Is it ethical to be friends with a bad person?

Question

I am sorry if this is too broad of a question/a not so common or a more particular, personal problem than I think it is.

It just happened to me, but it is not the first time. In the past, there have been occurrences when I've faced the decision on whether or not to keep talking/interacting with someone after I learned something I didn't expect about them.

For example, a radical ideology I feel affects very negatively to others, but not me, or, in this recent instance, someone who doesn't care how their actions affect people they do are not close with. Even if those actions can cause serious harm, at a personal/emotional/professional level.

Now, I'm not some kind of moral authority, but I wonder, from a ethical point of view, how to react to this situation. If I break down my options, I would sum them like:

1. I can ignore the situation and pretend everything is alright, since it does not affect me, and I have a positive relationship with this person!
2. I can try and argue and fight to "teach" someone who I am not in charge of to do better. This can have a positive impact, if I were to be right in the first place, and if I could somehow make the person see things in a different light. But it is not my duty and it can cost me a good friendship.
3. I can cut ties with this person, because not doing so would be the same as condoning this behaviour.

So, this leads me to think. What are different approaches in literature? As I mentioned I feel close to what little I know about utilitarianism, but I bet there are dozens of possible ways to look at this type of problem. Of course there are no hard and fast rules, but I would love to know and to learn of different approaches to this problem from a philosofycal point of view.

Like, what if the person is an actively racist person? Or someone who mistreats women, or who despises some certaing group?

Is it ethical to have a different approach to this problem, one in the case it affects you, and one in the case it doesn't?

Answer 1

It is not only a moral obligation but also an obligation to yourself to let your opinion be clear to the subject. This is the aspect of philosophy that reflects on your character because the subject in hand is not about moral dogmatism of wether people of bad nature shall be shut off. There is no rule of conduct here because his racism is not an absolute. Not saying he is in the right or his conduct can be justified if he spreads racial slander and opinions all over the place because that specific kind of conduct is in its core wrong and its wrongness is not something that has to be discussed due to its obvious false nature. But I imagine shutting him off or cutting him off wont be a kind of conduct that would encourage a shift in his opinions because people who believe in wrongness have in most cases done so most of their lives and wont be changing any time soon.

If you are his friend by any sense of the definition of friend then correcting him in his ways is your own moral obligation since there is no sense in morality if it is not spread or heard or only kept to feed the ego with the sense of superiority it brings.

If he dismisses your own ideas or sense of morality it brings the question of whether your own moral ideas are polished enough to convince hence returning the question yet again to your character. I believe philosophy is a tool for self improvement and reflection where there is no room for rules of conduct in certain situations but only theoretical guidelines on how to decide.

How you will decide is therefore not an answer I can bring because I do not know the fellow and deeming one racist is an oversimplification that in itself brings the morality of the question itself in question since there is no room for stigmatizing in morality. But giving it a shot is the least anyone can do and if you believe that discursive dialogue wont correct his conduct but that breaking contact may then you can just do that, but in most cases that is never the case.

Answer 2

NOTE: It is hard to answer an ethical question without specific reference to a specific ethical system, since different people often have different intuitions. Since no system of ethics is specified here, I am choosing to answer from a Christian New Testament ethical standpoint --this is an influential ethical system around the world, even for those who don't share its religious foundation.

The New Testament provides several different, and sometimes difficult to resolve, explicit and implicit answers to this very question. 1) Jesus preaches non-judgement of others. 2) Jesus reaches out directly and deliberately to those considered the worst of "sinners" by his society. 3) Jesus condemns the hypocritical and unethical actions of some of the people considered pillars of society. 4) Paul encourages people with non Christian spouses to maintain their marriage, giving the possibility of future conversion as one potential outcome. 5) Paul instructs Christians to condemn and distance themselves from people who call themselves Christians but keep on sinning.

So what is the Christian answer? To condemn or to not judge? To maintain the connection or sever it? My own interpretation of the Christian stance is that you should maintain a friendship with someone whose morality you disagree with, if, and only if, you are honest about your moral beliefs, and try to model better ones for your friend, and if you are not morally compromised or made complicit by your association. In other words, if you can't maintain the friendship without feeling morally compromised, you need to end it; and if you stay in it, you have a responsibility to explicitly model and advocate a better way. In neither case, however, are you justified in assuming yourself better than your friend --there may well be a "log in your eye" you aren't seeing.

Answer 3

There's a saying

People are not bad, it's the work that is bad. You just have to separate these two.

I want to answer this with my personal experience. I once had a friend who as your question says, didn't thought of the results his actions brought.

But when I came to know him more, I understood that, this was the way he was treated and he was brought up, so he only knows this way.

We cannot justify his works, but a person who have seen only black and white from the birth will only consider those two colours are present in the world.

And as a friend, it was my duty to show him how to behave and change for better. I cannot say I completely changed him, but there was significant change which everyone noticed about him.

I then understood the saying which I quoted above, you just have to separate.

Answer 4

Let us set up, for the purpose of answering your question, a hunter/prey model. And we will call your friend a hunter, and all the world his prey. This is just a model, but it may be useful to us, or not. You know this person, we don't.

A hunter is out for information about his prey, he may not even realize that he does this, it just comes naturally to him. Therefore, beginning today, you should adopt a more circumspect attitude towards this person. He may already know a lot about you and there is nothing you can do about that, but going forward I would suggest that you firm up your boundaries, and raise your force fields at least to medium high as you decide what to do about this situation.

Now, looking at your options, Option 1 is clearly out under our hunter/prey model. You cannot have a relaxed friendship with this person. It won't work. You are his prey too, you just don't know it yet. One day he will go in for the "kill", and you will be the victim.

Option 2, how does an animal survive if it is in closer proximity to the hunter? It never really relaxes for one thing, and it tries to hide information about its whereabouts (through camouflage it was born with, etc., hide where it sleeps, etc.). As for your friend, there is no teaching by words that will work for you with this person. You teach this person by "teaching" him, with your actions, to respect your boundaries, and by being careful what information you share with him. So a form of "friendship", might be available to you under Option 2, if you remained consistently on guard, but it is risky.

Option 3 will probably be the best solution for you. Normally, I would try to ease myself out of such a friendship, but there are many factors here that you know better than we do.

So I leave you to choose between 2 and 3, it's up to you. I suspect 3 might be better, but obviously I don't know all the facts.

Do you need religion to be ethical?? No. I don't think so. If there is no God it just means a group of men of the period (these societies were almost entirely paternalistic) made up things like the Ten Commandments, usually based upon their long experience.

I see no problem with using such things as a guide, even though they may not be "god given". I think most of us agree that things like lying and murder are wrong, though we can all come up with valid exceptions to these rules (E.g. Killing in true self defense is a defense to a charge of murder). Take what you can out of religions without being excessively dogmatic and rigid about it, that would be my advice. They are probably entirely manmade, but they do undoubtedly contain some time-tested wisdom.

Most of the ethical training we get is from our parents, and though it may amount to a confused muddle, such training is generally what sticks with us, for good or bad.

What does philosophy offer in the way of ethics? A lot of books for philosophers to read and argue about. To send you to such a pile of books and articles when you have a question today, right now, I don't think that does any good. So I am putting forward the hunter/prey model for you. It may work for you in this situation or not. You can decide if you want to use this model.

Please note this model is based on the assumption that your friend's bad behavior will not stay confined to others, and that it is only a matter of time before it is directed towards you also.