Deception of Success
Philosophy's theories of Egoism both ethical and psychological have been used to sometimes define the actions and the thoughts of humans. Ethical egoism states that human should/ought to be selfish in their thoughts and actions in order to fulfill their desire to be happy. Psychological egoism is a little different and states that our behaviors are to fulfill our personal desires. Does that seems to be such a bad thing? Doesn't everyone want to be happy and fulfilled? This week example maybe the negative aspect of ethical egoism, where the acts to deceive others greatly profited another.
Australian blogger, Belle Gibson, has a successful business that started from giving health tips and recipes online for a healthier lifestyle. She has published a book with recipes and also a smart phone app for the mobile users. Ms. Gibson is fairly adamant above refraining from consuming gluten, coffee and dairy products. Her rise to success was based on her battle of terminal cancer. Everything seem to be legitimate until she was asked to show some evidence of her illness and she never make a significant donation she had promised. Ms. Gibson finally admits to being untruthful about her illness and stated that she was not sorry about it. In addition, she made statement like, "I don't want forgiveness," coming clean was "the responsible thing to do" or "Above anything, I would like people to say, 'Okay, she's human.'" (n.d, 2015) Are her actions immoral and deceiving? Or is she just living life? I would let you decide, her statements show that she just sees it as harmless and that she is only human.
Australian health blogger admits faking terminal cancer. (2015, April 23). Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-32420070
I think someone faking having cancer is absolutely despicable. She doesn't seem to understand that her actions have destroyed any trust she may have had with people that followed and believed in her. I don't even think an apology would help at this point, since her actions are so reprehensible.
ReplyDeleteEric, I agree.. The troubling thing to me is it seems that she doesn't even see anything wrong with what she did.
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