Torture

A few random thoughts....

1. With the new info out, it seems clear that people were tortured. People died in our custody, as a result of interrogation techniques. If death isn't torture, what is?

2. As per 1, its obvious now that no dignified lawyer could have actually believed these techniques were legal.

3. Which means that the only defense left for the defenders (like Cheney and Rep. King) is that laws can be overridden given enough reason. But that is an extremely dangerous precedent to set. We might as well have one and only one law on the books: "Do whatever is best, in each case."

4. Which makes me think...it is rare when news items effect my philosophical views (though conversations with friends tends to), but these events have definitely made me think that pure act consequentialism is false, at the very least at the political level, but probably at the individual level as well.

5. Now before someone responds to these thoughts along these lines: "Preston, you bleeding heart. These are terrorists. The worst people in the world. They would kill your family in front of you in a heartbeat. They deserve to be tortured. I could give a shit about their 'feelings.' Cut their balls off if that's what it takes." Let me remind you that none of these people have been tried as criminals. Now sure, a few of them are definitely guilty. Most of them are probably guilty. But a lot (don't misread this as most) of the people at Guantanamo are most likely innocent, victims of being in the wrong place t the wrong time. Torturing suspected criminals? That's an even worse precedent.

6. With all of this in mind, I think I'm justified in saying I am ashamed of many of the leaders of this country.

7. Oh, and by the way--if you appreciate this new transparency and you think the public deserves to know this kind of stuff, don't thank the big media. Thank the ACLU. They're the ones who sued to get this info out.

Metaphysical Skepticism --Does it imply egoism?

I have been reading a lot of ethics lately, including, if I may name drop, Sidgwick's renowned The Methods of Ethics.
And its gotten me thinking again about how metaphysical views can influence ethical views in a lot of ways, and I'm not just talking about the metaphysics of ethics either. And this certainly isn't a good thing, because metaphysics is tricky and contentious.
I have two arguments rolling around in my head with different conclusions based on different metaphysical views. The first one, an argument for what we might call "practical egoism," is what I want to go over here. Perhaps someone can point out if I have gone wrong.
First, the metaphysical view that my argument rests on--let's call it "metaphysical skepticism." Metaphysical skepticism doesn't deny that there are metaphysical truths, but that they are unknowable by human beings. Its a very reasonable view, and something roughly like what I have in mind is what Colin McGinn argues for in Problems of Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry.
Most importantly for my current argument is the view that the problem of other minds is unsolvable. The problem of other minds is the problem of knowing the mental states of other persons besides ourselves, or even if they have mental states at all.
Everyone practically believes that all humans have mental states and feelings just like their own, based on inferences from their behavior--Colin winces in pain when I kick him in the shin, just as I would; therefore he must be feeling the same way I do when it happens to me.
Now we couldn't really get around very well in our day-to-day lives without assuming this--its perhaps an evolutionary necessity that we assume persons move and act intentionally and feel similar qualitative states to our own. But this inference isn't really a valid one--its a generalization from an sample size of 1--yourself. And in no other area of inquiry would that fly. So there is the problem of other minds.
Metaphysical skepticism says that this problem is unsolvable--we can't, even in principle, have any evidence for or against the existence of minds other than our own.
Philosophically reasonable position, right?
Ok, so much for our metaphysical basis.
Nothing ethically harmful follows from this, does it? How could it? Well, actually, for all practical purposes, the rational believer of metaphysical skepticism should be an egoist, as far as I can tell. Say I am a consequentialist--as long as my ultimate ends is something mental or intentional, such as desire-fulfillment or something more like hedonism, I can only safely assume that I am a being with desires and qualitative states like pleasure and pain. Because I have no idea about other beings and objects, I rationally ought not risk trying to increase their pleasures or desire-fulfillment. For maybe these other beings are zombies, without qualitative states. Or maybe they're even worse than zombies--lacking both qualitative and intentional states (if thats possible--some people define desires and intentions behavioristically, so thats one 'out' for the metaphysical skeptic). But even if zombies are metaphysically impossible, (which, it should be noted, the metaphysical skeptic doesn't confirm or deny) there is no way of knowing if Colin McGinn's wincing is actually represented in his mind pleasurably, and he feels great joy and exhileration at the feeling of tissue damage, though his behavior doesn't show this in any way. Its impossible for the metaphysical skeptic to rule this out.
Now, as noted above, its not really feasible for the skeptic about the problem of other minds to live her life as if other people don't have minds--its psychologically impossible to doubt it, I presume. But nevertheless, from a rational standpoint, the metaphysical skeptic should seemingly try to suppress this thought as much as possible. To try to please the people around us would be like trying to please a rock--we have no idea how to do it, so it is fruitless to try. The metaphysical skeptic is in the same position with human beings.

