> I'm a firm believer in the principle that ethical decisions where good
> people disagree belong to the individuals who live with the consequences.
It's sort of an abstract philosophical question, but for what it's
worth, it seems to me that the people who have to live with the
consequences are probably the very last people who should be making
decisions.
So, to use a concrete example, if I have an off-wiki dispute with an
individual or website-- they are strongly criticized, attacked, or
(noncriminally) harassed me in some way-- I'm now probably the last
person on the entire project who ought to be making decisions about
that individual/website's articles. Nothing to do with my character,
my judgment, or my faith-- I just am now personally involved, and
should stay away from those articles-- if only to avoid even the
appearance of impropriety.
******
That example misapplies the principle. Wikipedia's rules and guidelines
exist because the website serves the public. Per WP:NOT, the site's
articles are not a soapbox or a venue for airing personal grievances. The
only exception I recognize in that realm is WP:BLP: within reason, Wikipedia
should accommodate courtesy deletion requests from the subjects of these
articles.
That was the principle I used to get rid of Daniel Brandt's biography. Of
course, if your argument is persuasive enough, you may change my mind and I
could open a discussion to have it unsalted.
******
And actually, this principle extends beyond personal disputes, but to
any subject we're "too" passionate about. I know I have, in the back
of my own mind, a set of articles I will never ever edit, because I'm
just a little too close to them. I don't have an recognizable COI,
but I care a little too much, and that work is best left to someone
who doesn't care as much as I do. Passion is the enemy of precision.
******
I very much agree with you on there, and exercise a similar restraint
myself, but I don't see how you construe it as at odds with this principle.
******
I don't know that you're actually disagreeing with any of that, of
course. It's just when you say "Let the person who has to live with
the consequences make the tough calls", I say "No! Let absolutely
anybody BUT the person who's gonna have to live with the consequences
make tough calls-- the calls are tough enough as is, without being
blinded by personal interests or emotions".
******
To put this another way I'll offer a concrete example. While my father had
a brain tumor I was his primary caregiver and I was quite active in the
caregiver community during that time. A young woman joined our mailing
list. Her husband was about 30 years old and had just been diagnosed with
glioblastoma multiforme. Since my father had the same thing I knew the
statistics by heart: no cure, no five year survival rate. 50% of patients
live 12 months. 10% reach the two year anniversary. 2% last three years.
After that they stop keeping statistics. This couple was childless.
Under a normal therapeudic schedule her husband's radiation treatment would
start about three weeks after his brain surgery. He was coherent and
competent - able to make decisions - and they wanted to discuss the
possibility of freezing some of his sperm. The best time to do that would
be before radiation. Yet when they raised the topic with his doctor the
physician called it unethical and refused to discuss it.
This woman wasn't absolutely certain she wanted to bear her husband's child
through artificial insemination, but she wasn't very pleased about the way
that doctor handled the issue. She and her husband wanted to make an
informed decision. If they decided to go through with the idea, she was the
one who would bear the child and raise it.
As for myself, I wouldn't make that choice. Caring for a terminally ill
patient is incredibly hard. I'd have serious misgivings about bringing a
child into the world that had almost no chance of knowing its own father. I
shared that perspective with her.
But ultimately I went on with my life, the doctor went on with his life, and
this woman lived with the consequences. The decision belonged to her.
-Durova