The Bait Shack burger and a walk to the beach

As Gail and I walked to the beach at Nantucket today, she said, "are we walking to the beach instead of riding so we can eat a burger at the Bait Shack, or are we eating a burger from the Bait Shack because we walked to the beach, or would we walk even if we did not eat the burger or would we eat the burger even if we rode to the beach?" Doesn't sound like a deep question, but every question while I am walking 3 miles produces a blog for me. For Gail this was a rather simple curiosity, but it reminded me of the role of exchange in how we approach truth. I know you are wondering how I got there from this question while walking and even sweating a bit.

Let me explain my thoughts. There were two behaviors involved in this question. One is considered a favorable or right behavior - walking 3 miles to the beach - because walking is considered a "good" thing. BUT, eating burgers, especially from the Bait Shack, which is the best burger in the world because it is so unhealthy, the grease just runs down your arm as you eat it. Thus, eating a burger from the Bait Shack is not a "good" thing.

So here is what happens, and we all do this, even if we are the greatest advocate of absolute truth. We can justify a "bad" behavior if we can put it in balance with a good behavior. In other words, the rationale for doing the "bad" behavior involves balancing it with doing a "good" behavior. The "bad" behavior becomes OK, not because of the absolute truth associated with eating unhealthy food, but because it is placed in balance with a "good" behavior, waking to the beach.

In studying human behavior I am convinced that even principled people can see truth as relative when they can place the bad behavior in equilibrium with a good behavior. Social exchange is the built in process in our human nature that makes this rationalization feel so normal. When we only require the exchange to be in balance for behaviors to be right, we do not tend to evaluate specific behaviors as right or wrong. BTW, when an exchange is in balance, then the behaviors are fair and when behaviors are fair, they are right, regardless if one or both are "bad". This is our human nature, to see fair as the ultimate arbitrator of right and wrong.

There are a gazillion ways we do this. This simple question Gail asks resulted in times of pondering, its what I do when i walk ...