Source
r/Ethics•
Rodrommel

Is there a name or a term for limited compliance or provisional acceptance in the context of ethics? Be it formal or informal

Suppose there's a man that is ethically against slavery. But he wants to free a slave by buying his freedom. Isn't that a sort of tacit compliance with the slaver's position that owning people is morally defensible? Is there a name in the field of ethics for this sort of situation?

It doesn't have to be restricted to slavery. As another example, suppose an employer is paternalistic and requires his employees to have "proper American lives". Think something like what Henry ford used to do with his workers back in the day. If an employee doesn't think these rules are morally defensible, but agrees to them because the pay is good, and then gets caught in breach of these rules, and is told to fall in line, and then he says I gives his 2 weeks notice, and the employer says they will allow him to work 2 more weeks but only if he follows their paternalistic rules. If he accepts these rules that he thinks aren't ethical, but the reason is that it'll be only for 2 weeks, is that a sort of tacit approval of the employers ethics? Is there a name for this sort of situation?

Posted Jul 6, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

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TheQuietMan•

"Is there a name in the field of ethics for this sort of situation?"

Answer: Politics

Compromising to achieve greater good (for instance) is common. Achieving the freedom for the slave, in your case, is easily done simply by buying him/her, rather than fighting the slave owner to the death. It's not worth the time to spend years arguing with the slave owner either in the hopes of convincing him/her otherwise.

It's not tacit compliance at all. It's choosing the best path to achieve your goal.

3
seanfish•

Politics is the art of the possible - Bismarck.

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MakeItSchnappy•

I think your question has a flaw in its logic. It equates promotion or endorsement by a subject with a state of affairs beyond the degree of control of that subject.

In your first example, the person who is trying to free the slave is not, through his actions, endorsing slavery. The state of slavery already exist.

In the second example your argument is stronger but I think it would land on a scale of complicity directly proportionate to how strongly the subject holds this ethic.

I thought I had heard a word for something similar to what you are talking about but I don't think it was exactly what you are describing. It was a vlog about rationality where Julia Galef discussed instrumental rationality.

Basically she discussed how your internal beliefs may not be consistent with reality but you are rational in the sense that you take actions which result in reaching your goals. Your scenario is a little bit different since you are highlighting how your internal beliefs are inconsistent within yourself, regardless of reality.

I do think that most the scenarios you would dream up fall under one of the two explanations I provided above.

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