in some sort of education around social media and its implications for their new professional role. this might occur as part of the ethics course or even clinical practice courses. this would allow new social workers to explore such issues and their implications in depth and to understand the risks and benefits associated with their use of social media. it would also give them the information necessary to make informed decisions that resonate with their personal and professional values. just as we write papers to process our feelings about race and gender, it may soon be necessary to ask students to process their feelings about their use of social media. i know that doing so for me has been a crucial step in my professional development. in our studies of ethics, we are taught that, “codes of ethics generally provide guidance only for good/bad decisions. they are far less effective in helping practitioners make decisions of the good/good and bad/bad variety” (dolgoff, 2009, p. 37). it is becoming increasingly clear that use of social media by social workers is rapidly evolving into the latter variety, given that action on either side has consequences for clients and therapists alike, and for their relationships inside and outside the therapy session. we do not yet have enough information about these potential consequences. unfortunately, the drumbeat of tweets isn’t slowing down to wait for us to figure it out. it is understood and within our code of ethics that we, as social workers, are to put client interests above our own. however, it is also understood that we are to practice self care and value human relationships (national association of social workers, 2008). as a profession, we are likely going to need to include these considerations as they apply to the lives and well being of our own practitioners in discussions about the ethical use of social media by those practitioners. undoubtedly, our hitting “post” could potentially harm our relationships with our clients, but being unable to also imposes increasingly real costs to those who must refrain. not being on facebook doesn’t just mean not being able to play farmville anymore. it potentially means missing a valuable opportunity to connect. references dolgoff, r., loewenberg, f., & harrington, d. (2009). ethical decisions for social work practice. (8th ed.). belmont, ca: brooks/cole cengage learning. foreman, j. (2010, april 26). you, your doctor and the internet. los angeles times. retrieved march 9, 2011, from http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/26/health/la he facebook 20100426. giurleo, s. (2010, july 16). twitter, confidentiality and our small world: a story for therapists. in drsusangiurleo.com. retrieved march 9, 2011, from http://drsusangiurleo.com/twitter confidentiality and our small world a story for therapists/. glassgold, j. (2007). redrawing the boundaries of psychotherapy: is it ethically possible? psychcritiques, 52 (28), 978 979. imaginenamaste. (2009, may 18). now you can facebook stalk your therapist. in grey thinking. retrieved september 11, 2010, from http://www.greythinking.com/2009/05/18/now you can facebook stalk your therapist/. kolmes, k. (2011). research. in drkkolmes.com. retrieved march 9, 2011, from http://drkkolmes.com/research/#therapist%20survey. mcwilliams, n. (2004). psychoanalytic psychotherapy: a practitioner's guide. new york: guilford press. national association of social workers. (2008). code of ethics of the national association of social workers. retrieved march 9, 2011, from http://www.naswdc.org/pubs/code/code.asp. scarton, d. (2010, march). google and facebook raise new issues for therapists and their clients. washington post. retrieved september 6, 2010, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/ar2010032902942.html tressugar. (2010, april 27). the pros and cons of “friending” your shrink. retrieved september 11, 2010, from http://www.tressugar.com/being facebook friends your therapist pros cons 8252952.s. lisa kays graduated in may 2011 with a clinical msw from the catholic university of america and wrote this article as part of her ethics coursework. lisa also has an ma in journalism from american university, and her previous career was in communications and marketing for nonprofits. like this article? thank you for sharing! all material published on this website copyright 1994 2023 white hat communications. all rights reserved. please contact the publisher for permission to reproduce or reprint any materials on this site. opinions expressed on this site are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. as an amazon associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

writing boots on communication, professional and otherwise. 04.21.2021 by david murray // leave a comment one of the reasons i still take a newspaper every sunday is that it’s a regular test of my curiosity. do i care to read that story about how the cdc came to the decision to suspend the johnson & johnson vaccine? or am i willing to continue my pattern of being pretty ignorant about the science of covid, and secure in my feelings about it? unlike the internet, the newspaper does that: it gives you a sense of how much there is to know, and forces you to physically turn the page without reading it, thus admitting to yourself and your god: there is a great deal of objectively important shit i don’t know anything about, and am too lazy or otherwise preoccupied to read up on. (the entire war in syria, for instance.) that’s a good thing to remember about yourself. keeps you humble. the new york times is the sunday paper i read. some weeks i read a lot of it, and it takes hours to get through; other weeks i have fewer shits to give. but every single sunday, the very easiest section to skip past is the regular ethics column, in the nyt magazine. that, too, seemed like a lack of curiosity on my part, until i realized the reason i didn’t want to know the answers that “the ethicist” had to offer was that the questions are so dumb! those questions are either blithely answered through the haze of a bloody mary buzz “yes,” “no” or “who gives a fuck?” or they’re as impossible to answer as the much larger, more troubling question: “what sort of propeller head, on the horns of a dilemma, thinks to write a letter to the new york times?!” i was inspired to ask some more difficult questions i’ve faced in recent years, days, and minutes bravely, on my own! that i’d like to see “the ethicist” try to answer: • if i think an extended family member or family friend’s very young child is butt ass ugly inside and out, should i refrain from saying so to my wife, thus legitimizing a shameful private thought into a social reality? or should i share it with her, to avoid creating or perpetuating