Quarantine Bloglette: Motives

I've been continuing to watch the series of Harvard lectures on Justice by Michael Sandel. The most recent was on motives. (If you really want to understand what I'm about to attempt to explain, please listen to his lecture or read something from someone who knows this better than I do.) Emmanuel Kant posits that if someone does something moral for the wrong reasons, their motivation makes the act immoral.

In response to my last post, I was given a link to a New Yorker article by Zack Helfand about a courier, Lenin Cerόn, in New York City. The lengths this man goes to to protect his customers is rather extraordinary. He truly cares for the people he serves and realizes that he is greatly responsible for their well-being, since he could so easily spread the coronavirus with his touch. Some of the people he delivers food to are immunocompromised and would be in danger to leave their apartment. After every shift, he stands in a bucket of soapy water waiting inside his door, takes off everything and puts it in the bucket. He showers, disinfects everything he's come in contact with, then showers again the next day pre-shift. He puts thought into where he touches the bag of food he delivers: Not the handle, since that's where the customer will likely touch it.  He uses every opportunity to sanitize his hands. He goes to these lengths even for this low-paying job with its "skimpy tips.". His take-home one day: $70.71. Maybe that was just the tips, I'm not sure. He spent $50 of that on a box of gloves - from a dollar store.

While I don't quite disagree with anything I wrote in my last post, I see the heroism in this man's thoughts, motivations and actions. I see that heroism sometimes lies more deeply than the outward act. Just like we can't always see the disability of someone who needs that  parking spot for the disabled, we don't always see the altruism that is the base of even the most mundane acts. (Nor, I'll throw in just for fun, can we always see the selfishness at the base of great acts of servitude.)

It would be a shame if someone who became an oncologist for the money were to be more honored than someone like Mr. Cerόn, who goes to the selfless extremes he does for the safety of his clients. It wouldn't be wrong to honor the oncologist, it would be wrong to think that a courier doesn't deserve as much honor for something underlying. 

Or, maybe, just maybe, his outward actions deserve it on their own merit. Hmm. Now I'm really thinking.

I occasionally take risks in exposing myself in these posts. I'm going to do that now. I have tended to think, and sometimes still struggle with thinking, that people take jobs like hotel maids, porta-potty cleaners (what we affectionately referred to at the Renaissance Festival as privy-suckers) and trash collectors because they lack the education to or are incapable of doing anything else. Shame on me. What if some of those workers see a need that few are willing to fill, so they step up (or down, as it were) and get their hands dirty and do it themselves? I will say that my intention in my last post was to give unique honor to the health-care workers and researchers, not degrade the other workers. But I now see how that could come off as judgmental. The next time I hear someone calling a shop clerk a hero, instead of disagreeing, I'll nod and say, "They just might be."

I chose this painting to accompany this post, because it's simple lines and sparse color makes it pleasing. It reflects how actions don't have to be elaborate to reflect our inner character and beauty,