I think that overfishing is going to result in wild fish’s becoming exceedingly rare — something that our grandchildren won’t get to eat often, if at all. Given this outlook, what do you think about continuing to enjoy fish now while we can? I don’t think that excuses like “everyone is doing it” or “my actions won’t make a difference” apply if an act is inherently immoral. But how about actions that are not inherently wrong but that collectively and cumulatively will lead to harm? — Josh
For around a decade now, about half the world’s seafood has come from aquaculture. There are good and bad ways of doing aquaculture, of course; recently there has been a growth in land-based aquaculture (which may reduce potential harm to other marine creatures) and experiments with plant- or algae-based fishmeal substitutes for feeding carnivorous fish, like salmon, that are especially popular with consumers. While we certainly need to worry about wild marine animals and the condition of the rivers, lakes and oceans that sustain them — and while some people deplore all fisheries and all fishing as cruel — we’re not likely to run out of fish to eat.
But what about our overexploited wild fisheries: Is it wrong to consume creatures you wish were never caught? Setting aside broader debates about the ethics of eating animals, let’s focus on the specific ecological issue you raise about overfishing. Today about a third of global marine stocks are estimated to be overfished, and less than 10 percent could sustain fishing at greater than current levels. Yet governments continue to subsidize fishing. A 2018 study suggested that more than half of high-seas fishing, including much deep-sea bottom trawling, wouldn’t be economical without those subsidies.
If you thought the destruction of a species was morally wrong, I’d say that you would have a moral reason not to participate in it, even though your nonparticipation wouldn’t prevent it from happening. It’s bad to join in a murder whether or not the victim would still have died without your involvement. In a much-discussed thought experiment, the philosopher Derek Parfit imagined that a thousand people were each administering a tiny shock to each of a thousand victims. Though each shock is imperceptible, a thousand shocks is agony, so that, at the end of the exercise, a thousand people have been tortured. An individual’s abstention wouldn’t make a difference to the victims, and yet Parfit, a cunning critic of consequentialism, thought it was no defense for someone to say, “All I did was give a tiny painless shock to a thousand people, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t.”
Parfit devised a suggestive scenario. Still, we have to think hard about how to apply its lessons. It’s morally relevant that these harmless torturers are conscious that they’re part of a torturing collective. (That’s why it’s OK to toss a coin to someone who needs it, even though that person would be harmed if thousands of people did so at once.) But once we identify the problem in aggregate terms, we need to think of solutions in aggregate terms too. That’s why, in the real world, the more urgent goal is to take positive collective actions to mitigate negative ones.
Forswearing wild fish is a practice that, if widely adopted, would have a highly desirable effect — saving wild-fish stocks — but that, if taken up by only a few people, would have no effect. In these circumstances, you should want to see measures to protect fish stocks given the force of national and international law. So by all means, avoid overfished seafood. But more important than changing your food-eating habits is changing your policy-promoting habits.
In the real world, the more urgent goal is to take positive collective actions to mitigate negative ones.
Back in 2020, like many other organizations in the United States looking to respond to and reckon with a society that made George Floyd’s murder possible, the predominantly white, wealthy, suburban school district where I taught began to ramp up its antiracism work. In time, a small but vocal group of community members showed up at board meetings, on Nextdoor and outside some of the local schools to protest our work. I was frustrated by the glacial pace of change; the district and site administrators who initially embraced the work tried too hard to placate the naysayers. At the time, I was teaching a class that concentrated on the historical context of race in America, and I advertised a weekly safe space for queer students in my classroom, so I worked every day with kids whose lives were personally and profoundly affected by racism and prejudice on our campuses.
After 20 years of teaching, I quit at the end of the 2022 school year. I was burned out and disenchanted. I felt as if the antiracist work had devolved into white bickering. Soon after that, my wife and I moved to a nearby city where the schools are more racially diverse, and where the district has a long history of actively fighting racism. I am happier. My kids are settled in with new friends and great teachers. My wife has been wildly supportive of my shift away from education.
And yet I am stuck with this nagging feeling that I failed my students because I gave up. I am a white, transmasculine person, but most people see me as a white woman, so this was never an issue of personal risk. Instead, I feel as if I walked away from my commitment to listen to and care for students. Should I have stuck it out and kept fighting, even though it felt futile? — Name Withheld
While you’re working in an institution — especially in educational institutions — there’s every reason to try your best to reduce the ways in which bigotry can undermine its work. But you can’t hold yourself responsible if your efforts are thwarted and you decide, in the light of this and other considerations, to move on.
At least some students, I grant, might have been better off if you stayed — those you worked with and looked after. Yet you can’t be obliged to remain in an environment that leaves you feeling burned out, and your work with the students who most profited from your presence would very likely have suffered in the end. Nor did you have reason to think that your sticking it out would have made a decisive difference at the policy level. Within the context of local democratic participation, people who disagree with you about objectives or simply about methods are going to have a voice, too.
It’s our obligation to do our fair share to make a just world. That doesn’t mean you have a duty to take on an immense burden because others are not doing what they should. As the Roman maxim has it, Ultra posse nemo obligatur — you can’t be obliged to do more than you’re able to. Your life matters, for the same reason that the lives of those children matter, but you’re ethically entitled to give priority to your life and the lives of your family members. And you can bring your concerns about justice to bear in your new pursuits as well.
A friend and I take a daily early-morning swim, usually all by ourselves, in a pool that has no lifeguard. A woman arrived the other day and announced that she loves to swim but only does so when another person can be present, because she recently had an EEG that revealed some abnormalities.
We, two ladies “of a certain age,” are very uncomfortable with this situation and worried because we don’t think we could handle an emergency in the pool. Our question is: What are our responsibilities to her in case of a crisis? Do we suggest that she not swim with us because we would be incapable of helping if something happened to her? Is there a better way to respond? — Name Withheld
Don’t tell her she can’t swim with you. Just explain that you don’t think you would be able to perform lifeguard duties. Nobody is entitled to ask you for any heroics, but I don’t know that she even has this in mind — she may simply find it reassuring, psychologically, to know that you could use a phone and call for help if she were having cardiac distress. Whether she can safely swim is a question for her doctor; she may have been told that not swimming would be worse for her health.
Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. His books include ‘‘Cosmopolitanism,’’ ‘‘The Honor Code’’ and ‘‘The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
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