The Is/Ought Question and Others of its Ilk

I frequently go back and forth in my own head between realistically accepting what "is", versus idealistically striving for better. One part of me is genuinely inclined to embrace my reality, while some other part has an equally genuine inclination to do better. Which way is right? The question applies to myself and to how I operate with others.

Here's an example: let's say one of your kids has always shown a certain tendency towards sloppiness. On some days you say to yourself, "Well, it's just the way he is, I shouldn't come down too hard on him." On other days, you find yourself saying, "But he can't continue this way, he has to get better!"

Stuff like this happens on the job all the time. Do we accept an employee's incessant tardiness, knowing that she has an extraordinarily complex life, or do we keep at her, demanding that she fulfill her duties? Do we put up with someone's habit of not fulfilling their commitments because they never seem to change, or do we keep pushing? Do we except excuses for low sales productivity because, in truth, things are hard out there, or do we keep pushing for more?

Over the years I've gone back and forth on the issue. I used to offer consulting advice that equated to this: if we accept the status quo, then people get used to the status quo. In fact, I would cite examples of how accepting a little bit of sloppiness only led to the slippery slope of sloth. So, I said, we should always send signals that we want more! Consistent with this philosophy was my stance that people who didn't have the right level of all the skills required for their job had to learn those skills. I was always suggesting "We must strive to get better and better."

Then for a while I would lean the other way. I accepted that if my youngster wasn't good in math, then math wasn't his thing. Or, mold a person's job to fit that person's strengths rather than having the person change to match the job description. Become accepting of somebody's bad practices; why push Beulah to follow through if it's just going to waste everyone's energy?

I hate to say it, because it's not very philosophically responsible (and I must ALWAYS be philosophically responsible, yes?), but these days I just go with my intuition. Some days I'm a realist. Other days an idealist.

I suggest it's a philosophical cop-out, of course, because I'm not really embracing the question. It's like a lady I knew who once said, "I know I must be morally right about this because my stomach doesn't hurt; my stomach always hurts when I feel guilty."

Truth be told, the last academic paper I produced from the field of philosophy basically argued that questions such as these can't be answered. They are useful questions because exploring the issues can shed valuable light on many nuances. But eventually, perhaps when a philosopher gets tired, or disenchanted, or maybe even when he or she finds peace in the unanswered, the stomach test, in one form or another, does the job.