a pattern of love strangling victorian propriety between me and my beloved? • if i post a super cute picture on facebook about my dog, shouldn’t i include a line admitting that i’m not even going to bother noticing who “likes” it and specifying that i’m only in it for the numbers? • if i run across a searing feminist post like this mcsweeney’s masterpiece titled, “alternatives to resting bitch face,” am i obligated to forward it to feminist friends and family members, knowing full well that they will love the piece but surely forget i was the one who sent it, and then use it to sharpen their knives against my partriarchy representing ass? i had a boss once who said that some people prefer an ethical question to a real one. not me, boy. categories // uncategorized your email address will not be published. required fields are marked * comment * name * email * website save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time i comment. δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_1" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); this site uses akismet to reduce spam. learn how your comment data is processed. order now δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_2" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); david murray writes on communication issues. read more copyright © 2025 · log in

dear covid vaccine ethicist, i work as part of a small team that must meet in person once or twice a week. (we’re careful to wear masks and maintain social distancing.) none of us has been vaccinated yet, but i recently learned that one member of our team let’s call him dennis pronounces the “p” in “pfizer.” do i have an ethical obligation to correct him?  silent p. dear silent, you do not. in fact, i would suggest that you’re obligated not to set your co worker straight. why? because every time he says “puh fizer,” dennis brings a bit of joy to everyone within earshot. what could be more ethical than helping to spread joy? while you’re at it, get him to try to say “astrazeneca,” too. and maybe “chiaroscuro.” ethics asks much of us, but it does not preclude our laughing at someone else’s expense. that’s my understanding, anyway. dear covid vaccine ethicist, i am a single, thirty four year old kindergarten teacher and have just received my second dose of the covid vaccine. (yay!) my neighbor across the hall is an eighty year old woman in poor health. as far as i know, she hasn’t even got her first dose yet. is it o.k. for me to take her huge, rent stabilized two bedroom when it becomes available?  studio bound in bed stuy dear studio, you certainly could take this woman’s apartment living across the hall, you will likely be among the first to know when it’s up for grabs. but should you? that is a thorny question, and it begets other thorny questions, some ethical and some practical. does your proximity give you an unfair advantage over other apartment seekers? might it be better if this apartment went to someone who truly needs the space say, a young family? can you really afford a two bedroom even one that’s rent stabilized? are you willing to break your current lease? how “icky” might you feel, living in the apartment of a dead woman? have you offered to help your elderly neighbor find a vaccination site and make an appointment, or did you deflect when she recently asked you about the band aid on your upper arm? these are the kinds of questions the conscientious apartment hunter grapples with before making such a big decision. p.s. in the time it took me to write this response, your neighbor’s apartment went on the market and was snapped up by a day trader from queens. dear covid vaccine ethicist, my father is seventy four years old and has a history of heart problems. clearly, he is in a high risk group. yet he refuses to get the vaccine, saying that he doesn’t believe it’s safe. i would like to rent a windowless van and recruit some friends to stage a kidnapping snatching my father from the street, pulling a hood over his head, and driving him to an abandoned warehouse, where he would be injected with “truth serum” (i.e., the covid vaccine) and interrogated before being dumped back where we found him and warned to keep his mouth shut. my wife thinks someone could get hurt. i think the benefits outweigh the risks. who’s right?  à la balaclava in buffalo dear balaclava, i’m with you. if your father won’t listen to reason, abducting him and injecting him under duress during what he believes is a kidnapping is the next logical step. (you may have to repeat the process a few weeks later, of course, to administer a second dose. but i’m sure you’ve accounted for that.) as the population ages and more of us are forced into the role of caretaker, i’m afraid such difficult choices will only become more common. none of us wants to shove a terrified, elderly parent into an unmarked vehicle driven by masked strangers. but sometimes love leaves us no choice. dear covid vaccine ethicist, i am a healthy forty five year old woman, living alone, and not an essential worker of any kind. as such, i’m nowhere near the top of the list for a vaccination and i’m o.k. with that. but i also know that if a vaccination site has extra doses on any given day, they must use them quickly or trash them. am i ethically allowed to ask a health care worker to squirt one such dose in my mouth? i’ve been wondering what that stuff tastes like.  curious in columbus dear curious, ethicists agree that the worst possible outcome in this scenario is that a vaccine dose goes to waste. so, yes, have a guilt free taste. or two! and please report back, because i’ve been wondering the same thing. (i’m guessing it just tastes “mediciney,” but you never know.) dear covid vaccine ethicist, i’m not yet eligible to be vaccinated, but i would be if i lived in france. may i lie about my nationality in order to get the shot?  torn in tacoma dear torn, ethics prohibits lying in order to receive a benefit to which you aren’t entitled. that said, i believe there’s a way to thread this needle. is it ethical for you to go to paris? yes. to wear a beret and smoke a gauloise as you stroll the streets, looking bored? certainly. to enter a covid 19 vaccination site? to roll up your sleeve? to not protest as a needle goes into your arm? yes, yes, and yes. no lying necessary. true, some ethicists might call this lying by omission. but those ethicists wouldn’t last a minute on the streets of paris. bon courage! dear covid vaccine ethicist, let me get this straight: i can’t get the vaccine yet, but somehow my asshole neighbor can? how is that ethical?  disbelieving in delaware dear disbelieving, ethics is asshole blind. just one of the many things wrong with ethics. sections more © 2025 condé nast. all rights reserved. the new yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers. the material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of condé nast. ad choices

