BY AVIVA ARON-DINE , ELISABETH OPPENHEIMER , and SARAH COHODES

In print | March 31, 2005

If a friend is upset and needs to talk to you, is it ever morally acceptable to avoid him or her? What if you suspect that this will be constant need? Assuming that you are this friend’s only confidante, is it ever justified to ignore that call? — I Have An Appointment To Go To

This brings up the question of the ethics of friendship — and whether such ethics even exist. Clearly, we have basic ethical obligations towards people qua people (not to hurt them), and we can take on additional obligations by making promises or signing contracts. But the question is whether there are ethical obligations attached to roles — to being a friend, family member or neighbor. Intuitively, it seems like there are. But there are so many varieties of friendships, and it’s so easy to slide in and out of them. This makes it tricky to define an associated set of ethics.

One of your “anonymous-so-her-friends-don’t-abandon-her” columnists feels that there are no overarching ethics of friendship but that adopting an individual code of behavior toward friends is conducive to happiness. Your other columnists agree that friendship ethics are personalized, but they believe that almost all friendships entail certain core obligations, like prioritizing peace within the friendship above getting your way every time. There is also an obligation to be emotionally available, sometimes even when you don’t feel like it.

To answer the original question, let’s assume that the friend in question is a good friend, though maybe not your best friend, and that you have interactions beyond these gripe sessions. In this situation, you can’t avoid your friend’s calls all the time — but you probably knew that. If there are particular times you can’t talk (appointment, class), you can certainly say so, but if you find yourself repeatedly lying to get away from your friend’s misery, then you have an obligation to stop making excuses and have a real talk.

Tell your friend her emotional needs are draining your emotional reservoirs, and, while you want to help, she needs to look for supplementary sources of support. (Clearly, how far you should let your emotional reservoirs be drained before you have this conversation depends on how close the friendship is.) Such a direct method is difficult for the non-confrontational — a category many Swatties fall into — but that’s one of the helpful things about ethical systems. They give you a reason to do things that are hard. (Comment from one anonymous columnist: “I dissent from this whole paragraph.”)

One caveat: If your friend’s dilemma is beyond the typical stresses of college life, it’s your responsibility to help him or her find resources to deal with big issues (psych services, the deans).

Finally, judging from the clusters of first-years on our hall who are permanently glued to thefacebook, we understand that Screw is coming up soon. Some thoughts on the ethics of Screw:

1. It is disgusting and morally reprehensible to intentionally set your roommate up on a bad date.

2. It’s definitely impolite to ditch your Screw date to hook up with someone else (but we haven’t decided whether it’s actually unethical — i.e., we don’t know if there are role obligations involved in being a Screw date.)

3. While humiliation is part of the Screw experience, causing your roommate irreversible trauma or making him or her violate deeply held beliefs is unfair.

4. Giant cow suits are ethical.

Sarah, Elisabeth and Aviva are seniors. You can reach them a scohode1@swarthmore.edu, eoppenh1@swarthmore.edu and aarondi1@swarthmore.edu.

« RETURN TO LIVING & ARTS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »