Dissense

Quite frankly, Mr. Benavides’ presupposition that his ligneous acquisitions are inexorably redolent of an evil character stinks. This binary view would suggest that all objects of consumer desire are inherently good or bad, black or white. As tempting as this philosophy might be, even an armchair Aristotle could weave a million mother goose tales that would make a sieve of that argument. Every consumable object is an n-th derivative of a series of complex processes, many of which have some kernel of moral behavior at their core. What if the uneducated logger who mined the teak needed the money to pay for medicine for a sick child? Or if the under-served village where the lumber was collected sold its resource rights for the funds to build a primary school? Greasy just-so stories aside, this slope is a slippery gray at best, even under the brightest of lights.

The natural inclination, when faced by this head-scratcher of consumer ethics, is to invite the empiricism mentioned by many of my fellow contributors. The application of this basic economic analysis would probably tie the immorality of Indonesian teak to the question of its unlawful harvesting and ask the following questions: Taking into account all interested parties, is the deforestation of Indonesian forests a net negative? And furthermore, how precisely does the the second-hand purchase of cultural oddities modify the coefficient of incentivization for logging? And so on. Add them up, carry the one, and solve for a nice measure of guilt that can be neatly paid for via tzedakah.

But such a calculus of guilt is a rather uninteresting and unconvincing way for the protagonist to solve this specific morality play. Perhaps in an era long-gone, when all commerce was local and simple, such an accounting would yield an approximation of fruitful returns. But given the complexity of our globalized world, to condition the morality of consumer behavior on a tabernacle of empirical accounting deifies the false god of perfect information. The application of this economic lens therefore ultimately leads to an unsatisfying paralysis. No ethical and rational consumer could ever possess the perfect knowledge needed to accurately quantify the moral cost and benefit of any acquisition.  Furthermore, without perfect information, it’s fool’s quest to try and weigh the monetary offset necessary to balance a cosmic ledger, and it’s for this same reason  that Mr. Benavides’ and Mr. York’s rationale for a proposed atonement is no answer at all.

So if we abandon moral certitude, and if we likewise forsake the quest to find a recipe for the allocation of morality, one teaspoon at a time, then what is left? I find myself agreeing with the spirit of Mr. Goodwin’ and Mr. McArthur’s arguments. My complimentary answer to Mr. Benavides’ question is that we must abstract upwards along the moral decision tree. We should not get lost in the noise of an individual decision, but rather find clarity in a larger body of work. If Mr. Benavides cares about the preservation of Indonesian forests, than he should support the proper NGOs in an amount he is willing and able to provide, irrespective of his other decisions as a consumer. Tying this decision to his love of certain cephalic sculptures, whose questionable provenance may or may not be immoral, reeks of convenience and a broader guilt unassuaged.