Prompt: The New York Times Magazine has asked you to write a guest column for The Ethicist. They want you
to draw on Kant’s ethics and the ethics of care in answering the following letter.
Dear Ethicist,
I’m 45, living in the United States. My brother is two years older and lives in Australia. Neither of us
gets on with our 86-year-old mother, who lives in London. Our father, whom we were both really close
to, died in 1985 after a long illness. I was 13, my brother 15, and it affected us very badly with little help
from our mother.
I recently took a DNA test out of curiosity for the health information and couldn’t understand the result
that I was 52 percent Ashkenazi Jewish. As far as I was aware, both my parents were from Jewish
families going back as far as we knew. The following day, having not spoken to my mother for a year, I
asked if she wouldn’t mind taking the test. She responded that it was a route that I might not want to
go down. Of course, I asked why, and she just came out with the news that my father was infertile and
that both myself and my brother were from artificial insemination. She told me not to tell my brother
and said that she never wanted to talk about it again.
I have been absolutely devastated by this news. Before speaking to my mother, I had mentioned to my
brother that my DNA results appeared strange. He didn’t show too much interest. I genuinely do not
know how my brother would react, as he is generally far less emotional than I. However, I am feeling a
lot of guilt because I think it is everyone’s right to know such an important fact. As devastating as this
news was to me, I am grateful to know the truth.
Should I tell my brother?
Write a response to the letter-writer that first explains how both Kant and a care ethicist might approach this
issue, then critically evaluates the advice of those approaches, and finally providing what you take to be the
best advice (drawing on one or both or neither of those approaches). In short, your response must contain 4
things:
•
An explanation of how Kant might reply. It’s up to you what to draw on from Kant and how to apply it
to the situation, but you must draw on at least one of the formulations of the categorical imperative in
doing so.
•
An explanation of how a care ethicist might reply. Again, it’s up to you to decide what to draw on
from our readings on care ethics.
•
Some critical analysis of the advice the two approaches would offer. Does it reveal weaknesses in
their overall approaches to ethical problems? Does it reveal strengths? Be sure to give reasons for why
you agree or disagree on key points.
•
This will set the stage for your own advice to the letter-writer (for example: Kant’s advice is better
than care ethics; care ethics’ advice is better than K’s; here’s a way to combine elements of both of
their advice; neither’s advice is apt, so you should follow this other advice I would give you).