But receding to a more Kantian view will not help here, for a simpler reason--respect for persons goes out the window when we have no safe way of deciding who are persons. We could have a strictly scientific test for personhood, I suppose, but I don't think its feasible in practice. This is a point for another post, but it seems like any strictly scientific test of personhood is going to either be too wide, and bring in things like computers, or too narrow, and rule out infants or intelligent non-human animals. But, I admit, that is another 'out' for the metaphysical skeptic, because that is a contentious point.

Either of these stances, consequentialism or deontology, when coupled with metaphysical skepticism, appear to imply, for all practical purposes, egoism. Though both the utilitarian and Kantian agree in principle to treat all sentient beings/persons with respect, neither can know what beings fall into the proper category, and are thus hopeless to take moral action, outside of their own mental life.
Now I think there are ways to weasel out of these conclusions, but I don't immediately see how. Anyone have any ideas?

Beating Singer at His Own Game

Peter Singer is one of very few living philosophers who are known in the mainstream--I have seen him on the Morning Show, the Colbert Report, and a BBC news special.
Its probably a toss-up whether he is more known for his animal rights stuff or his ending world poverty stuff, but he is extremely prominent in both areas.
Recently, Singer has published a book entitled "The Life You Can Save". This book is written for a popular audience, and it basically makes the same case Singer has been making since his 1972 "Famine, Affluence, and Morality": that we (individuals as well as governments) should be giving A LOT more money to charities, to end world poverty and unnecessary deaths from things that, frankly, people shouldn't die from-- diarrhea, cholera, etc. etc. Even the poor in affluent countries like the U.S. are much better off than the poor in third-world countries, and proximity should have no independent effect on our obligations.
I generally agree with Singer's project, as well as most of his others (that is, I am a utilitarian who isn't afraid to follow those principles to their conclusion.)

Here, I want to focus on one of his most famous arguments. This is an argument that gets discussed in Intro to Ethics courses all over. Briefly, it is this:

"if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing...the principle takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position." (Famine, Affluence, and Morality)

Its the example of the child drowning that gets me. I actually think it is an apt analogy--if you can save a child's life by donating $75 to Oxfam, that is just as good as saving a child's life that is drowning in a wading pool right in front of you. That's okay with me. Sure, you might ruin your suit. But saving a child's life is much more valuable than a suit, even a nice one.

But there is an issue here, if we are sticking strictly to our utilitarian calculus (which Singer wants to do). Let's assume, for sake of example, that a child in Africa's minor ailment can be cured with a $75 donation to Oxfam, allowing him to live a productive and full life. Next, let's assume that the suit I am wearing has a resale value of, say, $300. I notice the child drowning in front of me. Here we are, in the same situation which Singer gives above, but with the added detail about the suit's cost. So, it seems we should save the child in front of us--most people would even say its pretty obvious we ought to do that. But let's say I don't have time to take off my suit. If this is so, then, by utilitarian lights, I ought not save the child! Why? Because I can save the lives of 4 children by leaving, selling the suit, and donating the money to Oxfam. The lives of 4 are greater than the life of one, and proximity makes no difference.
This looks to be just another formulation of the trolley problem, or the forced organ-donor example. But it is especially interesting because what Singer says in his work on poverty seems to imply he has to be ok with this counterintuitive conclusion.
Anyone have any way of getting out of this? It sure seems like there ought to be one; that is, I think Singer's argument is cogent--so something fishy must be going on here.

