{"id":87,"date":"2020-09-29T18:16:10","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T18:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/?p=87"},"modified":"2020-10-22T10:09:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T10:09:21","slug":"the-one-with-the-dirty-boyfriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/2020\/09\/29\/the-one-with-the-dirty-boyfriend\/","title":{"rendered":"The One With the Dirty Boyfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tl;dr<\/a>:<\/em><\/strong> Have you ever felt that your significant other is being useless? Meet our protagonist (22F). Our protagonist has been working overtime to pay the bills while her jobless significant other (26M) has been \u201claying around\u201d and \u201clooking for a job\u201d. Our protagonist wants him to help with household chores such as feeding the cats, doing the dishes, and cleaning the rooms, however, he chooses not to. The boyfriend leaves his dirty clothes and empty drink and snack cans in the living room. Our protagonist has already asked him nicely to help out while she\u2019s at work to which he claims that he would (and has), but she claims that she has not seen evidence of this.<\/em>
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*Note that our protagonist has not specified what their living situation was prior to the S.O. being jobless.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Aristotle, the goal of human life is to flourish, and leading a moral life should lead us to flourish. In order to lead moral lives, we must build good character, which we can do through action. Aristotle\u2019s morality is very character based; compared to other moral theories that are based in action and outcome, Aristotle would say that it is not only about the act and the outcome, but the intent behind the act and the consistency of those acts, because \u201cmoral virtue comes about as a result of habit\u201d (Nicomachean Ethics<\/a><\/em> II.1<\/a>). In other words, we cannot just think good thoughts and hope for the best; we must consistently take action to do the right thing in alliance with our virtues<\/em>. Aristotle describes virtues as states of character that are \u201cequidistant from each of the extremes,\u201d or the mean between the excess and defect (Nicomachean Ethics<\/a><\/em> II.6<\/a>). In order to build virtues, we must act on them until they become habitual<\/em>, and we just do them. We should be doing the morally right thing because it brings us pleasure, and if it does not, then we need to habituate ourselves to do the right thing until it does make us feel good. Good acts and intent should be or become habitual acts, and it is these repeated acts that create good character. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this scenario, it is clear to see that the antagonist, the boyfriend, is exhibiting immoral behavior in deliberately disregarding his girlfriend\u2019s requests. In Aristotle\u2019s view, virtues are experienced as a spectrum between two extremes motivated by the individual’s needs to avoid pain and move towards pleasure. 
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The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are concerned with these same things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance, the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the painful, about all of these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, and especially about pleasure; for this is common to the animals, and also it accompanies all objects of choice; for even the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant.
<\/p>(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics<\/em> II.3<\/a>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet, as shown by the boyfriends\u2019 lack of regard for his girlfriend, it is easy to understand how his actions and decisions illustrate immoral behavior. A moral assessment of the situation on the boyfriend\u2019s part would include the feelings and emotions of his partner proving the moral root of the issue; the lack of his intent. His insensitivity, poor character, and selfish judgements are preventing him from achieving virtuous behaviors while his selfish, pain-avoiding desires keep him at one extreme vice. Here, the imbalanced <\/em>dynamic clearly causes tension within the relationship as the girlfriend feels caught at the other extreme vice of having to compensate but overloading herself to make up for his inadequacies. 
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Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
<\/p>(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics<\/a><\/em> II.6<\/a>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As this cannot persist, there are a few venues the girlfriend can take in hopes of altering her partners behavior. Each option is then assessed for most accurate moral analysis as would be determined by Aristotle. 
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According to Aristotle, the goal of human life is to reach eudaimonia, also known as human flourishing. In order to do that, you have to live a virtuous life and successfully do your function. Aristotle himself writes, 
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The function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. 
