Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column that gives you a new framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas and philosophical questions. This unconventional column is based on value pluralism – the idea that we each have multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. Here’s a Vox reader question, edited for brevity and clarity.
My grandmother had a teenage pregnancy that she hid from her family before giving birth and gave the baby up for adoption immediately after birth. I discovered this by accident after receiving a message on the Ancestry DNA website from someone closely related to me genetically. He told me he knew almost nothing about his birth parents and was just desperate for an answer. I accidentally revealed this secret to my mother and grandmother who knew who this person was who sent me the message.
My grandmother was horrified, and wanted nothing to do with him. How do I respect my grandmother’s choices that she had to make at that time in her life and keep her peace, while acknowledging that this person should at least be able to know who made her and who the prominent family medical history is? I feel guilty for accidentally revealing this secret but now I feel an obligation to protect my grandmother. And Offer this person peace of mind.
Dear Caught-in-the-Middle,
Your question reminded me of an idea by Bernard Williams, one of my favorite modern philosophers. He said that when one is faced with an ethical trade-off, whatever is considered, the best decision can be made and – even if it was the right call – it is still a priceless outcome that deserves recognition or regret. Williams calls that cost “Ethical residue.”
Regret is an emotional trick. We are used to seeing it as an indication that we have done something wrong. But as Williams explains, sometimes it means that reality forces us to make an incredibly difficult choice between two options, with no cost-free option available.
Your grandmother is not wrong for giving up on her child all those years ago – or for wanting to keep her distance now. As you said, it was the choice she “felt she had to make at that point in her life.” Pregnancy out of wedlock, especially in her generation, often brought a huge serving of shame, and the fact that she felt the need to hide it from her family and give birth in secret suggests that it was quite a traumatic experience.
It’s understandable if she’s afraid to reopen that trauma now. He has the right to decide if and how it is processed – a right of self-determination
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At the same time, his eldest child is not wrong to ask for answers today. The frustration felt by this new relative of yours is the “moral residue” of your grandmother’s decision.
As technology changes over generations, so do moral standards. When your grandmother gave the baby up for adoption, she had no idea that DNA testing would become commonplace – but it has. And inexpensive testing kits like 23andMe have popped up All kinds of family secretsMore children who were kept in the dark are sharing their experiences.
Some have never been bothered by their obscure origins, but discover an extra measure of joy and connection after they meet long-lost relatives. Others say they always suffered from an uneasy feeling They are different from their siblings. Still others say that knowing your biological family’s medical history is important, especially with the advent of precision medicine.
All this has led to a growing belief that children have a right to know where they come from — a right to self-knowledge.
Take it from its author, Dani Shapiro legacywho found out as an adult that his beloved father was not his biological father. he writes:
The secret that had been kept from me for 54 years had practical implications that were both shocking and dangerous: I had been giving wrong medical histories to doctors all my life. It’s one thing to be aware of a lack of knowledge – as many adopters do – but another to not fully know what you don’t know. When my son was a baby, he was diagnosed with a rare and often fatal seizure disorder. It was likely genetic. I confidently told her pediatric neurologist that there was no family history of seizures.
Some bioethicists, such as Duke University’s Neeta Farahani, are also making this case. Following the famous declaration of ancient Greece – “Know thyself!” –Farhani argued The public has a right to self-knowledge, where it comes to medical information. He writes that “access to that essential information about ourselves is central to self-reflection and self-knowledge in order to develop our own personality.” It helps us shape our own lives and empowers us to make choices about our future.
This means that self-knowledge is actually a subset of self-determination—exactly the same value your grandmother is claiming. And it seems only fair for us to admit that if your grandmother has it, so does her child.
If both people have a right to self-determination and their rights conflict with each other, then … well … what do you do?
Even John Stuart Mill, the 19th century English philosopher who literally Wrote books on freedomDidn’t think anyone had a right to freedom or self-determination absolute Instead of rights, it is a qualified Rights — the kind we normally respect but can be restricted to protect the interests of others.
So it seems appropriate here to strike a balance between your grandmother’s wishes and her child’s. There are a few different ways to do this, but here’s one: You can reassure your grandmother that you won’t pressure her to talk to the child or hear more about him, but that you will give the child family medical information and a general background. Understanding his birth story, the aspect that may seem most important to him: why he was given up for adoption.
Without mentioning your grandmother’s name or any details that would make it easy for an adult child to track her down, you can say something like, “Your birth mother is one of my relatives. She got pregnant as a teenager and had the means or support to care for you.” No. She made the difficult choice to give you up for adoption in the hope that you would have a better life than her. Let this message bring you at least some peace.”
In the end, you won’t have complete control over what your relative does with this information, because Internet sleuthing is a power to be reckoned with. And you can’t control whether he’s completely satisfied with what you tell him. This is a characteristic of this type of moral dilemma: You can’t please everyone 100 percent, but you’re doing what you can to respect the values at stake.
If you want, you can visit the adult child without involving your grandmother. Or you may decide that your sense of belonging isn’t rooted in biology and you don’t feel a particular need to bond with someone new to you.
Either way, what I love about Williams’ “Moral Remainder” is that it encourages you to look at these complicated situations (including yourself!) with compassion. Whatever specific steps you take next, you can move forward from that place of compassion.
Bonus: What I’m Reading
- 23andMe is floundering, with the company’s CEO now considering selling it. As Kristen V. Brown Note In The Atlantic, that would mean “the DNA of 15 million of 23andMe’s customers would also be sold.” It’s one of the many reasons why I wouldn’t spit into one of those test tubes.
- I recently re-read philosopher Susan Wolf’s 1982 essay “moral saint” And it feels more on-point than ever. Woolf argues that you shouldn’t actually try to be “a person whose every act is as morally good as possible” – and not just because those people are incredibly boring!
- David Brooks is not my usual cup of tea, but I admire him writing How in the New York Times, contrary to popular opinion, “emotion is central to being an effective rational person in the world.”
