Debunking moral platitudes

1. "You shouldn't use profanity because it isn't very creative."

I've heard people say this to their children, and I've heard the children parrot it back to others. The problem is that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with not being creative. Perhaps I'm not associating with the right people, but I've never seen a parent correct a child (or, indeed a person correct another person) about not being creative for anything other than profanity. After all, you wouldn't correct your child for answering the phone with "Hello?", would you? Besides, most people are as creative as they can be at any particular given moment - there are very few situations where a person would stifle their own creativity - so it's not like you could just say "That isn't creative. Be more creative!" and the person will instantly be more creative.

If you don't want someone else to swear, saying "Please don't swear around me, it offends me" is far more valid than saying "Don't do that because it isn't very creative." Besides, it's counterproductive - if someone randomly and arbitrarily told you that your everyday speech patterns aren't creative enough for their tastes, wouldn't your instinct be to reply, "Fuck you!"?

2. "Don't take the easy way out."

The problem with this one is that difficulty does not affect moral value. Yes, there are some situations where the less moral choice happens to be the easiest, but it isn't the ease that makes it less moral - it's some completely unrelated factor. However, this platitude seems to have expanded so that some people seem to believe that doing something in a more difficult way is somehow inherently more moral. I can buy raw carrots and cook them myself, or I can buy frozen cooked carrots and microwave them. Choosing the raw carrots is morally superior, yes, but that's because the cooked ones come with more packaging and are therefore worse for the environment, not because they're easier. Easy does not automatically equal bad.

Even Dumbledore falls into this trap: "If the time should come when you ahve to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort." Here Dumbledore goes around tacitly assuming that joining Voldemort - doing the immoral thing - will automatically be easier. Also, Cedric never actually was in a position to choose between what is right and what is easy, he just kind of wandered through. Actually, if he had chosen what was easy - grabbing the cup and winning by himself (which wouldn't have been wrong - he was, after all, in a race) he alone would have been transported to the graveyard, and perhaps Voldemort would not have been resurrected at that point because he seemed to be rather gung ho about getting Harry's blood. At any rate, there's nothing to suggest that what is easy isn't going to be wrong, and what is right is going to be hard.

In a situation where the easy way out happens to also be the less moral choice, we should say something along the lines of "Don't do the wrong thing just because it's easier", or perhaps something catchier than that. But we really need to put an end to equating easy with morally wrong.