Randy Cohen The Ethicist
Emma is just 2 years old, she is suffering from a very rare and aggressive childhood cancer called neuroblastoma.
Neuroblastoma is a solid tumor cancer which spreads rapidly. Emma has the N-myc gene amplification which means it a lot more aggressive then "normal" neuroblastoma. Emma's cancer is stage 4, this means that cancer has already spread to more than one place in Emma's body.
Emma has only been given a 20% chance of survival
Is it ethical to order food for delivery during a thunderstorm? If I'm doing it to avoid going outside and getting wet or struck by lightning, isn't it wrong to have somebody else (with little agency to refuse) do it in my place? -- James J. Stranko, New York
PodcastRandy Cohen, Times Magazine columnist, answers readers' questions on ethical issues each week.? How to Subscribe | All Podcasts? Download an MP3 Version
As someone who seldom mines his own coal, I'm in no position to condemn those who consign difficult, dangerous or simply miserably uncomfortable jobs to others.
Here is how you can do so ethically: by ensuring, or at least supporting those who strive to ensure, that workers in such jobs toil in decent conditions with their health and safety protected, earn decent wages and receive the benefits we all want and many of us expect in our wealthy nation: medical insurance, a pension, a vacation now and then. You can't always know such things, but you can make some effort to educate yourself about those you employ, and you can tip generously - lavishly - when someone works for you under unusually rough conditions.
My two college-age daughters are traveling to France. Each was required to pay half the cost. Daughter No. 1 used money she earned at a part-time job. Daughter No. 2 used money she received by subletting her apartment, for which her dad and I pay the rent. Daughter No. 1 thinks this is unfair. Is it? -- Linda Fletcher, Long Beach, Calif.
It is. Daughter No. 2 made her money by renting out something that wasn't hers to sublet. Before pocketing any profits - before there are any profits - she must repay what you and her dad spent on rent. You could allow her to retain what a rental agent would, say 15 percent of the sublet money, and apply it as her French contribution (a phrase that sounds like a euphemism for something saucy but is not).
I admire Daughter No. 2's ingenuity but not her flouting what I take to be the spirit of your demand: the character-building experience of working for something she wants. On the upside, you can be grateful that she didn't rent out the family car or sell your living-room couch.
UPDATE: The parents returned Daughter No. 1's money.
My college newspaper ran an opinion article supporting a professor who had not been rehired. The article now appears at the top of any Internet search of the professor's name. Hoping not to discourage potential employers, the professor asked us to remove the article from our archive for two years. Should we? -- B.B., New York
You should not. If the article met your standards for publication - and it did - you may not purge it. Helping even a worthy professor's career is not sufficient reason to falsify by omission the historic record, even so modest a record as back issues of a college paper. (Similarly, Napoleon no doubt wished that whole Waterloo business excised from the record, but historians have been reluctant to comply.)
In any case, there would be little practical value in your acceding to the professor's request. His departure from your college is bound to come up in any job interview.
UPDATE: Members of the editorial staff decided that in a conflict between journalistic ethics and the good of the school community, they would give priority to the latter: they redacted this piece in the archive.
Send your queries to ethicist@nytimes.com or The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10018, and include a daytime phone number.
Neuroblastoma is a solid tumor cancer which spreads rapidly. Emma has the N-myc gene amplification which means it a lot more aggressive then "normal" neuroblastoma. Emma's cancer is stage 4, this means that cancer has already spread to more than one place in Emma's body.
Emma has only been given a 20% chance of survival
Is it ethical to order food for delivery during a thunderstorm? If I'm doing it to avoid going outside and getting wet or struck by lightning, isn't it wrong to have somebody else (with little agency to refuse) do it in my place? -- James J. Stranko, New York
PodcastRandy Cohen, Times Magazine columnist, answers readers' questions on ethical issues each week.? How to Subscribe | All Podcasts? Download an MP3 Version
As someone who seldom mines his own coal, I'm in no position to condemn those who consign difficult, dangerous or simply miserably uncomfortable jobs to others.
Here is how you can do so ethically: by ensuring, or at least supporting those who strive to ensure, that workers in such jobs toil in decent conditions with their health and safety protected, earn decent wages and receive the benefits we all want and many of us expect in our wealthy nation: medical insurance, a pension, a vacation now and then. You can't always know such things, but you can make some effort to educate yourself about those you employ, and you can tip generously - lavishly - when someone works for you under unusually rough conditions.
My two college-age daughters are traveling to France. Each was required to pay half the cost. Daughter No. 1 used money she earned at a part-time job. Daughter No. 2 used money she received by subletting her apartment, for which her dad and I pay the rent. Daughter No. 1 thinks this is unfair. Is it? -- Linda Fletcher, Long Beach, Calif.
It is. Daughter No. 2 made her money by renting out something that wasn't hers to sublet. Before pocketing any profits - before there are any profits - she must repay what you and her dad spent on rent. You could allow her to retain what a rental agent would, say 15 percent of the sublet money, and apply it as her French contribution (a phrase that sounds like a euphemism for something saucy but is not).
I admire Daughter No. 2's ingenuity but not her flouting what I take to be the spirit of your demand: the character-building experience of working for something she wants. On the upside, you can be grateful that she didn't rent out the family car or sell your living-room couch.
UPDATE: The parents returned Daughter No. 1's money.
My college newspaper ran an opinion article supporting a professor who had not been rehired. The article now appears at the top of any Internet search of the professor's name. Hoping not to discourage potential employers, the professor asked us to remove the article from our archive for two years. Should we? -- B.B., New York
You should not. If the article met your standards for publication - and it did - you may not purge it. Helping even a worthy professor's career is not sufficient reason to falsify by omission the historic record, even so modest a record as back issues of a college paper. (Similarly, Napoleon no doubt wished that whole Waterloo business excised from the record, but historians have been reluctant to comply.)
In any case, there would be little practical value in your acceding to the professor's request. His departure from your college is bound to come up in any job interview.
UPDATE: Members of the editorial staff decided that in a conflict between journalistic ethics and the good of the school community, they would give priority to the latter: they redacted this piece in the archive.
Send your queries to ethicist@nytimes.com or The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10018, and include a daytime phone number.
