Rights to Know Others (pt. 1?)

This blog post will be the first in a (non-sequential) series where I work out some of my views about what rights to know others might look like. Perhaps these posts will become a paper, or a series of papers, or nothing at all.

I believe that other people have rights to know certain things about me. I also believe that I have rights to know certain things about other people. These rights, I think, correspond with morally salient features of my relationships with particular people. That is to say, I do not think I have the same “rights to know” about my best friend of a decade that I do about a casual sexual encounter. Nonetheless, I believe I have rights to know something about both of these people. I don’t believe that these rights authorize me or others to use force to extort information from people, at least not always. But I do think that I can wrong another by withholding information about myself from them, and I do think they can wrong me by withholding information about themselves from me.

One case in which it is wrong to withhold information about myself from another occurred to me while I was writing a letter of recommendation for someone. At first, I struggled to write the recommendation because we seldom take the time to just sit and admire the things that other people do. When people do admire what others do, they tend to admire the actions of those whom they are in love with, emotionally close to, or look up to. But rarely do we take time to admire people that we work with professionally. And if we admire them, few would deign commit the faux pas of expressing that admiration to them.

Once I started thinking about what was admirable about the person for whom I wrote a letter, I realized there is a lot. They are a hard worker. They are unafraid of demanding time commitments. They are forthright and sincere. And so on. I wrote what I took to be an impressive, heartfelt recommendation that really underscored their strengths. After submitting the letter of recommendation, it dawned on me that the person whom I spent hours lauding on paper would never themselves read my words. Unless I tell them myself, they probably will never know that I think so highly of them.

The two claims I want to defend here are that (1) it is often praiseworthy to disclose information about how we admire the actions and habits of those with whom we work, and (2) it is sometimes wrongful to withhold information about how we admire the actions and habits of those with whom we work.

The Praiseworthiness of Professional Compliments

Suppose that you walking down the street and happen upon a homeless man. He does not talk to you, but he looks hungry. You suspect that buying him a sandwich will help him get through the day a little easier, so you do. Many will say that what you do for the homeless man is supererogatory––that you go above and beyond the call of duty by buying him a sandwich. It is the kind of thing that people can stand to do more of, even if they are not required to. Doing kind things, like buying a sandwich for a homeless man, is praiseworthy.

Now, suppose that you are walking around your office and happen upon your coworker. She is visibly stressed trying to meet a deadline. You suspect that telling her that you sincerely admire how she is able to work so well under pressure will help her get through the day a little easier, so you do. I see no reason to think that you do something praiseworthy in the case of the homeless man, but not in the case of your coworker.

It is important to stress here that I am not defending the praiseworthiness of empty or ingratiating compliments. I am defending the praiseworthiness of sincerely disclosing information about how you regard people you work with professionally.

The Wrongfulness of Failing to Compliment Co-Professionals

There are two cases I have in mind for the wrongfulness of failing to disclose admiration for those who are situated in professional relationships with us. The first regards information disclosure as an instance of easy rescue. Let me explain. Imagine you are walking past a shallow pond and a small child is drowning in it. It would come at little cost for you to jump in and save the child. Are you morally obligated to save the child? If you answer in the affirmative, then you believe you have a duty to perform an easy rescue. Seeing as how many would answer in the affirmative, it is worth exploring what the corollary of this argument would be in the case of workplace compliments.

There are certainly cases in which hearing words of affirmation from coworkers could make a huge difference in the life of a professional. Those words could be the difference between handling a situation with poise, and having a breakdown at the office. Provided that (a) you sense that a coworker is proverbially drowning in her responsibilities, (b) it comes at little cost to you to disclose information about how you believe in and admire her, and (c) you have reason to believe that by doing so, she will be able to ground herself…Then, it follows that you are obligated and not just encouraged to disclose that information about yourself.

Someone may be inclined to argue that my reasoning lends itself not only to the claim that I should give genuine compliments to my coworkers when they are struggling, but that I should lie to them when they are struggling, too. By doing this, however, I would violate my coworker’s right not to be lied to. Perhaps, also, there is some right they have to know what you actually feel like about them. If this is true, then you would be violating yet another right your coworker has. I am inclined to think, then, that the easy rescue rationale for the wrongfulness of admiration disclosure is successful.

Here is another case in which I think it would be wrong to withhold information about your admiration for a professional relationship. Stella is a broadway actress, and James is Stella’s director. Stella decides to try out screen acting, so she tells James that she will no longer be working with him. James is a class act and supports Stella in her professional endeavors. In fact, it is on James’s recommendation that Stella is able to get her acting job. Stella, however, never finds out what it is that James told her new employer.

I am inclined to think that James has wronged Stella. For one, James owes it to Stella as someone who has a stake in the cultivation of her talents to tell her what he believes her strengths are. A professor owes it to his students to tell them that they got answers on an assignment right, and so too does it seem that James owes it to Stella to tell her what she has gotten right in her career. Second, Stella stands to benefit from being told what her strengths are, so she can continue to play to them over the course of her career. Depriving an individual of something they stand to benefit from calls out for justification, and “I’m not very sentimental” or “I didn’t feel like it” do not cut it as justifications. Third, a vulnerable exchange between James and Stella introduces an egalitarian component to an otherwise hierarchical professional relationship, which serves to underscore the fundamental equality of persons. And lastly, such an exchange would increase trust between James and Stella, which is likely valuable to both parties.

I hope to have shown why it is important to the disclose information we have to others about our admiration for them, particularly in professional contexts. It is mostly encouraged but sometimes required of us. But one thing is for sure: We do not express our admiration for others in a work context nearly as much as we ought to. We each have the power to change that now.