a magazine of politics and culture the new york times advice column, where snitching liberal busybodies come to seek absolution, is more than a mere annoyance. in limiting our ethical considerations to tricky personal situations and dilemmas, it directs our thinking away from the larger structural injustices of our time. the term “first world problem” is used to describe the type of minor nuisance that occupies the minds of the bourgeoisie. you dropped an airpod in the urinal. you spilled chardonnay on the divan. whole foods was out of pomegranates. and so forth. these are perfectly real frustrations, but they only afflict the comfortable. we might define a parallel quandary in the field of moral philosophy: the first world ethical problem. these are dilemmas about right and wrong that don’t actually touch any of the major ethical crises of our time, or the issues of structural injustice. they’re problems that only arise, or seem worthy of spending time on, once you reach a certain level of wealth and privilege. the new york times advice column, the ethicist, is filled with these kinds of bourgeois dilemmas. the ethicist a role a few columnists have inhabited over the years purports to offer “advice on life’s trickiest situations and moral dilemmas.” since 2015 the answers to the public’s queries have been written by philosophy professor kwame anthony appiah. as appiah explained in an interview shortly after taking the ethicist role, the questions that he answers are not those about, say, the placement of an olive fork or how to avoid being audited by the irs in other words, those that could be answered by other guides to bourgeois life, like emily post, a lawyer, or a financial planner. “an ethical question is, roughly speaking, a question about how you ought to conduct yourself, what you owe to other people, how you ought to think about what you do, and how it impacts the world whether on other people or on animals or on the environment,” appiah says. he has also said that he seeks not just to answer a particular question but to show readers how to think about questions that arise in their lives. this all sounds unobjectionable. but an examination of some of the questions and answers from recent years reveals that bourgeois values and worldviews are (surprise!) inadequate for approaching the kinds of large scale problems we ought to be thinking about. ethicist questions fall into a number of common categories. here, we present a discussion of some of the most notable, and the underlying values they reveal. here we have questions concerned with minor violations of private property rights. in one typical case, an ethicist reader writes in to ask, “are people who read magazines without paying ‘stealing’ their content?” at their local barnes and noble, it seems, this person has witnessed other customers who “grab multiple magazines and take them to their table with their coffee” to read, only to later “put the magazines back in the racks without paying for them.” the questioner’s indignation is palpable, and they stridently complain that their fellow bookstore goers are “‘stealing’ content that is meant to be purchased.” this person may be the perfect example of an ethicist reader. they’re peeved about a perceived transgression that doesn’t affect them in any way, or really harm anyone (the store gets its magazines back and loses nothing), and they want the entire world to know about it. underlying the mentality of the question is a core belief in the sanctity of property. the idea is that even immaterial things like reading an article must always be paid for in a market transaction, and that no circumstances can justify sacrilege against that holy principle. the correct response to this kind of question would be “what on earth are you talking about?” followed by “don’t you have something better to do?” but because the ethicist and the new york times as a bourgeois institution fundamentally shares the belief that property is sacred, this is not the answer the complainer receives. instead, appiah tells them that reading the magazines is acceptable because barnes and noble itself hasn’t opted to “crack down on the behavior,” and is “acting as if what they’re doing is ok.” in other words, the appropriate conduct for the situation is whatever the business owner decides. property law has resolved the ethical question. importantly, the creators of the magazines in question don’t enter into the calculus: there’s no consideration of whether it’s a small publication that could really use the sales or, say, the new yorker, which is doing fine and doesn’t need your money. the principle is simply that owning property allows you to dictate propriety.1 some property related questions in the column are merely frivolous. (“is it wrong if a friend sells my hand me downs?”) others, though, reveal serious shortcomings in the ethicist’s understanding of the world. one such question is “is shoplifting ok if the shop owner is awful?,” from february 2024. in this column, a reader asks about a friend of theirs who “shoplifts on a regular basis,” but only from “companies that are known to treat their employees badly, or that knowingly source their products from places where human rights are violated, or whose owners/c.e.o.s donate to ultraconservative, authoritarian leaning candidates.” in keeping with the property is sacred motif, the ethicist concludes that this is not acceptable, because it allegedly undermines the overall social system “that allows people to hold on to their possessions and dispose of them only when they choose to.” the response muddies the waters, because (despite what mitt romney might tell you) corporations are not people, and the personal property of individuals is very different from corporate property on a mass scale. stealing from your neighbor and stealing from walmart are entirely different acts, because “walmart” as a corporate entity can’t suffer feelings of betrayal, violation, and loss the way a human being would. this crucial difference goes undiscussed. what’s more, the ethicist’s sense of moral priorities is completely backwards. the column treats a single individual’s violation of the property rights of a company as distasteful and dangerous, while regarding the fact that the companies in question damage many people’s fundamental human rights (remember that they “treat their employees badly” and “knowingly” have abuses in their supply chains) as unremarkable. appiah even says that the companies’ bosses are “exercising their rights as citizens” by supporting “ultraconservative, authoritarian” politicians. (in other