Recently I decided to go look up the New York Times' Ethicist column because I hadn't read it in a while. There is supposed to be a column published each week where the Ethicist answers two or three questions that people have sent in about their ethical quandaries. It's an interesting column and can be worth a read sometimes, although some believe that previous writers of the column did a better job of it than the current Ethicist. Firstly though, a sentiment that I expressed in a text message from 12/22/15 at 10:31 pm (apparently): "Also, I don't get why the Ethicist can only turn out one column per week. It can't be that hard to think of ethical answers. Anyways, if he wrote more columns, he would get paid more, presumably. (fixed ratio reinforcement!)"*
Again, it can't be that hard to think of ethical answers. Perhaps the reason there is only one column a week of two or three ethical answers is because there is a dearth of ethical quandaries being submitted? I wouldn't know. In the event that that is indeed the case, I invite my probably very few readers to submit some ethical quandaries for the Ethicist to ponder over. They don't even have to be real ethical problems that you're actually dealing with in your life. Make something up! Use your imagination. The contact information for submitting an ethical quandary (I like that word) is here, taken directly from the NYT's website: To submit a query: Send an email to ethicist@nytimes.com; or send mail to The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. (Include a daytime phone number.)
So now, with that information in hand, go on and send in some ethical quandaries! I look forwards to seeing some of them possibly published and answered in future columns. That was a pretty lengthy introduction. So now, on to the actual subject of this post. Because I had been looking at Ethicist columns earlier, I began to wonder if there were perhaps in existence somewhere an Unethicist, who answers questions with the "wrong," unethical answers instead of ethical ones as the Ethicist claims to provide. I did find some things from nearly 10 years ago, and something from more recently that wasn't exactly what I was looking for. This is supposed to take after the thing I found from nearly 10 years ago, in which someone answered the same questions that had been published in the Ethicist column, but with unethical answers instead. I have always wanted to become an Ethicist, although I don't believe the NYT is hiring for Ethicist positions at the moment. So I will take the next best thing that I can get, which is publishing on my little-read blog a parody of sorts of the NYT Ethicist column. I think maybe if I were the NYT's Ethicist, I would make an effort to provide a larger amount of ethical answers compared to the measly two or three per week that the current Ethicist provides.
(Un)ethical answer number 1: "I used to work for an online publication where my salary (which was minimal, as it was more of a part-time hobby) was based on the percentage of the site’s hits that my articles garnered. From time to time, I would open up my articles in new tabs to rack up extra hits. I know that other writers did the same. Was it ethical for me to give myself the mildly dishonest advantage that others were giving themselves? S.K"
Yes. Of course. It was completely fine. In this cutthroat capitalist society, one must give themselves any and every single advantage that they can get, no matter how small or insignificant. Although the amount of money you got paid because of those extra clicks was probably rather small, every cent counts in today's economy. Those few cents could be the difference between... well, there isn't much you can buy these days for only a few cents, but it certainly is nice to have more cents (even if it's only a few) than fewer cents.
Here is the link to the column that today's question was taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/magazine/when-a-friend-cheats-often-on-her-husband-should-you-keep-quiet.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fthe-ethicist
*fixed ratio reinforcement is a term from a psychology class that I was taking at the time of sending that text message. It has to to with behavior modification/conditioning. If you want to know more, look it up for yourself.
BONUS ethical question for you to ponder: Is it ethical to send in fictitious ethical problems to the Ethicist? Or should the Ethicist's advice be left to only people with actual (presumably) ethical problems that they are trying to deal with in their lives?
After looking through a number of Ethicist columns, it seems that it is kind of hard to find ones that would be well suited for unethical answers. So it's possible that I may take some questions from Slate's advice column and give bad answers to those as well, even though that column is just a generic advice column rather than one centered on ethical problems.
Disclaimer, in case perhaps I am afoul of some kind of copyright law(s), or something: the questions answered in this post are taken from the NYT's Ethicist column. I didn't come up with them. I don't intend to be committing some kind of plagiarism or something. Please have mercy on me.
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