A Wife's Bunny Barter

 

Dear Moira Lee,

             I think my wife might be a monster. 

In our previous neighborhood, my wife and I were good friends with our neighbors, who I’ll call Tim and Amy Fredericks. Classic suburbia friendship; kids grew up playing together in the front yard, wife hosted cookouts with Amy, I golfed with Tim on the weekends. A few years back, Tim and Amy mentioned to us that they were looking to add a pet to the family. Nothing as high maintenance as a dog, but something to keep them entertained with the kids away at college. Amy had a penchant for small critters, and it just so happened that another family a few houses from us was selling baby bunnies at the time. My wife and I walked Tim and Amy over to see them- needless to say, Amy fell in love. She bought a bunny, but not before wheedling my wife into getting one as well. They picked out two that were essentially identical in appearance and behavior- fluffy, white, and averse to human touch. 

My wife and Amy bonded a lot over raising the bunnies, since our adult children and myself don’t particularly care for them. My wife became the de-facto bunnysitter whenever the Fredericks went on vacation (a position she retained when we moved a half-hour away). A routine bunnysitting affair went awry when my wife accidentally gave Fluffy Fredericks a dose of human Claritin instead of his vitamin supplement- and killed him. My wife’s solution? To bury Fluffy in a nearby woods and swap our rabbit in his place without telling the Fredericks. She wagers they’d never know since they rarely visit our new home.

It’s been months since then, and the Fredericks haven’t noticed a damn thing- my wife’s since returned to take care of our own rabbit. But I’m appalled by the whole charade, and can’t help but feel disgusted over the swap. I don’t want this to ruin my marriage, but I think that what she did was wrong. Help!

Signed, a sickened spouse 

Dear Sickened,

Well, that’s quite the harebrained scheme your wife has cooked up there (sorry). But is it worthy of such moral judgment? 

If you and the kids were grieving the loss of your pet, I’d be inclined to rebuke your wife’s behavior. However, given that you and your kids “don’t particularly care” for rabbits, it seems that the impact of losing your pet to the Fredericks household is negligible. In fact, it's your wife who had to make the greatest sacrifice- she’s rehomed a beloved pet to another family presumably to keep them happy. 

So if you weren’t personally harmed by your wife’s actions, it’s time to assess how they could have harmed others- namely the Fredericks. After all, she killed their rabbit and hid its death. Even I can admit that feels intuitively wrong! According to Jonathan Haidt, possessing an intuitive moral judgment that cannot be rationally justified is called being morally dumbfounded. Those who are morally dumbfounded may have a strong sense that some action or behavior is wrong, but cannot articulate a coherent reason why (Haidt, 2000). Since their beliefs are not backed by logical reasoning, Haidt believes that those who are morally dumbfounded make judgments that are not normatively trustworthy. 

We can check if you’re morally dumbfounded by running through some plausible justifications for your judgment. Maybe you think that your wife’s behavior was wrong in that it concealed Fluffy’s death. But why? Admitting to the rabbit’s death would have undoubtedly caused emotional distress to the Fredericks family. I’d imagine it would have greatly strained your wife’s friendship with Amy as well. Comparatively, the current circumstances protect the feelings of everyone involved. So, the concealment isn’t quite morally wrong. 

Maybe it’s your ex-rabbit living an imposter life that feels particularly offensive. The Fredericks are caring for and cuddling a fraud. It makes me think of a classic phrase: “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. With the Fredericks blissfully unaware of their replacement Fluffy, does the deception really matter? Given that the rabbits have identical looks and temperaments, it seems that the Fredericks can continue to reap the benefits of being pet owners regardless of which rabbit sits in the cage. I’d imagine these benefits extend to the rabbit as well, since you didn’t mention a change in its behavior. 

With all that out of the way, it seems like being bothered by your wife’s behavior is really just another classic case of being morally dumbfounded- there isn’t a strong way to rationally justify placing a moral judgment upon her. Moral dumbfounding indicates that reasoning doesn’t play a significant role in moral judgments- rather, judgments like yours are the result of intuitive snap decisions (Haidt, 2000). We can’t take these judgments to be fact, which means that you shouldn’t trust your judgment of your wife to be correct. You don’t want this to ruin your marriage, so don’t let it! Your wife’s bunny swap may be a little funny, but it wasn’t a moral crime. 

Column by staff writer Lagos E.