words, they have a right to curtail others’ rights, as long as they do it through the established political channels!) there’s a distinct class bias to the direction the ethical condemnation is pointed, and the direction it’s not pointed. there’s plenty of concern that acts of petty theft could damage the fabric of society, but no acknowledgement that the businesses in question damage it far more, simply by continuing to operate. there is, of course, a valid criticism of the act of stealing from a company like (for example) the notoriously misogynistic and transphobic hobby lobby or the brutally anti labor amazon. namely, it doesn’t damage them enough. they’re not really going to notice a missing apple or pack of batteries, and things like unionizing their workforce would be more effective in challenging the companies to shape up. but at worst it’s a fairly anodyne act, neither praiseworthy nor unspeakably villainous. to loudly denounce such thefts in the pages of the new york times presupposes that the current order of property, power, and ownership is legitimate and must be protected. by the same logic, a 19th century version of the ethicist could have justified turning jean valjean in for stealing that loaf of bread in les misérables. speaking of turning people in, this brings us to another common trope of ethicist questions, which is… in the 2015 interview, appiah admitted that many ethicist questions revolve around determining what people can say to whom. in many of these questions, the writer asks whether it’s okay to turn someone in to the authorities, condemn them, or just reveal privileged information. often, readers are looking for permission to reveal information in the form of snitching on another person (which makes sense given how gossipy the times’ headlines and overall tone are). ethicist questioners also often want to know whether they should intrude into someone else’s life, to stop “minding their own business.” notable examples include: two especially concerning queries involve snitching to two of the most racist and violent authority groups in the country: the police and immigration and customs enforcement. in “was i right to call the cops on a black man breaking into a car?,” appiah, first and foremost, affirms the sanctity of private property and the proper role of police in protecting that property. it’s your “civic responsibility,” he tells the writer, to report an act of apparent (and unsuccessful!) burglary. the worst part, though, is the reasoning he uses to assuage the writer’s concern that calling the police on a black man may very well lead to the man or others mistaken for him being “harassed” or killed. (the column describes this as “the tragic way things too often end between police and people of color,” which is something of an understatement.) to justify calling the cops, appiah suggests something that is purely speculative: that the man in question could steal a firearm from a car and then, presumably, use it on another person. he writes, “in recent years, the theft of firearms, often from vehicles, has risen sharply where you live. your state also has the highest rate of black homicide victims in the country (and most violent crimes are indeed intraracial). so yes, i’d say you did the right thing.” this response is stunning in its callousness and presumption. appiah’s use of the word “intraracial” here is also notable. you can bet the reader isn’t going to be thinking about, say, “white on white” crime, so in this context it obviously refers to “black on black crime,” which is a racist and debunked trope used sometimes in response to concern about police violence against black people. when people such as political commentators talk about black on black crime, it suggests that there’s something uniquely violent about black people and that this violence is actually the thing people should be concerned about as opposed to police violence against black people. having squashed the writer’s concerns about calling the cops, appiah then goes on to talk about how the police need to “root out” more of their own bad apples another liberal talking point that mischaracterizes the problem with police (the problem is systemic, not one of a few individuals). now let’s go back to the writer’s scenario. it turns out that the man “breaking into a car” had opened an unlocked car door and went no further, having been deterred by the writer shouting at him, and so no one’s car was actually stolen! overall, there doesn’t really seem to be a good reason for involving the police here unless one wishes to act as a private arm of the police and make sure no small “crime” including attempted burglary goes unpunished. the potential fallout of calling the police seems disproportionate to what the man in question actually did. appiah focuses more on what the man might do as opposed to what he did, which makes it seem like he’s really stretching for a reason to justify a deference to authority. (if we are serious about considering hypotheticals, though, we might consider the abuse that the man might undergo assuming he survives his encounter with the cops in a jail or prison for opening somebody’s car door.) in another entry, a questioner asked whether they should report an acquaintance to immigration and customs enforcement (ice) after finding out they only got married in order to secure someone citizenship. the ethicist said it would be a good idea to report the married couple to the government, assuming they were certain about the facts, and even recommended they seek out an online form for the purpose. now, a person who has “faked” a marriage for citizenship might not be as stigmatized or in danger as, say, an immigrant crossing the u.s. mexico border without documents, but reporting the person and setting in motion a process which could lead to their deportation is to subject the person to trauma, hardship, and possibly violence (depending on the circumstances they left behind in their home country and whether they feel comfortable going back). appiah also reminds the reader that millions of other immigrants have applied “properly” and are “waiting their turn.” he notes that he, too, is an immigrant, and presumably, he followed the rules to become a citizen, so everyone else can, and should, too. liberals and conservatives alike love this immigration talking point: just do it the right way “legally” and everything will be fine! of course, migrants at the border are doing something legal by seeking asylum. and generally, the path to u.s. citizenship is expensive and not as easy as people would assume. lastly, appiah’s assertion that the writer’s duty to report would be different were she not a u.s. citizen reaffirms the idea that people’s loyalty to an abstraction like