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You almost certainly know about it: The now-infamous New York Times podcast in which progressive elites endorse the practice of "microlooting" -- a prettified euphemism for stealing. What makes it okay is that the world is inherently unfair. Since "the top 1 percent holds 32% of the net worth and the bottom 50% holds 2.5%," why should the bottom-dwellers have to play by the rules?
Their argument gets just enough right to sound reasonable. It's true that not all acts of theft are equal. It's also true that sometimes acts of theft are justified. But from there, the social justice warriors rapidly spiral into the vortex of absurdity.
Use a friend's Netflix account? Sure thing. Steal a library book? Never. Leave a restaurant without paying your bill? Unthinkable. Swipe a painting from the Louvre? Love to.
Stealing from Whole Foods is okay because it's an upscale store -- especially when you give the stolen food to a homeless person. Stealing from a Walmart or Costco is not "very significant as a moral wrong." Stealing from corporations is virtuous.
What's most chilling is where those justifications take us as individuals and as a society.
Set fire to a Kimberly-Clark warehouse? Tactically unwise, but morally defensible. Murder Brian Thompson? As CEO of United Healthcare, he was guilty of social murder himself. We won't actually endorse killing, but we can applaud the motive.
Above all, let's keep our priorities straight: Getting iced coffee in a plastic cup? "That is a profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive action." So is air travel for pleasure. And private schools should be "mostly illegal."
The philosophy underlying these moralistic convolutions is perhaps the most nefarious entry in the history of the Ethical Lexicon:
Situational Ethics | noun
The moral framework that right and wrong depend on context and circumstance rather than universal principles.
What's insidious about this mindset is that the beginning of the definition is entirely true. Indeed, for decades, I've taught my students that the safe answer to almost any question is: It depends. But the definition's conclusion is sociopathically false.
Ethical realism asserts that foundational principles never change. Untethered from axiomatic values, we naturally drift into the wilderness of moral anarchy. The challenge arises when two core values collide. Then, we have no choice but to prioritize one over the other.
Is it wrong to take a human life? Of course. Except in cases of self-defense, justifiable warfare and capital punishment. Complex questions can rarely be answered with a simple yes or no.
In 1969, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg asked young boys and girls if a husband was justified in stealing medicine he couldn't afford to save his dying wife. From their answers, Kohlberg concluded that boys possess greater moral clarity than girls, since they prioritized life over property.
A decade later, Carol Gilligan argued that girls approach moral dilemmas differently, assigning more weight to kindness and compassion than to fairness and justice. It would be a mistake to look at either value system as intrinsically superior.
Ethics demands invoking justice on the one hand and compassion on the other. Both are eternal, universal values, yet we often need to choose which takes priority in any given situation. However, that choice does not give us license to dispense with one for the sake of the other.
This is where situational ethics fails catastrophically. Without rational application of absolute values, we end up basing our decisions solely on feelings, which leaves us victim to our own biases. Ethical integrity requires that we seek context, balancing our humanitarian impulses against the long-term consequences of our actions.
Moral intuition begins with moral reasoning. But we cannot reason in a vacuum. When former President Thomas Jefferson wrote that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," he framed the existential value system necessary to preserve not only a nation but a culture.
Situational ethics erodes the foundations of civil society, promoting ethical chaos by rejecting moral axioms. Only by embracing the tension between justice and compassion with sincere determination to honor both can a society flourish, or even survive.
Rabbi Yonason Goldson graduated from the University of California at Davis with a degree in English, which he put to good use by setting off hitchhiking cross-country and backpacking across Europe. He eventually arrived in Israel where he connected with his Jewish roots and spent the next nine years studying Torah, completing his rabbinic training as part of Ohr Somayach's first ordination program. After teaching yeshiva high school for 23 years in Budapest, Hungary, Atlanta, Georgia, and St. Louis, Missouri, Rabbi Goldson established himself as a professional speaker and advisor, working with business leaders to create a company culture built on ethics and trust. He has published seven books and given two TEDx Talks, is an award-winning host of two podcasts, and writes a weekly column for Fast Company Magazine. He also serves as scholar-in-residence for congregations around the country.
Previously:
• Why Sharp Tongues Lose the War of Words
• Good Intentions Never Prevail Over Cold Reality
• Sarcastic Wit Carries Too High a Cost
• Character, not as a bank account. Rather, an investment portfolio
• Are We Programming Ourselves Out of Existence?
• The bigger they come, the harder we try to make them fall
• How to Transform Fallacies Into Actionable Reality
• How to make life worth living --- no, REALLY!
• What Do Opposites Attract? Truth and Wisdom
• Groucho Marx and Embracing Tension
• Toward a more civil civilization
• Break Down Barriers of Thought to Build Towers of Innovation
• 'Tis the Season for Reflecting Beyond your Reflection
• Why Antisemitism Is Not Just a Jewish Problem
• The rank stupidity of 'Just let it go'
• To create a functioning, biblically-based civilization
• The difference between optimism and hope
• The Next Piece of the Puzzle Might Fill the Hole in Your Heart
• Self-Esteem Isn't Given -- It's Earned
• Remember the Past to Promote a Successful Future
• Are We Making Failure the Price of Success?
• Demoralization Is More About Culture than Feelings
• The Lesson We're Missing From the Death of Charlie Kirk
• Invest in Your Own Success by Building Up Others
• The Most Valiant Heroes Fight on a Different Battlefield
• How Pundits Came to Give Punditry a Bad Name
• The Wisdom of Knowing What You Don't Know
• Success Thrives in the Light of Purpose and Passion
• When Seeking Peace, Don't Release the Dogs of War
• Greta Thunberg Sails Toward Moral Hypocrisy
• Checking More Boxes Is Not the Solution
• Why Sometimes NOT Seeing Is MORE Believing
• A Healthy Diet for the Brain Promotes Ethical Clarity for the Mind
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