In this week’s insult to his readers’ intelligence, Randy Cohen, the designated “Ethicist” at the New York Times, responds to two reader inquiries: May I refuse to hire someone because I don’t like his politics? (Answer: “No you may not”.) And: May I, as a doctor, refuse to treat someone because I don’t like his occupation? (Answer, in essence: “Yes you may”.)
More striking even than Cohen’s characteristic “ethics by pronouncement”, refusing to acknowledge, let alone address, the underlying issues, is that he doesn’t even seem to notice that these questions have something in common. He treats them as two separate reader inquiries, from two separate and non-overlapping universes. Thus it’s okay for the doctor to turn away a patient because “You cannot be forced to practice medicine” and because the patient can always find another doctor. One might wonder, then, in the case of the employer, why it’s not true/relevant/dispositive that “You cannot be forced to provide employment” and/or that the candidate can always find another job.
That’s not to say that the situations are identical. In the cases before Judge Cohen, the employer has partners who don’t share his politics; maybe there’s a relevant obligation to those partners. That thought, however, seems not to have popped into Cohen’s head during the five minutes he devoted to thinking about this column.
As I said the last time I blogged about this bozo, it’s not his conclusions I’m objecting to. It’s his apparent belief that “No you may not” is a substitute for logical analysis based on clearly stated principles that are at least stable enough to be maintained for the length of a newspaper column.
It is possible to do this stuff right. I claim to have done so in, for example, Chapter 18 of The Big Questions. More to the point, Tim Harford does it on a regular basis in his “Dear Economist” column, as my reader Jon Shea noted in comments here on this blog last week:
Contrast Cohen’s “The Ethicist” with Tom Harford’s “Dear Economist” in the Financial Times. Harford frequently sources both classic and new research papers. He also uses named economic theories to help explain his answer. As a result “Dear Economist” doesn’t feel like just an Anne Landers style advice column. When I read Harford I don’t feel like I’m getting a stranger’s opinion, but instead I feel like a trained economist is applying his skills and knowledge in a way I might not think to.
Hear, hear.
I went through almost exactly what you’re going through right now, four years ago. “The Ethicist” column used to bother me a lot, but only because I was expecting it to be something it isn’t. It’s an advice column, not a serious discussion of ethics. Still, “The Ethicist” is popular enough that it’s been in print for 10 years; Cohen isn’t going to change the way it’s done, and his readers know what they’re getting by now. Perhaps his readers even like the column the way it is.
For me, the solution was easy. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
But perhaps reading the introduction of Randy Cohen’s book, in which he offers a defense of his work, will calm your nerves.
From his Wikipedia entry:
Cohen graduated from the University at Albany, SUNY in 1971, with a Bachelor of Arts in music. He spent several years “writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for leading newspapers and magazines”; his first paid, published piece was in 1976 for The Village Voice. In 1981, his book of satiric letters, Modest Proposals, was published by St. Martins Press.
Cohen was a writer on Late Night with David Letterman for 950 episodes over seven years, starting in 1984. He shared in three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for his work on the show.
Cohen wrote for TV Nation, sharing in an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series in 1995. In 1996, he became the original head writer for The Rosie O’Donnell Show.
Cohen wrote for Slate starting in 1996. At Slate, he became known for “News Quiz,” a satiric reader-participation feature which began in February 1998 and ended in November 2000. He also co-wrote a first-season episode of Ed, first broadcast on February 14, 2001.
Sure SEEMS that he’s eminently qualified to write an ethics column…
I agree that no one should assume that what Cohen says has any particular authority. But a few months ago I spent a weekend with some people who had a interesting approach to his column– they used it as the starting point for regular Sunday morning argument and discussion about ethical questions. This seemed to me to make a good thing out of Cohen’s various lapses and uncertainties. Getting irritated about ethics once a week is not such a bad thing, after all.
Re: “I feel like a trained economist is applying his skills and knowledge in a way I might not think to.”
I agree that the value in Harford’s column is in contrasting it with the traditional questions page. I always assumed that Harford’s point was to be a trained economist answering questions in economics-speak so as to
1. Teach something about nice ideas from economics,
2. Point out the quasi-absurdity of generalizing from nice ideas in economics, and
3. Be funny.
I think that the willful butchery of ethics is the key to 3.