The Ethics of Flakiness
How stringing someone along prolongs their suffering.
Our Lives Consist of Pure Luck
The late moral philosopher Derek Parfit in his last book On What Matters talks a fair bit about luck. Luck isn’t just a constituent element of our lives, but it is also a consistent element of ethics.
What matters to us, fundamentally, is a matter of luck. The way we act in the world and the way the world reacts to how we act, are both matters of luck.
You can't help but be the way you are, and the world can’t help but react the way it reacts. There is far less in the way of freedom in the world and in its ethical domain than traditional modes of thought would like to say there is.
The people we meet are no exception to this rule of luck. Whoever we end up encountering out in the world is a matter of sheer luck. When these people end up being our friends, acquaintances, and lovers, that is good luck. Even when these people end up being a small positive interaction, that is good luck. We have all encountered what bad luck looks like.
Sometimes, We’re Just Not Feeling It.
Thankfully, such bad luck often doesn't amount to much. We are swift to shut it out of our lives and move on, hoping more…