William Dickie

Moral Development
Final Paper
May 4, 2009

Care Applied to Daily Life

Situation Title: Pizza Cop

Situation Detail:

[A late night in the Folsom Book Stacks, a library only because

books are sort of stored there]
A pizza is ordered out of the quiet desperation instilled from
hunger. Emissary/Accomplice T is sent to retrieve said cheese-sauce-pie.
Upon arrival, a disgruntled librarian stops Emissary/Accomplice T. She
asks that Emissary/Accomplice T not bring pie into library based on
some arbitrary rule concerning food originating from outside the library.
Taking a split-second chance of daring, adrenaline-pumping danger,
Emissary/Accomplice T sprints up the stairs to carry through his hard
earned victual salvage.
Thinking all was clear, that the disgruntled librarian would be
balked by the height of the stairwell or the imposing, impersonal elevator
device, Accomplices T, B, and A commenced bitin’ some sweet, saucy
delight, with accustomed bravado, greed and satisfaction. The danger
was made known to all accomplices.
Halfway through, the stately metallic shields protecting the
elevator shaft parted and revealed two unsettling Public Safety officers
(Protect Shirley and Serve Parking Tickets). Simultaneously, Accomplice
T had risen to drink Accomplice T’s fill of water from the old pipes of the
building.
Spotting our red hands and white pie box, they authoritatively
walked over to our humble fireproof table. “You do know that that isn’t
allowed in the library right?” questioned the red-haired blue eye-
shadowed sallow decrepit woman officer. A stunned capillary silence
rippled only by the choking sounds of Accomplice B + A followed. “Did
one of you bring this in here?” Heads shook slowly and reluctantly to the
sides. “Can you tell us who brought this in here? We can review the
camera footage and check the door swipes and find out for ourselves.”
“T---,” we capitulated.
“Where is he?” Hesitant shrugs were thrown and glances to the
water fountain quickly were averted. “Well, we’re taking this. If T---
decides to come downstairs to talk to us, maybe you can have it back.”
Speechless, Accomplices B and A cowered embarrassingly.
The two officers re-mounted the frightening transportation device
and disappeared, never to review footage or check any records, only to
enjoy delicious and free pizza.
Situation With Care Applied:
Being attuned to their natural reactions, sense of responsibility,
consensus seeking and ability to foster relationships, Accomplices A, B
and T and perhaps the disgruntled RPI officials well could have rectified
their situation. However, the main moral problem I want to approach
would be how to correct the falling out between accomplices and the
public safety officers so that the librarian would be happy and the
Accomplices could keep their pizza with neither side losing honor using
four principles of caring

--Natural Responsiveness--
[Librarian/Accomplice T]
First, just because this interaction could have prevented the moral
situation later, I will address the initial encounter with caring principles.
Accomplice T should have noticed the Natural Responses of
distress, unhappiness, and concern expressed by the disgruntled
librarian. And the librarian should have noticed the Natural Responses of
hunger, lack of recognition of importance, and aloofness expressed by
Acc. T. These noticed reactions should have been regarded on both sides
in reference of how to react further.
The librarian’s response should have indicated to Acc. T that the
woman was very disgruntled and disturbed by his saucy offering. This
should have encouraged him to find a way to pacify and understand
these seemingly outrageous and unfair emotions expressed against a
man holding a pizza. He should have tried to learn something from this
reaction, like, that woman is crazy and liable to try anything to get this
pizza out of her library. He should not have suppressed this emotional
reception, and should not have tried to get away quickly, running up a
flight of stairs in a tiny, easily searchable library.
On the other hand, the librarian should have noticed that Acc. T
was unaware of any anti-foreign food rules in the library, that he was
much more interested in eating and bringing his friends a pizza than
worrying about a crazy librarian, and that he didn’t seem to connect any
significance to the anti-pizza sentiment either. This should have allowed
her to learn that maybe she needed to clarify, define and explain the
rules and why they exist for HER purposes, since clearly the basis for the
rules were ineffective in ushering understanding in Acc. T’s mind. She
should not have suppressed her noticing his apathetic connection.
[Acc. A + B/Public Safety]
The public safety officers, engaging the tone and controlling the
conversation between individuals, should first have noted that Acc A and
B’s natural responses to their approach were responses of concern,
surprise, repressed rectitude, non-cooperation, unhappiness and disgust
(on the last reaction, weird make up jobs on very old women are always
disturbing, especially when they look very angry). Likely reacting from a
position of power instead of from a caring perspective, these officers
ignored these reactions, repressing their natural responses’ teachings
and powering through the interaction with unbridled emotional brutality.
If they’d reacted caringly, they would have allowed themselves to
commiserate and feel these reactions and perhaps learn from them by
easing up on their intensity and being honest and gentle instead of trying
to scare Acc. A + B with threats.
Acc. A and B should have reacted to their feelings of rectitude
without repression, because this is a natural and logical response to the
situation presented. This repression should have been learned from and
rectified immediately with some good old boldness. Their non-
cooperation response should be learned from, as it indicates a response
to the air of authority and the forgetfulness that these officers are just
people and will react to a caring, relational response (though more
slowly). Maybe the disgust should be learned from, but in perspective of
the pettiness of the situation, I don’t think much can be learned from it
except that petty conflicts should be resolved by relational connection.

