Bad Art Friend and Virtue Ethics

We heap praise on heroes. But what if their heroism is very annoying to us, making us look and feel bad?

If someone makes you feel bad about yourself, are they in the wrong?

You would think the answer to that last question is 'yes' based on support fellow authors have offered short-story writer Sonya Larson, who is accused of plagiarizing from another writer, one who had been posting about her organ donation. This ethical case study was reported by Bob Kolker in The New York Times here. He titled it "Who Is the Bad Art Friend?" and seems, like other writers who have weighed in, to worry that the organ donor was a bit too self-interested in the whole matter and not a good "art friend."

The Atlantic weighed in, concluding that the organ donor was in fact the morally worse person, see here. What had the organ donor done? Well, The Atlantic piece suggests she was really looking to be offended and that pursuing plagiarism charges in the case is somehow beyond the pale. (The court has not yet dismissed her claims.)

The backstory is probably the most interesting part, but the court filings might be the best source for it since every journalist seems to be suggesting that either the actors are moral equivalents or (as with The Atlantic) the organ donor (whose work was poached and private group Facebook messages mocked to writing groups) was the worse person. "Her retaliations quickly outpaced Larson’s offenses," The Atlantic author wrote.

It's a bit hard to follow the logic of these condemnations, which are also surprising, given how so many of us think about organ donation. I will try to unthread the logic. Are the critics of the organ donor really worried about virtue signaling? Are they committed to the idea that charity must be done secretly? Are they equating morality with what makes them feel bad or annoyed? I'll end with a suggestion for what ethical theory might be able to do to clarify the ethical issues at hand.

When it comes to organ donation, it's easy to call it what it is: heroic. Even our surgeons—sober-minded, unexcitable, capable of laughing off the idea that they themselves do heroic things—call organ donors heroes. The families of recipients certainly do. Recipients will tell you as often as you ask.

So why are the "critics of the organ donor" so confident in their moral condemnation? It seems unlikely that they just think plagiarism (especially of another writer) is excusable. It must be something else.

Concerns about virtue signaling

Possibly these critics are caught up in concern about "virtue signaling." An old economic term, work has now been done on the ethical category of "moral grandstanding." It's to be avoided, we have had it explained, as it can cause negative social reactions, including increased cynicism.

But wait, "moral grandstanding" is about a desire to impress others with nothing but a statement about your ethics. There could not be a plainer contrast to this than the arduous, frightening, no-way-around-it difficult process of donating an organ. We lose up to 20 people a day off the transplant waiting list, and that is just here in the US.

If you do not know anyone on the transplant list or anyone who has been removed due to declining health, or anyone who lives in a country where there is no list, you have probably missed the chance to see how dire the need is and what it means to save a life.

But we have to imagine that the critics of the organ donor (some very popular and successful writers among them) are aware enough of what the donor in this case has done (save a life at tremendous personal cost). And yet they are still condemning her. How?

Their focus has been on her sharing the news of her donation. (The donor reached out to the author being accused of plagiarism to figure out why she (the donor) was seeing the author viewing her group posts about her donation without commenting.) Critics of the organ donor have described her as needy, as needing praise.

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But again, if organ donors are obvious heroes, why would praise be unusual to expect?

I think the only fair answer is that it annoys some people to see others do something good. If so, what to do about this?

The solution is not to stop organ donation, or end posts about organ donation, or censor the information we have about how new donors are encouraged through the sharing of donation stories. Maybe a solution is to focus on the guidance an ethical theory would give us.

Without a theory, one can easily amass negative descriptors. Was the organ donor not humble enough? Was she not solicitous enough? Mindful? It could be (and has been) an endless list of annoying qualities generated by this kind of reflection on what might be less annoying to a peeved observer.

Eudaemonist virtue ethics

With a theory such as eudaemonist virtue ethics, you can do much more and better. You can, for one, turn the focus from how someone's good behavior makes you feel to generating norms about good behavior. Are you upset because you suddenly think you, too, might be asked to donate an organ? Are you upset because you thought you were a good person and then this challenge is leveled and you lose? Well, using an ethical theory, you get to separate out some issues. First of all, when it comes to ethics, if we are right about them, we want more of them from everyone. Just go back to the drawing board if you find yourself jealous of someone's ethics.

Once we are sure that we are actually considering ethics, a eudaemonist virtue ethic reminds us that we are certainly not "just good people already." (So much of the anger at the organ donor seems to be over this affront, over the idea that someone might be a better person in another's eyes. The texts shared about the organ donor are rageful and furious. They mock even the organ recipient whose life was saved.)

And then when it comes to the ethics of organ donation, a theory of virtue would allow you to fit the recommendation that we give that much nicely into the rest of the ethical recommendations we follow. No one is magically transformed by doing something ethical or living up to the most demanding duty. Even donors are faced with a set of new ethical challenges the next day, just like us all.

Virtue ethics renders donating a kidney a non-threat, letting it, instead, be seen as a lovely behavior that exemplifies the best of us.

And understanding ethics to this extent, helped by a theory to move us from just feeling put upon and annoyed, lets us praise an organ donor to the utmost. We will praise what they did, we will praise it right along with those whose lives are saved, along with those who do the surgery, along with everyone on board with ethics (which is not ever just about us).