{"id":211,"date":"2011-02-20T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/02\/ethics-case-study-2-senior-gift\/"},"modified":"2012-09-20T19:32:03","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T23:32:03","slug":"ethics-case-study-2-senior-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/02\/ethics-case-study-2-senior-gift.html","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Case Study #2: Senior Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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The last post I wrote about parts of my ethics that my friends label as \u2018Christian,\u2019<\/a> several commenters wrote in to take issue with the idea that Christians had a monopoly on that strand of moral thought. \u00a0I thought I\u2019d run another example by you all, since my resolution to a \u00a0recent dilemma had my atheist<\/em> friends snickering and saying, \u201cYou are such a Catholic!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the situation: My university is in the middle of the drive for the Senior Class Gift and plenty of students disagree about whether anyone should contribute to our school\u2019s large endowment, rather than any<\/a> one<\/a> of<\/a> a<\/a> number<\/a> of<\/a> worthwhile<\/a> groups<\/a>. \u00a0At some schools (luckily not ours this year), the whole thing becomes an exercise in\u00a0poisonous\u00a0social coercion<\/a>, since there are bounties for full participation.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I donated five dollars.<\/p>\n

When the student assigned to badger me showed up in my room, I was frustrated and a little angry. \u00a0While I was arguing with her, I knew I was feeling spiteful and very proud of the principled stand I was taking. \u00a0I was in the kind of mood that builds into grudges, and I didn\u2019t want to stay that way, so I gave the minimum donation and then donated $20 to Doctors Without Borders<\/a>, to make up for the misspent money.<\/p>\n

I still think the drive is a bad idea, and prone to abuse, but, in the moment, I was the one behaving badly (even though I was behaving\u00a0politely\u00a0to the person I spoke to). \u00a0It was worth donating to nip my spite and pride in the bud. \u00a0But when I told my friends I donated to avoid \u201cholding anger in my heart,\u201d again with the \u201cSo when are you converting?\u201d cracks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s obviously easy to summarize the situation in a Catholic framework: my pride in a small\u00a0righteousness\u00a0was leading me to sin against a classmate in my heart, but I think the principle works in an atheist framework of virtue ethics. \u00a0Do other atheists agree?<\/p>\n

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The last post I wrote about parts of my ethics that my friends label as \u2018Christian,\u2019 several commenters wrote in to take issue with the idea that Christians had a monopoly on that strand of moral thought. \u00a0I thought I\u2019d run another example by you all, since my resolution to a \u00a0recent dilemma had my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,48],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversion-2","category-morality-in-practice","tag-bright-college-years"],"yoast_head":"\nEthics Case Study #2: Senior Gift<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The last post I wrote about parts of my ethics that my friends label as 'Christian,' several commenters wrote in to take issue with the idea that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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