--Responsibility--
[Librarian/Accomplice T]
Judging based on the mentioned natural responses expressed by
both parties, both parties could have been more response-able to each
other.
Reacting, and responding by running away from the librarian is a
response devoid of much care. It causes a natural response of anger from
a person like a disgruntled librarian, because that person’s rules are not
being followed in a place they’re responsible for. Now responding to a
rule in this way is fine, but to ignore the responsibility Acc. T owed the
librarian’s disgrunt was neglecting his obligation to respond sufficiently
to her needs. This effectively broke the relationship between them, and
caused the public safety officer situation that followed. He should have
been ready to respond to the librarian civilly. He should have known how
to respond to the librarian’s upset reaction with respect and
understanding and maybe connected responsibly by questioning her
about the rules in an effort to understand and attend to her.
The librarian actually reacted pretty responsibly, except that she
ignored Acc. T’s clear natural rejection response to her rule-set on the
grounds that they didn’t make sense to him. She should have responded
by connecting to him on a personal level about why this rule was in place
and why she had decided to enforce it on him, perhaps apologizing and
understanding why it seemed inane to him. She reacted as anyone would
when presented this severed relational connection, cut off by quick feet
and an unwilling mind.
[Acc. A + B/Public Safety]
Responsibility in terms of care was clearly lacking in this
interaction. The responsible reaction from Acc A + B would have been an
understanding that the rules of the library for some reason involved this,
that they had violated them, and that public safety had nothing better to
do that eat some kids’ pizza. They should have attended to the stolid and
dry natural responses of the public safety women by offering to leave the
building temporarily with the pizza.
The responsible reaction from the officers would have been to
notice the scared look on both Accomplices’ faces, and be ready to kindly
and un-threateningly explain the rules and ask pleasantly for the
Accomplices to either give them a piece or for the removal of the pizza
from the building. They should have had this knowhow from having
experience with vague authoritarian power that it is intimidating to other
people and puts a strain on relational caring.

--Consensus Seeking--
[Librarian/Accomplice T]
Here, the parties needed to dialogue and seek a mutual
understanding about the situation. Really, that the rules of the library
somehow banned just foreign food brought in through the doors, that
maybe the librarian could get in trouble for allowing the pizza to be
brought in if possible, and that Acc. T didn’t really have much
connection or understanding of the rule, and to correct that.
Likely the best agreement here would be to call Acc A + B
downstairs to the library café to eat, so that nothing ‘bad’ could happen,
and the accomplices could still eat their pie.
[Acc. A + B/Public Safety]
Here, the consensus would have been reached through the mutual
responsibilities each party possessed in reference to the other. The public
safety officers would have been easily able to understand the perspective
of the students and the students, perhaps, the officers by connecting
their reactions verbally to their speech and conversation. This would
likely have been resolved by an agreement to lay off by the pub safety
officers and an agreement to take the pizza downstairs to be eaten by the
accomplices.
--Fostering Relations With Dialogue--
[Librarian/Accomplice T]
This is the most clearly lacking element of the interaction between
the librarian and Acc. T. Dialogue is the most important element to lead
to consensus seeking, to learn from natural responses, and to foster
responsibility to a relationship. It would have avoided the alienation and
resentment that plagued the reactions of their party, because it would
respect both of them as people instead of rule-enforcer/victim, and
establish them to each other as continuous and valued individuals.
To relate to each other, the librarian could have admitted or
related her own reaction to the rules and related to Acc. T that she didn’t
really agree with it, or relate to him by explaining the details of why it
was a rule, so that he would understand the definition and content and
meaning for the rule, to disable his dismissal of the rule as bad or
unnecessary. He could have made a joke about exclusion of Troy’s
economy in RPI’s economic operations or about how it’s a good thing that
she stopped him, because he usually forgets and uses the books as
cheese-discard plates. If the librarian didn’t like jokes, this would be a
bad way to go. But there’s would likely be common ground about
ridiculous rules, or common ground about the reasons for upholding
good rules. If the librarian was actually crazy, Acc. T would understand
this from conversation and realize he should probably not bring the pizza
upstairs and maybe instead sprint back outside the library, out of the
wild eyed wench’s domain.
[Acc. A + B/Public Safety]
This is a much tougher relationship as well as a continued
confliction situation. The Public Safety officers commanded and decided
to wield the power to deceive, threaten and scare Acc. A and B. However,
this tension could have been alleviated maybe by a disarming remark
about an RPI anti-pizza brigade or about the weather or some very clever
compliment about eye shadow. Wielding authority over other individuals
removes the baseline that subjects deserve in relational caring, so
initially, Acc. A and B are not held as valuable individuals, but as
delinquents. Treated as such, A and B reacted as delinquents might by
stammering and being generally unresponsive, timid and surprised at
the disproportionate response they received from the cops.
Perhaps the Accomplices would have been served well to question
the details of the no-pizza laws in place in response to this negative
treatment, using the leverage of their own authority against them, forcing
them to be vacillating and accommodating to law-conscious citizens of
RPI. From there, they might bring the dialogue to a more pleasant
demeanor and tone by graciously acquiescing not to reveal information
or allow the officers to remove the pizza by offering to remove it and
apologizing for the transgression.
 The Reconciliation of Care and Justice

