SOUNDING OFF:

Debbie Cook invests in oil companies even while she champions environmental issues (“Cook defends her oil stock,” April 17).

In her defense, she says: “I don’t blame the oil companies, … We’re the consumers. People are looking for a scapegoat to blame others for these kinds of problems. We’re the energy hogs. We’re the problem and we’re the solution. … I can be an advocate against dying and still invest in mortuaries and that does not make me a hypocrite.”

Her argument commits the weak analogy fallacy. One commits this fallacy when the analogy upon which one’s argument hinges is too weak to support the conclusion that one draws from it.

Death is inevitable, and both tradition and the health department require that someone deal with deceased persons’ bodies. As long as death is unavoidable, investing in mortuaries while advocating against dying will involve no hypocrisy. The advocate in this case can do nothing to stop death while tradition and social hygiene render mortuaries indispensable.

Most importantly, mortuaries neither cause death nor play any role in enabling it to continue. So investing in mortuaries really is consistent with advocating against dying. Thus, one really can advocate against dying and invest in mortuaries without hypocrisy. However, this situation is not analogous to Cook’s advocating against benefiting from oil used as a source of energy while she benefits from oil used as an investment opportunity.

The advocate in this case, Cook, claims that we can and should curtail our practice of benefiting from oil used as source of energy because this practice is harmful to the environment. The moral, and/or practical, force of her claim consists in the fact that it is wrong to unnecessarily derive benefit from oil when doing so causes so much harm to the environment. If she is right, then she should not benefit needlessly from oil, whether by using it as a source of energy or by using it as a source of investment income, because these practices cause harm to the environment and enable this harm to continue. The first practice causes pollution, and the second practice enables this pollution to continue. Thus, Cook’s analogy does not support her conclusion. Debbie Cook may be able to advocate against the practice of benefiting from using oil as a source of energy while she invests in oil companies, but she cannot do so without hypocrisy.

Webster’s Dictionary defines hypocrisy as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform.”

When Cook says, “We are the energy hogs,” she means that we use energy in a selfish and immoral way, namely by using it so excessively that we damage our environment. When Cook says, “we are the problem,” she attributes this damage to the fact that we insist on benefiting needlessly from oil in the short term at the expense of damaging the environment in the end. For example, using oil as a source of energy — which we do when we use gas-powered cars as a source of transportation — benefits us in the short term in so much as it fuels our transportation, but it harms the environment in the end. When Cook says, “we are the solution,” she means that we can and should curtail, as much as possible, our practice of benefiting from oil when doing so harms the environment, which means we should avoid benefiting from oil needlessly.

Clearly, Cook claims to have moral standards or beliefs regarding the practice of benefiting from oil needlessly when doing so harms the environment, and for that we should commended her. We should also commend her for the steps she takes to decrease her own energy consumption.

The problem is that Cook benefits from the practice of using oil as an investment when she could just as easily invest in environmentally cleaner, though perhaps less lucrative, companies. She benefits needlessly from the practice of using oil in so much as the wealth she derives from her oil investments is just as much a luxury as driving a non-hybrid automobile. However, she tells the rest of us that we should not benefit needlessly from the practice of using oil. Therefore, Cook claims to have moral standards or beliefs to which her own behavior does not conform, and this conclusion follows whether the force of her “should” consists in moral values or in practical considerations.

The questions that Cook’s investment in oil companies raise are the following: If Debbie Cook sells out when it comes to the issue about which she is most passionate, how long will she hold out against the lobbyists in Washington? If she lacks the judgment to recognize that her actions are incompatible with her own stated values and beliefs, how can we expect her to discern the difference between policies that help us and policies that hurt us?

If all of us were to follow Cook’s lead, would anyone take our concerns about the environment seriously? Isn’t it time for Democrats to start supporting Dan Kalmick for Congress?