I just may have been right about something

Hey look! Another reason why NOT to get/have a facebook account! Everything you upload or post becomes property of Facebook....forever.
http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever

There is also stuff on the news sites, but I am afraid the links will die, so just google news it.

Religious Freedom

The event that prompts this post is, I'll admit, a bit outdated. Remember that raid on the Fundamentalist Mormon sect (known as FLDS)? Let me recap for a second in case you forgot. A teenage girl called an anonymous tipline to say that she had been abused on the ranch (Yearning for Zion, I believe it is called, if you'd like to wikipedia it). Alright, so that was good, right? She worked up the courage to call out whomever this asshole who abused her was, and hopefully he will be thrown in jail.
But no. Instead, the next day, the powers that be invade the ranch, and take over 400 children away from their families! Because of a phone call?
Think about a regular community, like Traer, or in Ohio like Berea. A girl is abused and calls the proper authorities. Would the police raid every home in the town and take away all legal minors? Hell no!

What I am saying is that I am with the FLDS on that case--apparently the Supreme Court of the state of Texas was, too. One phone call does not warrant taking hundreds of children away from their home. It was, clearly, an issue of religious discrimination. People think the FLDS is bizarre (which it is), and maybe even barbaric, because they allow polygamy, and they pretty openly think men are better than women. Not to mention, they tried to go off and live on their own! How dare they!
Well listen, the fact is, just like freedom of speech, when you have a country with freedom of religion, you have to let the weirdos in.
The state claimed their right to take away the children, because they feared them being 'socialized' to become abusive. The courts rejected this as too broad.

Ok, so thats my opinion on that case. But it brings up some interesting questions about freedom of religion that I just don't know the answer to.
Freedom of speech laws have had many famous court cases to sort how far it goes. Basically anything that isn't obscene (as defined by the Law) is free. But what about freedom of religion? It seems intuitive that we would want a vast range of freedom of religion--but then cases like the FLDS weaken those intuitions. Religious pacifists don't have to fight in wars; this seems fair. Can a religion be openly racist? I would say that should probably be allowed, for similar reasons as freedom of speech. Where do we set the limits? Any suggestions? We can play it safe up in abstract theory land to simplify things.

The second question I have is about organized religions vs. non-organized religions. If the law is willing to grant religious people exceptions from obligations, which they ought to, why can't irreligious people have the same perks? Ok yes, you shouldn't get to avoid draft because its inconvenient, but that isn't exactly what I'm saying.
What I am saying is that, I don't belong to any religious group. But I have ethical standards I take just as seriously as devoutly religious people. Why should I be legally obliged to do something I consider unethical, if religious people don't? And how many members does a church need to have before their beliefs are accepted?
Certainly we can imagine strange religions which would bring serious problems--like a religion which had a compulsory communion of LSD or another illegal substance. The government has let this type of thing go with certain Native American religions; why couldn't a new start-up religion be just as valid?
I'm not asking these questions in order to cheat the system--I'm just trying to consider a principled way to give equal rights to all religious and non-religious people, regardless of their particular faith's popularity, normality, or age. And this question is proving more difficult than I thought it would be. Any takers?

The Thin Line between Tolerance and Relativism

Though I consider myself a Democratic Socialist, there is something frightening to me about the increasing liberalness of our society. But let me first justify that comment. I am looking at the big picture here; and it seems clear to me that from generation to generation our nation, and most of the world, is becoming more liberal. From emancipation, to civil rights, to near universal suffrage. I mean, our parents generation would have had legal troubles with marrying someone of a different race. That is fucked up. But we've gone a long way. Sure, there are a lot of people who are still against interracial marriage today--but these tend to be older people, raised in a different cultural climate.
Homosexuals will probably be able to get married soon. Who knows, maybe in a few more generations the government will just get out of the marriage business completely. People wouldn't be punished via taxation for their decision to remain single.
But I am happy about all these changes. I've just read J.S. Mill's "On Liberty", and I'm really pumped up about liberalism. I am sure I will be on the liberal side of things for at least a few more years.
So what is it that frightens me about modern society? You ready for this? Relativism.