the nation state is ultimately more important than thinking about what might happen to the person who gets reported to ice. the ethicist is calm and cool about matters here, and ice is just another important authority doing the work of keeping people where they’re supposed to be: on one side of a completely arbitrary border. deeper and more interesting questions as to whether we need borders (there is a good argument that we don’t) are not to be asked. in the ethicist’s world, it’s all law and order, all the time. “white guilt” is another ethicist commonplace. in this subgenre of column, a white reader writes in to the new york times because they’re terribly worried about some minor, ultimately symbolic issue where they could be perceived as racially insensitive. they want appiah to soothe their anxieties. often, the issue at hand involves some kind of object in the reader’s possession. one of the classic examples is “i’m white. should i repatriate my african art?,” from december 2023. in this letter, the questioner says they own a “significant collection of masks, statues, figurines and other objects from mostly west african cultures,” and that they’re worried about the possibility these objects were acquired “via an unfair transaction” during colonialism, asking appiah if it’s “possible to repatriate them.” other typical letters in this vein ask questions like: sometimes an obsession with policing other people’s behavior comes into play, as in the case of the self described “white woman living in a mostly white town” who asks “should i speak up about a worker’s confederate battle flag?” confronted with these earth shattering dilemmas, appiah gives a variety of answers: no, you don’t need to repatriate your african masks, because you have no idea whether they were purchased legitimately or not; yes, it’s probably a bad idea to give your racist ancestor a “place of honor” on your mantelpiece; yes, you should tell your friend it makes you uncomfortable to see a figurine of “santa in black face”; and it doesn’t matter very much what you do with the nazi helmet, provided you’re not a neo nazi yourself. but it’s the questions themselves, and the decision to give them prominence in the pages of the times, that’s really interesting. the concept of racism and racial justice on display in these questions is very liberal, and very bourgeois. in essence, the kind of person who writes in to the ethicist thinks of racism as a question of individual manners, rather than one of sociopolitical power. to them, racism is when a particular person says something, or owns something, that might cause others offense; it’s not, for instance, when the entire police force pulls black drivers over more frequently than white ones, or when the standard of medical care or housing available to people of certain ethnicities is worse than others. conversely, combating racism becomes a matter of making one’s individual behavior nice and polite (or in the worker with confederate flag incident, reprimanding others whose behavior is not). as long as no one says the wrong thing, and no one displays the wrong symbolic object, there’s no racism; all is well in liberalville. the idea that dealing with racism might require a mass political movement to uproot and overturn racist systems of power is completely outside the moral universe of the ethicist. appiah might give a mini lecture on the nuances of virtue signaling or tell a reader to “[take] in the ugliness” of a confederate historical site, but he’ll never tell a reader to organize a protest at the nearest police precinct or homeowner’s association, where it might actually do some good. in 1938, the great bolshevik revolutionary and political theorist leon trotsky wrote a short book called their morals and ours, in which he laid out his views on the whole vexed subject of ethics and how they mix with politics. in one memorable passage, trotsky blasts the self righteous armchair moralists of his own time: what a perfect description of the ethicist and its readers! today, there are indeed “great historical movements” to be involved in, from the struggle to defund the police and abolish mass incarceration to the cause of the palestinian people. but to look at the pages of the new york times advice column, you’d never know it. “smug narrowness” and “political cowardice” are the order of the day, as appiah and his fans fret endlessly about the appropriate way to dispose of their trinkets and tokens something no actual advocate for racial justice, or any other kind, ever asked them to do. beyond their little bubble of privilege, history marches on. some ethicist letters are even more clearly about “rich people problems.” these involve large sums of money, exclusive institutions, and other trappings of the financial elite, such as: half the time, the readers of the ethicist seem to live in the decadent and absurd world of a p.g. wodehouse novel, or perhaps a particularly crap episode of downton abbey. other times, they write to appiah about the problems they’re having with members of the lower classes. for instance, one reader asks, “a homeless man sleeps in the lobby of my apartment building. what should i do?” the reader, who lives in a “lovely old apartment in a relatively upper class suburb of a major u.s. city,” is troubled that “a homeless man has been sleeping in the unlocked vestibule of my building,” even though he “hasn’t directly harmed any person in the building” or done anything especially offensive beyond perhaps once eating someone’s delivered food order. the ethicist tells the reader that “your safety matters,” implying that the homeless are inherently dangerous, and suggests talking to others although not, notably, talking to the homeless man himself or directly offering him help of any kind. the ethicist also suggests “putting a lock on the vestibule.” (there’s the fixation on protecting property again.) while appiah does barely admit that the problem of homelessness is a societal one, his final words on the matter are utterly disappointing: “i’m glad that you’re treating him as a human being in need. but your safety matters, too. helping to ameliorate his situation isn’t a responsibility that should fall on you alone. it falls on us, collectively, and we’ve let you down.” really? in a time when homelessness and the demonization of the homeless has reached record levels, “we’ve let you down” is the best he’s got? for that matter, is it really the comfortably homed letter writer who’s been “let down,” and whose “safety” needs to be considered? the implication is that the reader’s discomfort at having to encounter this man is a more significant problem than his actual lack of a home. in this way, perhaps appiah is like his fellow times columnist pamela