"I am a single woman in my mid-20s. I recently learned from my dear friend that she has developed a longtime pattern of cheating on her husband of five years. I understand cheating happens for various reasons — but if I remain friends with her, am I condoning her ongoing behavior? If I am “anti-compulsive-cheating,” do I therefore have to be anti-her? I value many aspects of our friendship but don’t see her (or my) views on philandering ever changing. EVE, HOUSTON
It’s totally fine to have friends whose values oppose your own. Having relationships with people does not condone everything they do. You can be intimately involved with a person and still view the quality of his or her thoughts and actions with objective distance.
Now, that changes if you become tangibly involved with unethical acts: if you provide cover for deception, if you help people lie or if you tell them their infidelity is justified (even though you believe it isn’t) — then you’re complicit. But that’s not what’s happening here. What’s happening is that someone you care about is doing something problematic and has selected you as her confidante (despite the obvious risk in doing so). This reflects positively on you as an individual. And as long you stay within your own value system — as long as you do nothing or say nothing that contradicts whatever you consider the better way to live — the friendship is valid.
You claim your friend’s views on philandering will not change. You’re probably right. They probably won’t. Maybe she doesn’t even think what she’s doing is particularly wrong. But in all likelihood, she knows it’s wrong (but does it anyway). Abruptly ending your friendship won’t have any impact on her cheating; she will just assume that you’re self-righteous or that she’d be better off keeping her secrets to herself in the future. If you stay in her life, however, you might be able to show her a different way to live and think. Tell her that learning of her infidelities made you question the merit of your friendship. Make it clear that you see her behavior as wrong but that you would not socially discard her over this difference. If she ever asks your advice, tell her to stop cheating on her husband (or to at least be honest with her husband about how she chooses to live).
Don’t end a friendship because someone acts in a way you never would. Part of being a good person is being open to people who are not so good, and part of being a friend is making flawed acquaintances feel as if they can tell you about their flaws (without fear of abandonment or persecution). In fact, if you’re the type of person who wants to associate exclusively with those who perfectly mirror your own ethical worldview, you’re reducing significantly the scope of your potential life experience.”
On this article of the Ethicist, there is a dilemma of, whether or not, this woman should be friends with someone she knows is cheating. The Ethicist gives her a very reasonable, ethical, but flawed argument. It is given that most cultures don’t see adultery as something ethical. But, as the Ethicist briefly mentions, morality should also be considered here. Before discussing any further, it is important to distinguish both terms precisely. Ethics are more about what society sees as correct, whereas morality is whether something is right or wrong for an individual. Something that really bothered me here was the fact that he called philandering something wrong. It is important to point out, though, that, from the 50 US states, 21 consider adultery as a criminal offense. Therefore, technically speaking, it is not wrong in some places. Still, should it be considered something ethical even if it might not be against the law? Views on fornication can vary drastically between people. Although it might be socially, ethically accepted that adultery is wrong, some people might think it is reasonable to have a partner outside of their marriage. At some point the Ethicist even talks about how the friend is probably aware that she is doing something ethically wrong, but still does it because it might by morally ok to her. Something that might be immoral to you as a person might be totally fine to other people. The problem with ethics is that it is really hard to change the mindset of a whole culture. Therefore, I should say that agree with the Ethicist that adultery is something wrong because, from an ethical point of view, it is considered inappropriate. Still, there are others things to take out from this dilemma. After all, the Ethicist is trying to give an advice to this woman. Even though I must admit that I agree with him, that the lady should still be friends with the other person and that if she chooses to break this friendship she would be going against the basic principles of friendship, I also think it is really complicated to have someone as a friend in this situation. To what extent can the woman be considered a complicit simply because of the fact that she knows what is going on and would not tell the friend’s spouse? It is a really tough situation to be in. The Ethicist has some valid and ethically reasonable arguments, but at the end, it is up to the woman’s personal knowledge and moral to decide what is the best thing to do.
There are very important gaps of knowledge the asker leaves out in the prompt given to The Ethicist. If we were to look deeper into the situation with the asker's friend, we could find out how exactly the cheating friend's relationship is with her current husband: there could be numerous flaws and problems in their relationship, he could be cheating on her, the relationship could be abusive, and so forth. Because the asker does not mention it, she either may be oblivious to this or she may know enough to rationalize that there is nothing wrong and thus there is no necessity to mention it. This would then completely flip around the ethical decisions the cheating friend should take; instead of her being deemed immoral and The Ethicist instantly claiming she is unethical, he could apply the WoK of emotion in order to think up of something more appropriate to the situation. Since he does not have the knowledge of how she feels, he acts upon his own personal emotion and schema that tells him philandering is incorrect, but that may not always be the case.With this prompt, we have no way of knowing what the real problem is, and if the asker is just taking a situation and looking at it on the surface he will never be able to wholly try and solve the issue.
ReplyDeleteAn important lens to view this dilemma with is through Perception. The Ethicist uses the friend's emotions (such as love and confusion) as an excuse to remain in her friendship. However, it's very clear that while the cheater views what she's doing with one perspective, the friend has a completely different perception. A person shouldn't limit their decisions to their emotions, or else one person can really ruin their lives. The friend's perception of what's ethical and what's moral inhibits her from choosing a path, but that shouldn't be an obstacle to overcome, it should instead be perceived as a way of change. Through perception you can change your frame of mind and the friend could then tell on the cheater. Using Emotion just as a way of knowing will inhibit her as she's not the one who will feel betrayed and angry if the extra-marital affair is revealed. This might change the outcome because the friend might now base her opinions on her emotions and her perception of what's ethical and moral instead of just using her emotions.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to knowledge gaps, we don't know if the cheater's marriage is healthy, if her husband also cheats, who she's cheating with, why's she's cheating, if they're legally married and estranged, or if the friend is married and/or has ever cheated. It would make a difference to know if the marriage is healthy or abusive, because if it were harming the cheater (and she didn't have the willpower leave him) then she might have a seemingly valid reason to do it. Also, if the marriage meant estranged spouses, she might be committing adultery by the law, but doing so because she wants a new life. It also depends who she's cheating with, because the closer the relationship her extra-marital partner has to the husband, the worse it might be. And, if the friend is married, then the friend might be more inclined to condemn her acts than if she wasn't married. Most of the missing knowledge is unknowable as it depends on the cheater's story (which we do not have). The friend might know some of this information, but it is highly unlikely or else she would've spoken about it.