Ever since care as a moral ethic was introduced to me, I’ve found it
interesting and pretty easy to integrate justice ethics and care ethics in
our moral dialogue. They really are very related and not really mutually
exclusive. They just neglect each other when considered alone. Together,
they work to guide morality by prescribing contextual, relational
judgments with obliged responsibility to, honesty towards, and respect
for, the self and others.
My model for combining the ethics of care and justice come mainly
inspired from my understanding of the life and practices of Gandhi. He
was considered at the level of “stage 6” by Kohlberg, and I think this is
because he combined the best elements of justice and caring into a
pretty useful and effective moral ethic.

First, he supposedly regarded all people as equally valuable and

respected each person’s humanity individually.
He worked to ignore social caste, gender, religion and all other
differences that vouchsafed to be human attributes. Combining
Kohlberg’s respect for autonomy, he never forced anyone to do anything
with violence or by interfering with other’s individual choice. When
protesting, his actions were always only his personal choice; for example
one of his first protests, he burned his identity card in South Africa, and
kept burning the relinquished identity cards despite being beaten until
the policeman arrested him. He respected the cop’s humanity in a way
that opened his eyes to the inhumanity he was committing, and this was
similar for many who heard the story of Gandhi’s undeniable humanity.
This is a justice ethic at its best, but Gandhi’s efforts here also embody
the respect of caring as well.
Gandhi’s identification card protest employed attention, natural
responsiveness, context, compassion, pacifism, beneficence, virtuous
expression, consensus seeking and a balance of self and others.
He cared about himself and his needs enough to bear the brunt of
the law, a small consequence in perspective of his accomplishments in
getting recognition and respect in many people’s eyes. His actions
encouraged natural, contextual response in the policeman who was
hitting him and the people reading the articles about him and his
supporters and his close relations. This led others to act in the same
way. Eventually, the oppressors learned a lesson from their self-disgust
with their treatment of another human.
 He inspired compassion from this teaching, in that people felt bad
about how they saw the laws and felt bad about the pain he bared for his
equal human rights. He inspired beneficence with pacifism and
consensus seeking; he gave the oppressors an easy avenue to consensus
with their natural responses to his conscious pacifism and inspired
beneficence only in that he did not get angry about his treatment, he
merely bore the pain and continued to act in the way he believed he
should be able to considering his equal humanity.

Second, Gandhi was all about consensus seeking and an equal say
in cooperation. When the authorities in South Africa finally agreed to
release all the Indian prisoners of the protests, they had Gandhi agree
that he would stop the protests if they gave Indians equal (?) rights in
South Africa. However, they would block the emigration of any more
Indians into the country. The official asked Gandhi if he wanted this
repealed too. Disappointed, but acting justly, Gandhi said that he could
not ask for more than he had originally protested for, and could not ask
for such a repealing, though he did not want it enacted. This follows the
Kohlbergian concept of equal say in cooperation, but also the caring
aspect of consensus seeking.
Understanding that asking too much would undermine the trust
and respect he had gained; he opted not to ask for more than he’d
originally asked. Through dialogue, compassion and pacifism, he’d aimed
for a consensus with the governing body that it would be in their interest
to give rights back to Indians. By not asking for more than originally, he
preserved the relationship among the groups involved and achieved the
most good overall. The authorities could potentially see this as deception
and decide to leave all of the Indians in jail. Gandhi showed him that he
respected him and that he deserved respect by not trying to pull the
compassion generated too thin.
This also shows the ‘virtuous expression and operationalism of
care morality. Gandhi was compassionate to his oppressors and this
virtuous expression of respect is for the humanity and individual choice
in each person. Gandhi was completely open to the reactions of racism
so, he was vacillating and gentle to their sensitivities, though unfounded
and poisonous. He kept his word and preserved his integrity as well as
being caring to his people, himself, and the authorities by connecting to
them personally with his very human display of civil disobedience.