One of the most wonderful things about living in an industrialized nation on Earth today as opposed to 100+ years ago, besides educational opportunities and 40-hour workweeks (Thank you liberalism!), is our tolerance for those unlike us. No, not everyone is tolerant. And most people aren't tolerant of everything. But more and more people are becoming tolerant of other people who hold different views and live different lifestyles than themselves. This is beautiful! Diversity is wonderful. Freedom is all about living your life as you please--deciding what is best for yourself, deciding what sources you can get your information from, deciding where to work, what to put into your body*, etc.
The problem is that I hear more and more people from my generation faltering. They somehow make the logical gap from tolerance for others to relativism about truth. The implicit argument makes enough sense:
1. I shouldn't judge people for disagreeing with me about what is true or moral, because I don't know any better than they do.
2. But I certainly know a lot about what is true and moral.
/:. 3. So, what is 'true for me' must be different than what is 'true' for someone else.

The problem with this argument is premise 2. The whole idea behind tolerance, as I see it, is that we DON'T know what we think we know. I think that most of us would admit that we probably have some false beliefs. And we would admit we aren't sure which of these beliefs we are wrong about. So, we ought to have tolerance of others based on our acknowledged ignorance. The problem is that people want to have it both ways. They want to be tolerant AND arrogant. They refuse to admit their own ignorance.
Take religion--this is a prime example. Let's say Sally is a Christian, and Sarah is Jewish. Sally is tolerant. But is she tolerant for the right reasons?
The wrong reason: Sally thinks that both her and Sarah have true religious beliefs. She believes Christ is the son of God is 'true for her', and Sarah's not believing so is 'true for Sarah'.
The right reason: Sally realizes that such a deep metaphysical question such as those about religion are unknowable by humanity. She acknowledges that her belief in Christianity is a 'leap of faith', and as such, is fallible. Epistemically, she is in the same position as Sarah, so she respects her differing beliefs.

I see this relativism all over the place. And I see the logical slip that causes it. And its an easy mistake to make. So how can we perpetuate tolerance while retaining absolutism about truth?

Ideolocide

If Stephen Colbert can have 'truthiness', then I can have 'ideolocide'.
I invent the word 'ideolocide' at the risk of looking like a fool, because it seems to me there probably already is a word for what I am thinking of, but I just don't know what that word is.
'Ideolocide' shall be defined as the attempted destruction of an ideology--this is not to be confused with 'genocide', which could be broadly construed as the attempted destruction of a political group (though I think most of us traditionally think of it as a race or culture being destroyed).
So ideolocide is the attempted elimination of an idea, or group of ideas.
Ideolocide is seemingly what the 'war on terror' is attempting to do: Destroy the idea of religious fanatacism. I want to talk about this from two directions: 1. Is ideolocide possible? 2. Is ideolocide ethical?