paul, who, as hamilton nolan recently assessed in a deliciously funny blog post, is simply unable to “access true anger at the state of the world” due to having spent “decades ensconced in bourgeois antechambers.” additional queries in the “rich people problems” category include: here, the questions only become relevant if you’re wealthy enough to have domestic help in the first place. since the vast majority of people aren’t, it’s unclear why they’re being published and notably, there’s rarely a question from a working person asking “what should i do about my boss?” in fact, this genre is so predictable that we’ve devised a mix n match table for you to auto generate your own ethicist questions: let’s return, for a moment, to our old pal leon trotsky. in their morals and ours, he draws a clear distinction between morality in general and “bourgeois” morality. as he describes it, the latter not only has its origins in class inequality, but serves as a mechanism to protect that inequality: morality is one of the ideological functions in [class] struggle. the ruling class forces its ends upon society and habituates it to considering all those means which contradict its ends as immoral. that is the chief function of official morality. it pursues the idea of the “greatest possible happiness” not for the majority but for a small and ever diminishing minority. such a regime could not have endured for even a week through force alone. it needs the cement of morality. the production of this cement constitutes the profession of the petty bourgeois theoreticians and moralists. they radiate all the colors of the rainbow but in the final analysis remain apostles of slavery and submission. once again, we can see exactly this dynamic at work in the pages of the ethicist. there is a “small and ever diminishing minority” for whom the advice is intended, and whose worldview is reflected in the columns. the “majority” appear as a never ending source of trouble for that minority, not as subjects in their own right. at every turn, the bedrock assumption is that the actions of poor and working class people are likely to cause a problem, one that appiah and his sage advice will help to overcome. the idea that the reader might be working class themself never arises. in this moral universe, working people’s behavior needs to be monitored and policed. gambling nannies need to be fired (if only because they might one day be tempted to steal!), and homeless men need to get out of the lobby so polite new york times readers don’t have to feel uncomfortable. the fundamental message is that people should know their place, and the behavior appropriate to it. with such “cement” is the elite liberal order, the class order, maintained. on occasion, a newly minted member of the professional managerial class someone from working class roots stands at the precipice of entry into elite life and questions which way to go. should they work for an evil corporation and have the lifestyle and financial stability that that kind of salary affords, or choose the less remunerative path of employment in a public agency or nonprofit so they can serve the common good? this is precisely the situation in the classic ethicist column “is it ok to take a law firm job defending climate villains?” here, the writer is about to graduate from law school and is entertaining a job offer from a firm that they know will require them to represent “many polluters and companies that i feel are making the apocalyptic climate situation even worse.” this entry is particularly notable for the astronomical amount of bullshit and “both sides ism” that appiah flings at the writer. appiah starts off by writing, it’s hard to see how the world would be improved if such corporations couldn’t find legal advice and representation. is a corporation really going to behave better if it doesn’t know what the law is? at which point we must emphasize that this is a total misrepresentation of what corporate lawyers do. they don’t simply “tell corporations what the law is,” which sounds harmless. they help prove in a court of law that the corporation’s evil acts are in compliance with the law! also, it’s actually not hard to see how “the world would be improved” if climate destroying companies couldn’t find legal representation! a corporation that is actively destroying the environment and the future of the human species shouldn’t be allowed to exist, let alone have representation! appiah continues, “as with criminal defense, we need lawyers who will work diligently for people and associations whether they approve of them or not.” but this isn’t true. as with the shoplifting case, it assumes that the same calculus applies to both “people” and “associations” (in this case, climate destroying corporations). but while we do need lawyers who “will work diligently” for people they don’t approve of in criminal cases, why do we need lawyers who will work diligently to defend corporate wrongdoers? why are chocolate companies entitled to have someone diligently argue in defense of child slavery, for instance? appiah suggests being a corporate lawyer is actually an act of public service on par with… a job in public service. never mind that the lure of corporate law sucks eager law school graduates away from other “public interest” jobs all the time in what has been called the “conveyer belt to corporate law.” instead of focusing on the people the writer could be helping other than corporations, appiah focuses on making the choice to work for a malevolent corporate client look good. he even uses the logic of the effective altruists, who argue that taking a high paying corporate job and then donating the money to a good cause would actually be a way to do the most good. (this is doubtful.) he tells the writer that they might be able to change a firm from the inside. (again, doubtful.) and he reassures the writer that they won’t abandon their values just by working for a corporation, even one that is actively wrecking the planet. somehow times ethical theory has brought us to the conclusion that the right thing to do is to help destroy the world. what is one bourgeois institution where propriety reigns supreme? the family. enter some of the most important, common, and thorny ethicist queries. frequently, the questioner is trying to deal with a particularly challenging family member: someone with age related issues or care needs, mental illness, a drug problem, neurodiversity, or someone formerly or currently incarcerated. many of the questioners in these family scenarios are deeply unsympathetic people who tend to point out that while everyone else in their family is healthy, productive, and thriving, there’s one person who is making things difficult: these situations are particularly