As a business owner, I sometimes take customers out to lunch. But as an ethical vegan, I don’t want to subsidize the cruel meat and dairy industries. People seem to take my veganism as an affront to their lifestyle. Is there a way that I can, without losing customers, let them know that I just can’t underwrite killing animals? Jayn Line, Cincinnati
First, let’s consider a practical matter. The person picking up the tab ordinarily gets to choose the place to eat. If there are vegan restaurants in your area, you can take your customers there. No risk of subsidizing industries you disapprove of.
Second, let’s consider the consequences of your lunch order. Your practice of eschewing animal products might have some impact on the number of animals that suffer, at least over the course of a lifetime, by reducing demand for those products. On the other hand, not paying for others to consume meat on a few occasions probably doesn’t have any such effect. That’s a rationale for letting it slide.
Third, though, let’s consider the nature of your commitments. You wonder that people take your veganism as “an affront to their lifestyle.” Shouldn’t they? Your guests would surely be right that you think they’re in the wrong: It’s what ethical veganism entails. Why aren’t you interested in defending your veganism? No doubt you’ll want to take into account the possibility that you’ll lose business. But ethical veganism isn’t a personal preference, and it isn’t confined to a concern for your personal virtue; it aims to reduce harm to animals, even to challenge the idea that animals can be treated as property. Making the case for your views can be a contribution to your cause by getting others to join it.
After I signed up with Ancestry.com, I discovered that I have a niece who was previously unknown to me. Extensive research established a few things: My oldest half brother is very likely her father, the product of an affair between him and her mother. The evidence also suggests that my half brother’s father — my mother’s first husband — isn’t his biological father. My mother must have had an extramarital affair.
My newly discovered niece is now middle-aged and married with children. She informed me that her mother married her childhood sweetheart after discovering that she was pregnant. They have been married for decades and have other children. My niece has decided not to tell her parents about my discovery. She is also ambivalent about reaching out to my half brother.
Just recently I learned that I have another relative through this half brother. Apparently, my half brother had another affair with a married woman when he was in his early 20s and she became pregnant and kept the baby. It was a girl. This girl herself had a baby boy out of wedlock and put him up for adoption. I have since learned that this son is married and has children. Through additional research we have discovered the names of his grandmother (the woman my half brother had the affair with) and his birth mother (my half brother’s daughter).
Here is my dilemma: Do I tell my half brother, who is in his 80s and does not have children, that he is a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather? This question is complicated by the fact that I have not spoken to him since the death of our mother years ago.
Some friends think I should remain silent as I would not only be telling him about these children but also that my father was not his biological father (he adopted him). I do not believe that he was close to the man he thought was his biological father, but learning that he is a result of his mother’s extramarital affair could be very unsettling. Other friends think I should tell him so he would know there are several people alive today because of him.
If I share this information with him, what would be the best approach? Should I ask if he would like to know, or just go ahead and tell him? Or is this a better question for my therapist? Marlene, Santa Fe, N.M.
A dilemma, strictly speaking, involves two options. You have more than two. You could, for example, tell your half brother about his descendants without telling him about his paternity, and so drawing attention to what someone of his generation might regard as a troubling indiscretion on his mother’s part. But, as an ethical matter, people are generally entitled to know important truths about their lives. And the usual bar to passing on information — that you gained it in confidence — doesn’t appear to apply here.
As you say, he may find it disturbing that the man he thought was his biological father was not. And the existence of these heretofore undisclosed descendants may prove upsetting, too. Given that your relationship with your half brother is obviously strained, working out how best to tell him is going to be challenging. There’s no easy out here. I doubt your therapist, who doesn’t know your half brother, would be much help with this; you’re in a better position to have a view. Nor can you ask your half brother whether he’d like to be told something without indicating what sort of information is on offer. Even though you haven’t been in touch in a long while, this is an important enough matter to break the silence: You can decide, in view of your relationship, whether it will be kinder to bring this up with him in person, by telephone or in writing.
I’d suggest you tell him, first, that you have come across information through Ancestry.com about relatives he may not know he has, and that you can provide him with names and contact information if he’s interested. It’ll be up to him whether he chooses to make contact, and up to them whether they are interested in responding.
Among the likely outcomes, the best — that he is delighted by the discovery that he has descendants he didn’t know about — is worth the risk of the worst: that he is upset by what he learns about his progeny and his ancestry. Either way, he will be in possession of a significant new set of facts about his life. One thing you both should bear in mind: There’s nothing remotely unusual in having a family tree that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a twisted vine.
During the long illness that preceded her death, my mom and I frequently spoke of spiritual matters. Her lifelong Christian faith, the born-again variety, was the center point of her life and my entire upbringing. Because of her devotion, I can still quote verses from the Bible. During her final months, my mom took great comfort from talking about God’s love, His perfect plan for each life, Heaven, faith and so on.
I am now an atheist, but it didn’t seem imperative to share this with my 98-year-old terminally ill parent who devoted her life to Christianity. So throughout her final year, I continued to use the language my mother taught me. I never lied or made false promises, but merely quoted Scripture and church dogma to participate in conversations.
Now that she’s passed, this fluency continues to be useful, mainly with other Christian older women. Being an atheist has freed me from stultifying beliefs and from evangelizing others. Is it unethical to speak to people using language they believe has spiritual significance even though I no longer believe? Name Withheld
I’ve just argued that certain ethical commitments may come with an obligation to evangelize, and that being in touch with important truths has value in itself. One might conclude, therefore, that your use of religious language — or even your failure to correct what you consider an error — deprives these older women of something significant while misleading them about your own beliefs, which is also a bad thing.
Yet there are other considerations here. Nothing you say is at all likely to change their minds. Instead, distancing yourself from their beliefs may make them feel uncomfortable talking to you, which will be a loss for both of you. And finally, the consolations of religious faith, especially as death approaches, can be enormously important for believers. I had many of the same conversations with my mother as she approached death: It would have been cruel and self-righteous to insist on arguing with her that death, far from being an entry to a new life, is, as Catullus put it, “a perpetual night for sleeping.”