1. Is ideolocide possible?
I'm not really sure if the possibility of ideolocide is a necessary precursor to an attempted ideolocide; after all, the Bush administration has suggested that the war on terror is unending. This is sort of strange--the idea of a war being, in principle, 'unwinnable'. (The logical positivists certainly would have argued it to be meaningless.) Nevertheless, it being strange certainly doesn't disqualify it.
So what would have to happen for an ideolocide to be a success? Well, for starters, we would have to eliminate the idea/ideology in its believer's heads. This could seemingly be done by killing and/or brainwashing all believers.
This isn't all, of course. To complete an ideolocide, we would also need to brainwash (or, rationally convince) anyone who would 'contemplate' believing the idea/ideology in the future. This would probably involve some sort of education program, which would have to be reinstated worldwide. Even if we were only attempting a national ideolocide, our education program would need to be worldwide--ideas can cross borders, regardless of how isolationist a nation may be.
This education program might not be quite as tough as it seems. All we would need to do is create a culture which would render the idea/ideology unthinkable. Certainly there have been cultures historically who have rendered certain ideologies unthinkable: In the middle ages, for example, atheism was considered so unthinkable that people actually considered atheism an impossible belief--they thought God's existence was so self-evident that anyone who denied it was delusional.
So, something like this is what we would need to put into place to make an ideolocide successful.
Also, let's not forget: we would need to eliminate any literature which spoke of the idea/ideology. We couldn't just eliminate literature which promoted or condoned the idea/ideology, but anything which could spark the idea in a critical reader's mind. Now I'm not sure this would be possible, at least for any ideas we find threatening. To eliminate religious fanatacism, we would have to eliminate all religious books! This seems impossible. We could burn millions of books, but chances are quite high that copies would remain, in hiding. Soviet Russia tried to do this, with minimal success--and that was just nationwide. A worldwide attempt at this would probably be impossible.
So it seems rather clear that what would have to be done for a successful ideolocide is impossible. For it is not just a matter of killing or brainwashing a group of people, but of killing or brainwashing anyone who would even critically examine an idea/ideology without rejecting it out of hand.

Nevertheless, it still may be argued that an attempted or partial ideolocide would be helpful, even if it could never be completed. So let us address our second question:
2. Is ideolocide ethical?
Ok, so I think it would be trivial to say ideolocide is unethical with respect to certain ideas/ideologies. That it not the question I have in mind. What I want to ask is, is ideolocide ever ethical? or, Is ideolocide unethical in principle?
I think the best way to ask this question is to look at a morally reprehensible idea, such as "The Aryan Race is the master race", and ask whether an attempted ideolocide of that is ethical.
I think it is clear to a Kantian that ideolocide is unethical, as it involves categorically unethical acts: Killing, Brainwashing (Taking away the free will of another rational being), destruction of knowledge (Because, after all, even if the idea/ideology itself was false, some of the things which don't promote the idea/ideology itself but still mention it would certainly contain valuable information.)
But hey, who is a Kantian anymore anyway?
What about to a utilitarian? Well, this seems like the best route to take for an ideolocide advocate. It basically reduces the question to this: Are there any circumstances in which the attempted destruction of an idea/ideology would create more pleasure/less pain than failing to destroy an idea/ideology would?
And it seems, at least to me, that there could be certain extreme situations in which the answer to this question would be 'Yes', and thus, ideolocide would not be wrong in principle.
But don't worry, hippies, this doesn't open up the floodgates. Because think about what would have to be taken into account when we do our utilitarian calculation:
1. Severely reduced freedom, worldwide, of education, religion, speech, press.
2. Imprisonment and 'reeducation' program to anyone who attempted to exercise freedoms. If this failed (or if there was risk their idea/ideology could be spread to others) it seems like death would be the only other solution.
3. Not only would you have to punish anyone who exercised freedoms of speech, but you would have to somehow destroy the idea from their heads. This couldn't even be a matter of convincing them not to hold the ideology--it would be a matter of eliminating the ideology completely and all traces of it.
4. A limitation of freedom would be a) fascism, and b) The suppression involved in the attempted ideolocide would drive people to develop negative ideologies toward the state, risking rebellion.
5. The risk of a slippery slope; resulting in the attempted ideolocide of any ideas/ideologies that disagreed with official state policy.

