{"id":70,"date":"2020-09-22T03:43:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/?p=70"},"modified":"2020-09-22T03:48:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:48:39","slug":"deal-with-the-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/2020\/09\/22\/deal-with-the-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Deal with the Racist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My grandpa is a racist. But he is also rich. And we are poor. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He just got diagnosed with cancer, and he will die in 9 months. He is writing his will, and I want to inherit some of his money. So, I plan to visit him in the hospital everyday until he dies. I will listen to his stupid world views and racist comments. I will agree with him, and express my own hate. This will be a lie, of course.<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I be the asshole for doing so? (excerpted from r\/AmItheAsshole<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes takes it as a given that all human beings are self-interested (Leviathan<\/em>, ch. 13). So, you have your self-interest of getting that money, and your racist grandpa has his self-interest of advancing his worldview. There is nothing inherently right or wrong with your self-interests, and you each have the freedom to pursue it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Hobbes also believes that, as members of a society, we give up some of our freedoms for security, through the formation of contracts<\/strong> (Leviathan<\/em>, ch. 14; see especially para 4\u20135). Now, on the first pass, you might think that there is nothing wrong with you pretending to be a racist too so that your racist grandpa will leave you with some cash, since no explicit contract<\/em> was written down. But, like much of moral philosophy, the matter is a little more complicated than initial appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hobbes says that, in thinking about our moral obligations, we cannot only pay attention to the explicit contracts, but we have to pay attention to the implicit contracts<\/em>, or contracts made by inference, as well. In particular, he thinks that implicit contracts can be <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“sometimes the consequence of contract by words, sometimes the consequence of silence, sometimes the consequence of actions, sometimes the consequence of forbearing an action, and generally a sign by inference, of any contract, is whatsoever sufficiently argues the will of the contractor” <\/p>Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan<\/em>, ch. 14, para 14<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So, in this case, we also need to ask whether by taking the actions of visiting him in the hospital and pretending to agree with his racist world views, you have implicitly formed a contract with him that you will continue to uphold these racist world views, in exchange for the inheritance from him. The fact that you recognize that you are\u2014let’s not use the word “lie”\u2014staging a particular performance for the sake of the money suggests to me, in my Hobbesian hat, the formulation of an implicit contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Watch<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Finally, on Hobbes’s view, “INJUSTICE is no other than the not performance of covenant<\/em>” (Leviathan<\/em>, ch. 15, para 1). In other words, the morality of your actions is solely determined by whether you have fulfilled your contract or not. That is, how the money gets spent and what good they do are all completely irrelevant to morality from the Hobbesian perspective. You can’t try to justify your actions on the ground that the money may be spent for beneficial or reparatory ends. Hobbes doesn’t care that you will give some money to your parents who have been harmed by your grandpa, and he certainly doesn’t care that you will use the money to pay for college. Instead, he only cares that you have failed to perform the contract you’ve made\u2014even one that was made through your deeds and not your words. So, yeah, you would be the asshole<\/strong> if you pretended to be a racist in order to get your racist grandpa’s money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the Professor<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might think you have not made an explicit contract with your racist grandpa. But Hobbes would tell you to check on the implicit contracts that you made through your actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1558,"featured_media":77,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amitheasshole","tag-hobbes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}