What do you think about the following passage? Do you agree or disagree with the sentiment expressed in the passage?
We do not like being told what to do. We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience.
People who disturb that equilibrium are uncomfortable, so moralists are often uninvited quests at the feast, and we
have a multitude of defenses against them. Analogously, some individuals can insulate themselves from a poor moral
environment, or profit from it. Just as some trees flourish by depriving others of their due. The Western white male may
flourish because of the inferior economic or social status of people who are not Western, or white, or male. Insofar as
we are like that, we will not want the lid to be lifted.
Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world's
resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the miserable labour conditions of the Third World. Sometimes,
defensively, we get angry that such things are brought up. But to be entrenched in a culture, rather than merely
belonging to the occasional rogue, exploitative attitudes will themselves need a story. So an ethical climate may allow
taking of 'their selfishness' and 'our rights' as a justification for anger at their high prices. Racists and sexists, like
antebellum slave owners in America, always have to tell themselves a story that justifies their system. An ethic gone
wrong is an essential preliminary to the sweat-shop or the concentration camp and the death march.