The Re-Ethicist Strikes Back
Posted on July 11th, 2005 in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
This week the Ethicist, a.k.a. Randy Cohen, gets a letter from a North Carolina printer who doesn’t think much of Republicans.
Susannah Meyers of Asheville, North Carolina, writes: I work for a small print shop where a customer placed an order for bumper stickers that read, ”Defend American Against the Communist/Vote Republican.” I think his faulty grammar suits his ridiculous message, and I do not want to correct it. I’d rather save my energy for helping those who mean well. What should I do?
The Ethicist’s Response: “You should do your job according to the usual professional standards, ensuring that the printing isn’t blurry and the ink doesn’t run in the rain. You have no obligation to provide extra services — correcting this customer’s solecisms, improving his prose, painting his house. You may, if your boss consents, reject the job altogether….”
The Re-Ethicist Says: Wrong!
First, it would be well within a printer’s professional responsibilities to point out glaring errors of grammar, and you do not have to agree with the customer’s sentiments to agree. In fact, if Ms. Meyers is indeed as liberal as she proclaims herself, she should want to help educate the customer, or at least teach him that he’s making a couple of gramattical mistakes.
Second, while the printer has the legal right to reject a job, she would be ethically wrong to reject this one.
While Cohen does add that the decision not to print something should be used only rarely, as with a racist screed, he does give Meyers license to not print this one, as long as it’s okay with her boss. (Spoken like a true Timesman, always deferential to power; whatever you do, check with your boss first.)
Imagine if every printer who didn’t like a political sentiment refused to print a customer’s request….or every editor who didn’t agree with an article’s point of view refused to print it. Or every publisher… Or every broadcaster…. Or every billboard owner…
I could go on, but you get the point: This is America, where we not only tolerate dissenting points of view, we encourage them; we think that dissent makes us stronger. We have a responsibility to air opinions we disagree with, in the belief that the exercise of free speech is something fundamentally American that ultimately makes this a stronger nation.
A printer’s greatest pride and highest calling is to print something she couldn’t disagree with more…..
4 Responses
7/11/2024 10:29 am
gah, richard. yes, it’s the smart and moral thing to do to point out the glaring error… but you can’t force a private company to print something they find reprehensible.
in the same way that some pharmacists can refuse to sell emergency contraceptives (or any contraceptives, for that matter), said print shop doesn’t have to go against its own beliefs to be ethical.
now, personally, i think the pharmacists i mention are negligent… but am i thinking that because i don’t believe in what they believe in? because this is more serious than a bumper sticker? regardless, nobody should be forced to perform an activity they feel is morally abhorrent (sp?).
(which isn’t saying i wouldn’t be immoral by my own definition: i’d truly enjoy printing the bumper sticker with the mistakes.)
7/11/2024 1:24 pm
Pharmacists who refuse to sell legal drugs/contraceptives because they have a moral problem with them shouldn’t be pharmacists.
Imagine if doctors only treated patients of whom they approved morally….
Frankly, people making this kind of choice are selfish; they are putting their own individual belief above a common ideal, i.e., the ethos of the profession they chose to join….They can certainly agitate to change the norms of the profession, but while those norms are in place, they should abide by them.
7/11/2024 1:42 pm
do pharmacists take an oath like doctors do? if not, i think they should be able to do whatever they like, even though it sucks ass.
as for printers, they take no oath. they own a private service business and should be able to serve whomever they choose.
11/14/2007 2:42 pm
Until I did research just now, I thought Pharmacists were required to be Ph.Ds. My dad told me that when I was a kid, or I might have wound up studying to be one. I’m 39, and it still surprises me how much dad pretended to know, but really didn’t.