Moral Responsibility
This topic has come up a lot in the past couple of weeks with the introduction of the book "Consuming Choices" and the issues related to that book along with stem cell research debates for my Philosophy 101 class. I'm actually kind of shocked at how much an entry level course has gotten me to realize my moral responsibility in society. In this class and the forums that followed, one question was tackled from a variety of angles: "How do I, as an individual consumer, make an impact on the production of my goods, if I make any at all?" I still do not think I always have the best answer to tackle this question. I have begun to make changes in my life that I feel are more ethical, and when I try to spread the same energy to those around me, it is difficult for me to defend my stance and to argue to another individual as to how their single purchase makes a difference. Therefore, I have been mulling over the thought of my personal civic duty. To me, this is one of the most compelling reasons to begin to live a more ethical lifestyle. I can't be perfect, but I can be informed. Claiming that I do not know how something is produced or the harm done in the process doesn't make me less culpable, it makes me ignorant. And who wants to be ignorant? Or an ignorant consumer? I would not buy a camera without preliminary researching the product, why should I be careless when it comes to the other parts of consuming? So, that is the first piece to my puzzle, it should be my civic duty to stay informed of what is going on around me. By doing research, getting updates from animal and human rights activist companies, by talking to other people, I am learning about a lot of harm I am ignorantly causing. When I hear about these things, I do realize that I, alone, cannot change the conditions. And I may not even actively wish to pursue changing the problem, but once I have become aware of an issue, I cannot allow myself to condone the practices used to get me the product at hand. Take for instance chocolate. I am disheartened and surprised at the amount of harm related to the production of chocolate and the slavery practices implemented to obtain these cocoa beans. While after hearing this, I was not ready to go out into the streets and start a riot, I did it hard to allow myself to purchase a chocolate bar after that. It just feels wrong. Now that I know the harm that is done to allow me to have that product, I cannot let myself indulge in that product. I am indulging not only in something that is chemically harmful to me to, but I am indulging at the cost of someone else's life. I cannot allow myself to be ok with that. I cannot allow myself to lackadasically condone the practices to produce these products Therefore I realize where I come in as a consumer. It all comes back to the realization that we are supposed to play a role in creating and shaping our society. We do not just live in this self-sustaining system, we constantly work to sustain our system. People have worked for centuries to get society to the place it is at (speaking from an American standpoint). We have worked to overcome racial and gendered inequalities, obtain electricity and running water, move from the telegraph to the iPhone, etc. Society has worked wonders to be progressive. Though, modern society in mny ways is considering this period of time in our history as the "7th day" in which we can rest. We think we can finally sit back and see all of the good we have done and not be concerned with the next day. This is not our role, our role as the relaxers will destroy the system our ancestors have worked so long and hard on. We utilize until resources are depleted, we put our desires over human and animal lives, and we abuse things that we take for granted. We worry about issues when they become too extreme. Our society displays the "take-some" dilemma which falls under a set of social dilemmas called the Tradgedy of the Commons dilemmas. Instead of realizing the effects of our actions early and changing them before the resource is depleted, we use and use and use and then seem to be surprised when we go to use the resource again and it's gone. I always have this problem with chips, I always want to have some chips on the weekends when I go to serve tables because they are an easy snack to grab before and after work (remember, we aren't judging my health choices). All throughout the week, I keep telling myself if I grab a couple of chips here and there, it won't impact my stock for the weekend. Then, come Saturday night, I'm grabbing a new bag on my way home. And I never realie how much I should not have eaten, until the bag is almost empty. I'm afraid that many Americans have the same problem I do and we won't be able to rescue our society until it is too late. More to come. Been at the beach all weekend for spring break, I'm really tired. Just had to have a thought explosion.