concerning because the children in these scenarios are dealing with issues that our culture tends not to have a lot of empathy for: drug use or addiction, repeated imprisonment, homelessness or the threat of homelessness, and special needs issues. the incarcerated son in the first example above is also noted to be adopted, and you can sense that the writer sees the non genetic relationship to her son as a factor that might limit her responsibility to him. other family related ethical dilemmas include: whether to withhold money owed to the morally repugnant widow of a dearly beloved sibling, whether to cut off a daughter with learning disabilities and autism, whether to support an elderly mother who refuses to manage her money well, whether to help a hoarding parent, whether to shun a politically toxic ex brother in law. some families have plainly bizarre internal dynamics, such as the spouse complaining that their husband always flies first class while putting the rest of the family in coach. (here, appiah refers to the “institution of marriage” and how it should be about couples treating each other as equals. he mentions the husband’s presumed enjoyment of “warmed cashews and lie flat seat” seriously, only people who have actually flown first class know about the warmed nuts as a situation which requires more “equity” to remedy. what’s his suggestion? “taking turns” in first class. but this is deeply unsatisfying! why can’t they both fly first class surely a man who “loves to travel” with his family could afford it. and what about how selfish it is for anyone to treat their companion this way, regardless of whether the two people are bound by “the institution of marriage”? one wonders whether appiah’s answer would have been different had the woman in question been, say, the man’s assistant or someone else he didn’t consider his class or social “equal.”) readers often want a way to control how their money is spent or to demand that their family members be responsible with finances. (“i’m supporting my adult son. he just gave $1,000 to a homeless woman.”) in the case of the daughter with autism, the parent wants to support her if she’s in college. support is often highly conditional on a person meeting some arbitrary worthiness criteria, meaning the person writing in often wants to impose a “moral test” on the recipient of their largesse. in ethicist responses of this type, love, care, and support for others are all based on very carefully constructed notions of what is proper. personal boundaries are noted to be important, good behavior and “mental competence” dictate mutual care toward family members, people should not be too much of a burden to each other, children may be cut off once they reach legal adulthood, and sensible money management is very, very important. perhaps the most useful function of the ethicist in this section is to help a wealthy reader to sleep better at night when the ethicist tells them that their reasoning is “sound” when they choose to cut off their “addicted” son from all funds except those used for drug treatment or that they are right to demand their child with mental illness stay on their medication in order to keep their housing. but ultimately, the problems that the writers face in these family scenarios often occur because in the u.s., the family is a substitute for the existence of a real social safety net. there would be no ethical dilemma about whether to care for a difficult relative in a society where everyone was already guaranteed housing, food, and healthcare, and we didn’t cage people to try to reduce crime or punish them for drug use. often, it’s strange that the new york times questioners are even in a position to make certain decisions. for instance, the son in prison is in need of money to pay for a lawyer and court fines. if everyone was given quality legal representation regardless of their ability to pay, and if we didn’t have an extortionate system of fines and fees that bleed the already impoverished, these wouldn’t be issues, and a judgmental wealthier parent wouldn’t have to enter the picture. a more just society would not tie perceived worthiness to basic survival. and it would not limit us to receiving acceptance, support, or love from those people we share a close genetic relationship with. the unasked and more important question here has to be what all of us owe people struggling with any unmet need and how we could create a society to meet everyone’s basic needs regardless of whether we personally like or love them. in short, could we conceive of a society in which we are responsible for everyone, not just our own family members? this question cannot be entertained by the bourgeoisie, for whom the family helps maintain the political and economic order (think inheritance), as well as the strict gender and sexuality norms that come along with it. appiah’s responses are usually not as bad as the ethicist questions themselves. with questions like the ones from the infamous “am i the asshole?” reddit page, he usually points out to the writer that, yes, you are the asshole in this situation. but appiah has bourgeois values himself, hence his abhorrence at shoplifting, his concern about the risk posed by a random homeless man, and his suggestion that it’s virtuous to call ice on someone if you know they’ve broken the rules. appiah is from an aristocratic family. he’s the grandson of sir stafford cripps on his mother’s side and belongs to an elite ghanaian family on his father’s side. he has spent most of his comfortable life in the nation’s top private universities, and it shows in his lack of interest in deep issues of injustice. the absence of those deeper issues is the core problem with the ethicist. problems that have large structural causes (homelessness, drug use, etc.) are reduced to personal matters between individuals what does a writer owe this particular homeless man or person with a drug problem? questions of social ethics are excluded from consideration. for instance, some of the most critically important ethical questions of our time are: what do we owe the victims of the climate catastrophe, present and future?2 if your tax dollars are funding crimes against humanity, are you obliged to march in the streets? how can we introduce a healthcare system that ensures people aren’t dying preventable deaths? how can we end grotesque wealth inequality? the ethicist zeroes in on highly individualistic and essentially trivial dimensions of injustice what should i do with this racist artifact? a better and more important question is: what kind of duty does each of us have to bring about an end to the many racial inequalities that still persist? in the pages of the ethicist, we have obligations vis a vis coworkers, neighbors, family