As we can see, this world resembles something close to Orwell's 1984. It is hard to imagine a situation which would necessitate ideolocide, short of threat of the genocide of the entire human race.
And, in terrorism, I fail to see this. Terrorists do want to kill people, but not everyone. And the amount of people we would have to kill to commit ideolocide of Islamic fascism would probably be around the same amount of people they would have to kill of ours to succeed. Not to mention, the fascism we would have to attempt would probably be just as bad as Islamic fascism, short of it being based in religion. So it doesn't seem like ideolocide in this situation fits the bill of 'ethical', even to a utilitarian. Stooping to the level of an enemy, or even to a level above that of an enemy that is still morally reprehensible, is not worth fighting an indestructible ideology. It seems the best thing to do is to attempt to protect ourselves, and attempt to show that our ideology is better than the Islamic fundamentalists'. Patience and self-protection. And yeah, we can protect those that are with us on this fight as well. But protection at the cost of giving up our ethics would be wrong, as is, in my opinion, the attempted ideolocide of religious fundamentalism.
Conservatives think that the free market should guide us as far as products, supply and demand, and economics goes. So why do they want the government to limit the marketplace of ideas? Certainly the threatening and unethical ones will be weeded out, right?

Ethicists and Morality

Are ethicists more ethical than non-ethicists?

Some philosopher is doing research on the topic, and so far the answer seems to be 'No.'
Its strange I stumbled across this, because this is something I've always been interested in. I have heard some stories of ethicists doing terrible things, but at the same time, why would you take an interest in something as a career which you didn't want to apply to your own life? It would be like a doctor who refused to take medicine.

Either way, I just thought I would share it in case anyone else was interested.


Also, in personal news, I read 120 pages of the Critique of Pure Reason by Kant in one day--needless to say, I am on the brink of insanity.

Being an Opinion Leader

I am pretty sure most people reading this will have heard of the concept before, but it may be that I am only familiar with it because of my Journalism minor.
Take any given subject...let's say...movies.
Now I don't know much about movies at all. Less than the average person. So when I want to know whether or not a movie is good, I need an opinion leader. Usually an opinion leader is the leader of several people. For example, Freddie Fillers is my go-to movie guy, a.k.a. opinion leader. But I'm sure there are plenty of other people, ones that I know and ones that I don't, who consider him, whether consciously or not, to be their opinion leader on the subject as well.
Having an opinion leader for things is intuitive. We don't have time to become experts at everything. It seems necessary that I rely on Joe for knowledge about ferrets, and Luke about firefighting, in order that I don't lose my expertise in another category.
On the other hand, having an opinion leader for everything is counterintuitive, at least to me. And this is what upsets me. I see people who do this. They go through life relying on other people's opinions for nearly everything. First of all, how is this living? Ok, that might be a little harsh. But putting your entire web of belief into a network of opinion leaders seems silly, some kind of form of cognitive suicide. Not to mention--opinion leaders are just as fallible as you and me (because, after all, they are you and me). Blind faith in an opinion leader is just dumb. Which is the reason why deciding an opinion leader should be done consciously when possible, because otherwise we could find ourselves listening to someone like Bill O'Reilly or Kevin Trudeau.
The bigger problem here is the giving up of belief-control, subconsciously, to a large group of fallible opinion leaders. And this is the thing I see happening to people I know, and this is what disappoints me. Opinion leaders are a necessary evil. Relying on only them is the bigger problem.
The solution to the bigger problem is to bring your fields of expertise to a conscious level and deciding what things you only trust yourself to form an opinion on. One thing I think everyone ought to become their own opinion leaders of is ethics. This would do a serious blow to harmful and useless social norms. As far as other areas, I would say religion would be pretty huge. Being of a certain religious belief because you were raised a certain way seems like an extremely arbitrary way of deciding your foundational metaphysical beliefs. Other areas of importance are up to you, but it seems like the smartest thing to do would be to become your own opinion leader on as many topics as possible to research.
Which brings me to my final point. The entire need for opinion leaders is that we don't have time to do the necessary research to make an educated decision about everything. So, giving up opinion leaders must come at the price of doing research and thinking about the subjects you have decided to take belief-control of. I am not advocating that people just arbitrarily decide something for each subject and then tenaciously cling to it. Time and thought is necessary as well!
But it seems very worth the research to take back control of one's own opinions, doesn't it?

