is it immoral to ghost someone?

probably not, but what if it was?

Mar 13, 2024

I’ve been thinking about starting a new project on Gen-Z ethics. I’m not entirely sure what kind of project it’ll be; it might be a few essays, maybe a few TikToks, or all of the above. Who knows. What I do know, though, is that the idea was sparked by the very fascinating ethical landscape of Tiktok.

TikTok is filled with people who give advice on ethical issues and try to determine how best they should live in the world. Ethics, in simple terms, involves how a person should live their life as an individual and in relation to others. People on TikTok constantly advise on life, relationships and general well-being— all stuff that we can vibe with in the ethics world. So, here’s one little walk through a Gen-Z ethical issue: Ghosting.

By the end of this essay, I hope to have convinced you (probably maybe kind of) that there is a benefit in viewing ghosting as immoral.

tbh, it’s not really about convincing anyone; it’s mostly just about going on a nice little mental walk and seeing what we find along the way. also, this whole thing is like, 80% a joke, so make of that what you will. anyways, here we go.

Have you ever seen The Good Place? If you haven’t, stop reading this immediately, go watch all four seasons, sit on them for a few days, and then come back. Done? Great. So, you know how Chidi gives a speech on What We Owe To Each Other, and Eleanor gets super inspired by it? Well, the speech is based on a book by TM Scanlon, a moral philosopher. In it, he expands on his version of contractualism. I think contractualism is a good-ish candidate for making sense of Gen-Z ethics, so let’s talk about it for a second.

Contractualism suggests that morality is found in our agreements with each other— in our social contracts. Scanlon’s flavour of this philosophy suggests that we ought to be able to justify our actions to one another rationally, and these justifications should serve as a pillar of our contracts. In other words, we ought to be able to provide reasons for our moral actions that everyone else can understand. In other (other) words, an action is considered “bad” if you cannot properly explain why it is “good” to someone else. As you can imagine, there is much more to Scanlon’s philosophy, but that’ll do for now.1

I think contractualism is interesting for Gen-Z ethics because one recurring theme I see on TikTok is that we don’t owe anyone anything.

It is understandable why this sentiment arises. In a world where people abuse trust and prey on the vulnerable, it seems ludicrous to suggest that you owe everyone your time or that you owe everyone politeness. Most of these conversations are, unfortunately, hijacked by douche-muffins who feel entitled to the kindness, time or attention of others. This consideration is pretty important— Any social contract that does not (at least try to) guarantee everyone's safety and comfort would be ridiculously inadequate.

But anyway, back to contractualism. It is attractive because I don’t think it is ideal to genuinely believe that we owe each other nothing at all. Such a worldview makes us more isolated and hostile to one another in a world where we, at least in theory, are given opportunities to connect deeply with people in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago. All this to say:

We need to figure out what we owe to each other.

And, just as importantly, we need to figure out how to justify our actions to one another online and in person. Contractualism requires us to provide and follow rules we can all vibe with and understand. At the moment, we all (more or less) kind of live by our own individual rules, which is fine, but it does make interpersonal ethical decisions a bit tricky.

Alright. With all this said, let’s talk about ghosting.

The issue with ghosting, simply speaking, is that we tend to treat it as an action that speaks for itself. When, in reality, it does not.

The thing is, you could ghost a person and think that it obviously means you don’t want to talk to them anymore; however, this view does not quite work because we do not all agree on what it means when someone stops replying in a conversation.

Because of what ghosting is, it is (in some cases) difficult to know what reasons led to it. Perhaps they are sending a sign that they are not interested, perhaps they genuinely got busy, or perhaps they typed something up and forgot to press send (delulu has entered the chat).

Ghosting naturally invites ambiguity and cannot be handled as an action meant to be understood unambiguously.

So, where does this leave us? Must we never ghost again? Not necessarily, but we can be more thoughtful about it. Remember, contractualism requires that we be able to justify our actions to one another. If ghosting is an action taken, we should all be able to understand why it is used and explain it to those who are victims of it.

I’d say that ghosting is alright iff (this is academic philosophy slang for “if and only if”), the ghostee knows exactly why they have been ghosted. This position is attractive for a few reasons:

There’s a high number of delulu individuals in the world. If you know me, you know that in some cases, I wholeheartedly endorse being delulu. However, for many people, delulu is a source of distress, and this distress thrives in the world of ambiguities. Explaining why one chooses to ghost can save a poor soul from needless delulu-induced stress episodes.
1a. You might think: “But if I tell them the truth about why I’m ghosting them, they’ll be sad”. To that, I say— “Yes, well, they’re already sad. At least this way, you’ll give their suffering meaning”.
On some level, I think we owe it to everyone we meet to make them a little better after crossing paths. Or, we owe it to the future friends/partners of people we meet to make them better for the day they eventually end up where they need to be.
So, say you’re chatting with someone who is a ridiculously dry texter. This is not your cup of tea— understandable. Before you ghost them, let them know. Best case scenario, they will work on this and eventually make someone else happy someday with their awesome texting abilities. You don’t have to fix everyone you meet, but perhaps, with a few words, you can set them on the right path before peacing out of their lives forever.
Finally, telling someone why you’re ghosting them can be good practice for anyone afraid of voicing their feelings. Being able to succinctly summarise what you feel towards someone in a cordial way is, in any case, a good skill to have.

Now, at this point in the conversation, we can return to the fact that some people are douche-muffins who can’t take no for an answer. I’ve heard from friends that there is an epidemic of men trying to talk them out of it when they express that they are uninterested. It gives echoes of the dreaded “I can change you” comment that certain women hear too often at clubs (iykyk). So, yes, these are important to consider.

This is probably the most idealistic part of this essay, but the thing with social contracts is that if we all understand the rules and their justifications, we will all be bound to follow them.

In other words, there are rules for the ghoster and the ghostee, and both sides, if they understand these rules, should follow them. We just looked at the rules for the ghoster. For the ghostee, only one rule is needed:

Respect their wishes; reflect on the reasons they gave.

If we are all on the same page on these issues, we can save each other from the dark side of delulu-ness, become better at voicing our thoughts/feelings and play a small part in making all the people we meet slightly better. The current standards regarding ghosting achieve none of these things.

If you made it this far— Nice.

This essay, like too many things I do these days, started as a joke and in many ways, it still is. But, there are interesting points to think about here, I think. Unfortunately, reality creeps in and reminds us why communication like this isn’t always ideal in today's world. But still, it’s cute to think about.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were all free from the dark sides of being delulu? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all left every encounter, no matter how brief, with some insight on how to be better people? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to own our feelings and voice our opinions firmly? Wouldn’t it be nice if all such opinions were respected when we expressed them? Wouldn’t it be nice?

vibes est vida.

Unfortunately, Scanlon is kiiind of a pain to read. But to get a full grasp of his view, you can, of course, check out his book directly or look him up wherever you listen to podcasts, as he has appeared on a few talking about Contractualism. You can also find shorter articles and essays where he summarises his work. Apologies for not providing any links here, but if you’d like more direct references, let me know.