members, the people in our immediate vicinity, but “ethics” extends no further. solidarity is not an ethical imperative. we also have ethical quandaries only when unique situations arise; the status quo does not raise ethical issues. this is the same deficiency that plagues the famous “trolley problem,” which plunges people into a situation in medias res where all of the choices are horrible. because the question is constructed in a very specific way, a discussion of the factors that produced the range of choices now under consideration is precluded. leftists have long criticized “bourgeois morality” for precisely this reason. it considers moral questions within a particular economic structure but doesn’t consider questions about that economic structure. the result is that the most trivial matters are blown up into having outsized significance, while the most significant matters are simply excluded from view. the questions are not much different from the type of questions made famous on curb your enthusiasm: who gets the last perrier? is there an implicit limit on the number of hors d’oeuvres each dinner party guest is allowed to take? is it rude to toss your keys to a valet? can you use golfing advice that you get from overhearing someone else’s lesson? curb wrung humor from the fact that the stakes are so obviously trivial, and it can be richly entertaining to watch people with different answers to these questions argue about them passionately. but curb your enthusiasm dilemmas are not, needless to say, the world’s serious ethical questions. the new york times ethicist, too, could be waved away as just a bit of fun. why spoil it by taking it too seriously? but the world that produces these questions, and these answers, is deeply broken. we need to talk about all of the major ethical quandaries that don’t get an airing in the paper of record because it gives over page space to discussions of whether to fire your nanny because they have a gambling problem. this is a common theme among american liberals of the kind who are likely to read the new york times. it can also be found in the ubiquitous “in this house, we believe” yard signs, which express the same basic view of property as a conservative parent thundering “not under my roof!” at some perceived sin. how do you know everyone in the house believes the same stuff? do they get to stay in the house if they don’t? ↩ in one entry, a writer asks, “i live in california. what do i owe climate denying kentuckians?” the entire premise that the state people live in determines how we should conceive of them as human beings impacted by climate change is, of course, rotten, and appiah is right to call the writer out on this. appiah writes, “what you have in mind looks like collective punishment,” in response to the writer asking whether people in a red state are owed help after a natural disaster given that they voted for leaders who helped make those disasters happen. but even then, appiah focuses on our duty towards americans when we really need to be thinking internationally about climate change and about what we owe the global south, whose people are burdened the most by climate change. it’s easy to say we ought to support “other americans.” but it requires a confrontation with power dynamics which is to say, colonialism and capitalism to truly confront the inequality embedded in the climate crisis and to propose a solution going forward. ↩ our final issue of 2024 contains sparkling essays and incredible art. we ask: why is suburban sprawl everywhere and can it be stopped? should fdr be the model for the future? what can afrofuturism do to expand our minds? plus other questions! there's more: we invent new vegetables, teach you a new get rich quick scheme, reveal hidden kamala harris strategy documents, explore republican sex ed, and interview democratic socialist nyc mayoral candidate zohran mamdani! every other week our editorial team brings you a mixture of discussion, analysis, and whimsy. an excellent way to demonstrate to passersby that you are an individual of unusually well cultivated taste. we have two missions: to produce the world's first readable political publication and to make life joyful again. a current affairs subscription is one of the best known ways to improve your life in a hurry. our print magazine is released six times a year, in a beautiful full color edition full of elegant design, sophisticated prose, and satirical advertisements.
the magazine’s ethicist columnist on what your friends have a right to know about your health. by kwame anthony appiah my husband, who has struggled with his weight for decades, has decided under the recommendation of his doctor to begin taking zepbound, an injectable specifically for weight loss. when he starts to lose weight, we know he will be congratulated and questioned by friends, co workers and associates, as he has before when he has had significant weight loss. are we obliged to tell people how he is losing weight? would it be ok to be dishonest?    name withheld from the ethicist: your husband, you indicate, has a sound medical reason for starting this treatment. it should make him healthier, and if it does, your friends ought to be happy for him. but you’re probably thinking that they’ll congratulate him on the assumption that he lost weight by sticking to a diet or an exercise regimen   by some newfound act of will   and would look askance if they knew he had done so through drugs. that response would reflect a tendency to relate obesity to some deficiency of character. moralizing about weight management in this way is misguided and unhelpful. various studies have shown that such attitudes are not only demotivating but also associated with disgust toward and discrimination against people with obesity   and that the experience of weight stigma can be seriously disabling. when obesity is a threat to health, it’s better to think of it as a problem to be solved than a vice to be conquered. the notion that people who are taking drugs like zepbound   known as glp 1 receptor agonists   are choosing the “easy way” may also reflect a misconception about how easy it is. side effects of these drugs include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, indigestion and pancreatitis. (surveys find that a high percentage of patients prescribed these drugs, including those taking them for diabetes, discontinue them owing to gi complaints.) is your husband obliged to disclose that he is on zepbound? of course not. his medical history is indeed his business. but if questions arise, i hope that your husband considers candor. to combat moralizing about obesity, it might help if those who have decided to lose weight were frank about the strategies that have worked for them.

