Affirm "green" values
by Eitan Cooper
Editorial Assistant
Columnists | 4/27/10
Posted online at 3:18 AM EST on 4/27/10
Imagine you've been granted your own private viewing of the Rose Art Museum collection. As you embark on your tour of some of the art world's greatest creations, you feel around in your pocket and you realize that you are carrying a Sharpie marker. Feeling incredibly rebellious, you decide that when your tour guide is not looking, you will draw a tiny black dot on the biggest painting you see. You are confident that there is no way you will get caught. Your minor vandalism does not detract from the overall quality of the art piece.
I think it's fairly obvious that most people in their right minds would never think it appropriate to draw tiny black dots on paintings, even if they have something against the Rose. Most people would refuse to vandalize a painting because we all have a moral conscience. Our sense of right and wrong tells us that even adding the most insignificant blemish to a painting is morally reprehensible. This may be called the absolutist perspective; that is to say, certain actions are absolutely wrong, no matter how minimal their consequences.
However, when this moral lesson is applied to our lovely planet, the message seems lost.
This past week, the University celebrated the earth and did its part to help the environment. There was a plethora of activities on campus, including a "Green Labs Fair" and a "Heller School Arbor Day," both geared toward the same message: Green is good.
In Sherman Dining Hall, there was even a delicious green Earth Day cake (it was the last act of a week-long celebration that featured a different environmentally-friendly message every day). Everyone was happy to pig out, including myself.
But the mood was quite different in Sherman Dining Hall on the second day of our weeklong earth celebration. This is because the managers in Sherman had the creative idea of dimming the lights for the entire day.
Most people I spoke to were pretty perturbed. This definitely was a dimmer on the celebration (pun intended). And, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I was slightly annoyed, too. The general feeling that I got from most people was that turning off the lights simply made no difference in our campaign for the environment. Many people-including myself-operate under the logical assumption that the Earth's outlook cannot be affected by the actions of one person. If I left my lights on all day, every day, the damage to the environment would be minimal. This may be called the consequentialist perspective-that is to say, an action is considered ethical based on what its results will be.
I think it's fairly obvious that most people in their right minds would never think it appropriate to draw tiny black dots on paintings, even if they have something against the Rose. Most people would refuse to vandalize a painting because we all have a moral conscience. Our sense of right and wrong tells us that even adding the most insignificant blemish to a painting is morally reprehensible. This may be called the absolutist perspective; that is to say, certain actions are absolutely wrong, no matter how minimal their consequences.
However, when this moral lesson is applied to our lovely planet, the message seems lost.
This past week, the University celebrated the earth and did its part to help the environment. There was a plethora of activities on campus, including a "Green Labs Fair" and a "Heller School Arbor Day," both geared toward the same message: Green is good.
In Sherman Dining Hall, there was even a delicious green Earth Day cake (it was the last act of a week-long celebration that featured a different environmentally-friendly message every day). Everyone was happy to pig out, including myself.
But the mood was quite different in Sherman Dining Hall on the second day of our weeklong earth celebration. This is because the managers in Sherman had the creative idea of dimming the lights for the entire day.
Most people I spoke to were pretty perturbed. This definitely was a dimmer on the celebration (pun intended). And, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I was slightly annoyed, too. The general feeling that I got from most people was that turning off the lights simply made no difference in our campaign for the environment. Many people-including myself-operate under the logical assumption that the Earth's outlook cannot be affected by the actions of one person. If I left my lights on all day, every day, the damage to the environment would be minimal. This may be called the consequentialist perspective-that is to say, an action is considered ethical based on what its results will be.
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