Thirdly, Gandhi always practiced personal and social responsibility

as well as just obligation to rights and mutual aid.
 A good example is, during his fast in the Hindi-Muslim civil war,
when a Hindi man came to him dirty and bedraggled with guilt, shame,
anger and helplessness. The man told Gandhi that he’d killed a young
Muslim boy in retribution for his own son being killed. He felt impossibly
horrible and asked Gandhi if there was anything he could do to correct
his horrible transgressions. Gandhi told him to find an orphaned Muslim
child, to take him in and give him a good home and to raise him in the
Muslim religion.
Now, this case contains many other levels of justice morality and
care morality, but it’s most notable for combining the ethics of care and
justice into one with responsibility and obligation. Gandhi’s decision
respects the autonomy and rights of the Muslim child to be raised in a
good home and in his original religion, and respects the autonomy and
rights of the Hindi man to undertake this healing, caring activity for
himself. It ignites the mutual aid of the man and the child, as it will heal
not only the loss of child and parents, but will bring the two religions in
the family together and encourage respect for all forms of religion and the
rights as humans every person has by showing the inconsequentiality of
denomination in love and care.
It is also very very strong in responsibility. It encourages that Hindi
man to be attentive, to respond humanely, to nurture and be moved.
These are the first steps to responsibility, and they teach the know-how
needed to carry through responsibility morally and justly. It gives both
members the chance to respond to each other and an impetus to
consensus-seek and to seek context and compassion for differences.
This prescription encourages responsibility for competence and
gives the man an avenue to feel fulfilled again despite his horrible deed.
It encourages obligation and mutual aid to rights and the basic equal
treatment of other humans. It encourages the justice of mutual respect
and this justice is unique because it doesn’t foster resentment, but
intimacy and understanding.

[What I think is the best combination at the highest level for both]

My favorite topic of discussion so far of all of this is the necessity of

combination of the two moral ethics at the highest stage and is the
reason I used Gandhi as my reference for this amalgamation. I feel like
he almost nearly embodies the combination of care and justice.
As we talked about in class, it doesn’t seem that justice is much
more than an intellectualism without care, and I think Gandhi realized
this. He made it his career to care about as many people as possible and
to make sure everyone was treated as justly as possible. Because care is
tailored to interpersonal, intimate interaction, it doesn’t work alone in
dealing with large social groups and abstract groups of people. However,
justice doesn’t either, because justice just tells you what is right, not
how to socially carry out what is right. The truth is realizing that an
intimate connection is necessary to pull the weight of justice. Gandhi
makes this connection by respecting universally every person regardless
of his personal knowledge of them, and caring enough about them to do
something like protest against the government to make them realize that
they need to care about themselves and get their needs met.
Because the more egregious institutions of racism, poverty, etc
occur at the institutional level, the interaction of groups of people and
economies, it is necessary to somewhat abandon the idea that each
person deserves autonomy because autonomy can easily infringe on the
autonomy of others by moving an inch. Autonomous respect allows
people to destroy natural resources, waste food and water, pump out
tons of gaseous waste into the air, etc. There’s a point where autonomy
doesn’t cut it because we obligatorily have to impede on each other’s
autonomy to make sure everyone gets the best they can. This is where
care and attentiveness come in along with just respect. With care and
attentiveness comes action and responsibility to impede autonomy to
make sure some people don’t take advantage of others.
Respect for rights combined with contextual interaction makes
people attend injustice and feel the feelings necessary to correct
injustices. Gandhi didn’t just think “hey, I think I’m being treated
unfairly, so I should respect everyone’s rights so that I can receive my
own”, he used his care for other people and his respect for the humanity
in individuals on a larger scale, assuming that MANY people could use
his example and compassion to be inspired and locally be caring and
respectful.

Of course, the real biggest problem of all of this is that it takes a

lot of study and concentrated thought in many cases to reach the
conclusions of a combined justice and caring ethic. The most the ethic
can really help I think is educational systems and individuals driven
enough to find out how they should deal with the ethical dilemmas they
don’t seem to be able to adequately handle. The reason Gandhi managed
to inspire caring and encourage hope and compassion is many people
cared for him personally for his dealings. However, it’s not too universal
a solution because many people let things cloud their view of others as
human. Gandhi never let happen to him, and he is in this way just an
ideal. Although…ideals should never be pushed aside just because
they’re tough to obtain; that should be ever more a reason to try to reach
it and challenge one self to become the best possible moral creature.