<\/p>(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics<\/a><\/em> I.7<\/a>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, one is moral if their actions coincide with their function. In Aristotle\u2019s perspective, the boyfriend is immoral as it is not a rational thing to keep one\u2019s living space dirty and not have a job which further hinders his and his girlfriend\u2019s chances of reaching eudaimonia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Habituating virtues:<\/strong> There are a couple things that the girlfriend can do about this problem. She can praise him for the things he does around the house or whenever he does something that was asked of him. Although praising him for something he should have done in the first place doesn\u2019t seem reasonable and is not her job to do, especially since she is already busy working overtime, it is a way of operant conditioning which is how you modify behavior. He will associate the act of cleaning with a positive benefit, therefore keep cleaning. This will turn into a habituated virtue. Another suggestion would be to consider breaking up as the boyfriend isn\u2019t keeping her best interest in mind and is not succeeding at his function. Although the act of cleaning the apartment is not immoral, the intent behind the actions can be seen as morally wrong. The boyfriend has been asked multiple times and can clearly see that it is frustrating his girlfriend. By ignoring her wishes purposefully, his actions are seen as immoral. The two can be referred to as incompatible and if they can\u2019t find an acceptable compromise or she can\u2019t lower her expectations, sticking around will only cause more arguments and will not lead to human flourishing for both parties involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding by lowering her expectations: <\/strong>One possible stand the girlfriend can take would be to subliminally respond to her partner\u2019s lack of appreciation by reciprocating in effort and expectation. In doing so, hopefully the boyfriend\u2019s hypocritical behavior will become apparent, incentivizing him to help reach the same goal as his partner. While he maintains his expectations of her, he fails to complete even the simplest of tasks in response. If she were to respond by stopping completing other tasks, he maintains for her, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, laundry, etc., hopefully, he would be encouraged to contribute with the expectation of being able to share in enjoying the rewards. In this way, the girlfriend is slowly and subconsciously positively conditioning her partner rather than directly confronting the situation. It is here that questions of Aristotelian morality come in. While this method could prove effective, Aristotle would most likely argue that this task lies not with the girlfriend but within the boyfriend. Ultimately, it is not within the girlfriend\u2019s jurisdiction to decide when, how, and what the boyfriend is conditioned to do. Here, we only have one side of the issue attempting to mediate its counter which most likely will not provide a sustainable solution. Seeing as the parties are representing almost polar stands on the issue, it will require both to contribute to a more permanent long-term agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reaching compromise:<\/strong> One thing to note is that our protagonist has not specified what her definition of \u201cclean\u201d is. She states, \u201cI\u2019m very particular about [how the shower and toilet are cleaned] and usually do it myself but again, working overtime every week is pretty exhausting.\u201d This statement could lead one to think that our protagonist is holding her S.O. to her standards which, while useful in helping her to define her own particular needs, could also be the cause of some friction between the couple. After all, she also states that her boyfriend has now started to respond to her requests by saying that \u201c[she\u2019s] being way too bossy and [that she\u2019s] not his mom.\u201d From the Aristotelian perspective, what we have here are two possible extremes: our protagonist\u2019s wishes (and her definition of \u201cclean\u201d) and her boyfriend\u2019s wishes (how he wants to spend his day and his definition of \u201cclean\u201d). Aristotle believes that virtues are the middle-ground between two extremes and that only through virtues can there be true success. If we apply this philosophy of extremes to our lovely couple, it might be suggested that both parties reach a compromise. To the protagonist, we understand your desire to come home to a clean space after working all day, but by placing your particular expectations of cleanliness on your S.O., you have created an environment that may be harmful on both parties\u2019 behalfs. It\u2019s even possible that your boyfriend no longer feels safe to express his needs to you since all he ever gets told is that he\u2019s not doing enough. It is our suggestion that a compromise is reached between both you and your significant other (e.g. \u201cwash your own dishes\/clean up after yourself and I\u2019ll clean the bathroom when I return\u201d) such that neither of you feels like you are living in both an unhealthy environment and relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Group 3 (ML, RM, NM, KR)<\/strong>
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Tl;dr: Have you ever felt that your significant other is being useless? Meet our protagonist (22F). Our protagonist has been working overtime to pay the bills while her jobless significant other (26M) has been \u201claying around\u201d and \u201clooking for a job\u201d. Our protagonist wants him to help with household chores such as feeding the cats, … Continue reading The One With the Dirty Boyfriend<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1596,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-relationships","tag-aristotle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","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\/1596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/moral-philosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}