Good things for the wrong reasons
Filed under: Ideas by Jeremy on Monday, 18th April 2011 at 12:27 pmI had two things I wanted to write about here today and I was trying to choose one when I realized that they had a common theme.
Story 1: Greg Mortenson, the guy who wrote the smash best-seller Three Cups of Tea and who is apparently responsible for inspiring around $60 million dollars in donations, allegedly lied in his book and took some donated money for personal use. I say allegedly because it’s impossible to parse these things myself and come up with a definitive answer one way or another. You can read about the controversy here and here.
Story 2: A piece written by a graduate journalism student about the evidence behind whether or not organic food is actually healthier. There isn’t much evidence, in terms of additional nutrients in your fruits and vegetables, that they are healthier but there are other reasons to eat organic including environmental reasons. It’s a good article that covers some interesting ground such as the fact that if we really do want people to eat healthier, avoiding junk food is going to have a much larger impact than eating organic.
So what do these two articles have to do with each other? Let’s assume, for the moment, that Mortenson did make up those stories in his book and that organic food isn’t actually healthier (though most people report preferring organic food more for health reasons than environmental ones). How do you feel about the fact that millions of dollars were raised for a worthy cause through dishonest means or that people may be eating in a more environmentally sustainable way but only under the assumption that it’s healthier?
First, I just want to acknowledge that both these issues are way more complex than I’ve presented them here. I’ve simplified them for the purposes of making a point.
Personally, I’m not sure how I feel. I’d rather people did the right things for the right reasons but what if the benefits of having people do good things for bad reasons outweighs the harm in being dishonest (if it were even possible to measure that)? I, unfortunately, have no answers for you.
[...] Good things for the wrong reasons - Radar Lake – “Personally, I’m not sure how I feel. I’d rather people did the right things for the right reasons but what if the benefits of having people do good things for bad reasons outweighs the harm in being dishonest (if it were even possible to measure that)? I, unfortunately, have no answers for you.” [...]
Is there a moral difference if the motives are different? Does it matter that the organic movement is essentially a faith-based and that the main protagonists simply want it to be better for you (and that arguably the commercial lobby are only then into it because so many people want it to be true)?
For me, that doesn’t feel the same as someone who may (or may not be) living a fantasy in which they’re doing something amazing which proves to be much less than amazing.
It seems to me that there is a basic issue of honesty going on there. Before it is proven, you can believe the old-wives-tale that organic food is better for you if you want to. But you’re not really in that position if a gifted orator tells you things which are verifiably untrue, you’re essentially being sold a lie that he knows sounds better than it really is.
The underlying philosophical issues are certainly interesting, but my qualms are more pragmatic. Sure, in this isolated incident, good seemed to come out of bad motives, this isn’t always the case. More often than not, bad intentions lead to bad outcomes for everyone, and it is important to establish some kind of societal moral compass.
Also, in the case of Greg Mortenson, I wonder if the bad may not end up out-weighing the good anyway. Will Jon Krakauer and other big donors be so generous in giving money to good causes now that they have been betrayed this way?