A Moral Question

To some extent, it seems we choose what we like. This isn't always the case, as we all have some guilty pleasures that we just can't resist indulging in once in a while.
However, it is true that our surroundings and ourselves greatly influence what we enjoy. I, for example, don't like any sports except hockey. And I think this has little to do with how I was at birth or that hockey and I were meant for each other or something like that. It is because I was raised in northern Wisconsin, where hockey is like little league, and I played it for 10 years. I associate fond memories of going to see the North Stars and winning hockey tournaments.
And in my adult life, we seem to have some control over what we like as well. I convinced myself to like coffee, for example, and to enjoy going to plays and music recitals. And its not really like I am lying to myself, because I actually do now enjoy those things, when there was a point when I consciously decided to enjoy them. Maybe it could be argued that the enjoyment was always there, but was only 'latent'. (Well shut the hell up, Freud.)
So what does this have to do with a moral question?
My question is, ought we, as much as is in our own power, decide to enjoy hobbies that are ethical? To some extent we do this, for example when you recycle and you get that warm feeling inside like you are 'making a difference'.
But I am talking about a more radical version of this--for example--let's say I am considering taking up a hobby, because I have some free time. Could someone be morally faulted (though probably very slightly) for taking up photography, which uses all kinds of toxic chemicals and is in some respects wasteful, over organic gardening?
Now if someone has a passion for photography, that is a little different--as I said, certain pleasures we cannot choose, and we can't feel bad about that. But I am talking about someone who is, as of now, neutral as to which hobby to choose. Is it even slightly obligatory for a person to consider ethical factors when choosing something like a hobby?
Truthfully, this is probably not a very relevant question, because very seldom is there an 'all things being equal' about pleasures. But I ask because it has come up in my life a couple times, and I didn't know if contemplating the minute ethical differences was really worth it.

Moral Holiday

Ok, so here is one we can all enjoy.

I am what I like to call a "moral prude". Maybe its because of my Catholic upbringing. Maybe I just overanalyze. Either way, I either a) Think a much greater percentage of decisions in life than other people are moral decisions (for example, buying things), or b) have values vastly different than 97% of people in society. This is not to say I am a better person than 97% of other people, or that my values are completely and utterly right (though I obviously think so, otherwise I would change them). I do things I consider to be immoral everyday. Constantly. I am no better of a person than anyone else I know, but I am just talking theoretically here. Many things I consider to be immoral are just a non-issue to other people, and it makes me feel like an asshole for even bringing them up.
Obviously, trying to live up to my own moral standards is implausible at best. And it is very stressful to go against the grain all the time, especially when 'the grain' is the very people you love the most.
But lately I have been trying harder to gradually shift to the lifestyle I think I should be living. I am going to try to start hardcore recycling again. I am trying to ensure that I don't buy anything that comes from sweatshop labor. Eventually, I want to buy food that doesn't support terrible things in other countries and near-slave labor. It is a slow and tough process, especially when one feels alone in the process.
Anyway, with all the stress that is building up I don't want to explode on friends and family, accusing them of not supporting me and surrounding my life with immoral behavior--because that would be the stress talking. But I also don't want to give up and just go along with social norms because its easier that way. I for the first time in my life am working with a normative ethical theory that I believe in. I don't want to throw it away because its inconvenient.
This is really all a preface to my real question: Is it ever justified to take a moral holiday? I realize that no matter what we can't always be moral, but is it ever moral to allow yourself to be immoral?
Let's say I quit eating fast food because it creates a large amount of unnecessary waste. Am I ever morally justified in eating at Hardee's because a group of my friends is going there and I am hungry? Wouldn't it be arrogant to just say "Oh, I don't support this place. I am waiting in the car." Or is it the same (though far less extreme) than waiting in the car at a whorehouse or something standardly thought of as morally worse?
I do not know of any philosophical literature on this, but I would be interested in reading some. But I am also curious to see what you have to say. What do you think?