Is It Wrong to Do a Half-Assed Job? (Part 2)

A few days ago, I asked, “Is It Wrong To Do a Half-Assed Job?” I concluded that “if you have the enormous privilege of being a professional writer… you also have the obligation to actually write original material,” and founded this conclusion on the fact that you’re crowding out other writers if you sign a book deal. Wasting an opportunity that someone else would not have wasted is wrong.

There’s a lot that I didn’t pin down in here – what does it mean to “waste” an opportunity? Is it alright to put in a lower amount of effort if you know that your competitors, even at full effort, still wouldn’t produce something as good as you did? What if you’re not crowding anyone else out with your work – do you still have an obligation to put in full effort then?

I’ve been thinking about this whole idea more because, as you might know from reading the “About” page of this blog or the first post, I am a PhD student at Harvard who is considering leaving without my PhD. If I’m going to condemn Kroese for doing a shit job that someone else might’ve done better, then I could just as easily condemn myself. There was almost certainly someone I displaced by taking this slot in the PhD program – am I thus obligated to finish my PhD?

My guess is that this relates back to another question that I’ve been bouncing around for a while. (Warning, spoilers ahead for “Saving Private Ryan.”)

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At the end of “Saving Private Ryan,” as Tom Hanks’ character, Captain Miller, is dying, he tells Private Ryan to “earn this.” When I was watching this film for the first time a few years ago, I was immediately irritated with Captain Miller’s injunction. It seemed to me like the character of Private Ryan was already set up to be sensitive enough to the sacrifices people were making for him. Would the additional weight of a dying man’s orders make his life any better?

I guess it just seems to me that, if you’re going to save someone, you’d probably prefer that they live their best possible life. And I think telling someone that they have an obligation to do more with their life because people sacrificed for them is counterproductive to that end. Even the movie suggests that this order weighed heavily on Ryan: when he’s an old man, he asks his wife to tell him that he’s led a good life and that he is a good man.

In any case, for me it raised the question: what do we owe to the dead? What promises to the dead are we required to keep? (Thankfully, I’m not the only one who was bothered by this – this article in the Atlantic by John Biguenet has a pretty similar reaction.)

This idea of obligation is further complicated by the fact that Captain Miller’s health is failing – he has a tremor throughout the movie. We can’t be sure that he would’ve made it home to his wife even if he hadn’t been sent to rescue Private Ryan. If he was going to die either way, is Private Ryan still obligated by his death?

(Do Ryan’s grandchildren owe something to Captain Miller, for their lives?)

This series of questions is the most extreme version of “is it wrong to do a half-assed job?” I don’t have an answer to it yet, but my feeling is that:

1. There’s some kind of statute of limitations on obligation that’s proportional to the size of the sacrifice and the certainty that the sacrifice could’ve been avoided – if someone gives me half of their lunch, I’m obligated to them for a much shorter period of time than I would be if they sacrificed their life. If I knew that that half of their lunch would’ve been wasted if I didn’t eat it, I have an even shorter obligation.
2. You probably aren’t obligated to put your best effort into exactly what was sacrificed – you aren’t required to “have the best life” because someone sacrificed their life or to really savor a meal that someone else gave you or to write your best book because you’ve taken someone else’s spot.
3. You probably are required to put that obligated effort in somewhere – if you aren’t going to enjoy the meal you’ve been given, then you’d better take the energy from that meal and do something useful with it. If you aren’t going to have a “good life,” maybe you’re required to help someone else have a good life?

So, in the case of Kroese, maybe it is alright that he copy-and-pasted those three pages, as long as he spent the time he saved well. Maybe it is alright if I leave without a PhD, as long as I leave to do something meaningful?