Value Neutrality

Workplace violence. In this case one of my coworkers has been slugging another one of my coworkers. The very definition of a hostile and intimidating work environment. Bad. Wrong. Illegal. I had reported this misbehavior to my supervisor some time ago and hoped that my complaint would result in a cessation of hostilities. No such luck. I then reported the problem to a manager a little higher up the chain of command. The first words out of his mouth were: "I take this very seriously". At first I thought that the statement was appropriate but something was nagging at me. I later realized that the statement was value neutral. The manager had failed to say something like: "That's terrible!", "That's horrible!", "That's wrong!". The manager's neutrality about this obviously unethical behavior is troubling and its troubling because its common and its common because of the influence of American counter-culture. American counter-culture is dominated by the psychologistic musings of people like Hegel and Kant who erroneously declare reality to be unknowable and ethics to be parochial and impossible. The antidote to this counter-culture venom is to complain. The next time some says "I take this very seriously" I should accurately claim that they are being value neutral and insist that they take an ethical stand. You're welcome.