Everybody has blood on their hands, Eric! We all do. The clothes we wear, the air we breathe, everything we do is built on the backs of suffering people and dying animals. We wallow in blood. ​- Anthony Bourdain

Miners work in unsafe conditions to extract cobalt for our electronics, forests are cleared to grow soy for livestock, and fast fashion factories exploit workers to produce cheap clothing. Living in this world does not make us evil, but it does make us complicit. Recognising this complicity is the first step toward understanding our moral responsibility.

We live in a world built on the suffering of others.

But do we have a choice?

We do, actually.

Kind of.

Everyone lives at a cost of someone else. We all rely on other people’s labour, resources, and infrastructures.

However, it implies that life is inherently parasitic, or that you must harm to live. Life is unavoidably costly, but not inherently evil. You can’t exist without harm, but you can, however, avoid some of it.

How to define harm?

By “harm” I mean a setback to another being’s well-being, such as suffering, injury, deprivation, or exploitation caused or significantly contributed to by an action or structure.

Should harm be forgiven?

Some harm is unavoidable and part of sustaining life. A surgeon damages a patient’s tissue to save their life. A farmer ploughs a field, killing insects and wild plants in the process, but does so to produce food that sustains thousands of people. Even walking through a garden leaves tiny creatures harmed along the way. These harms are real, but they are necessary trade-offs that allow life to continue. Because there is no realistic alternative, forgiveness isn’t the right concept here, this kind of harm is closer to tragedy than moral failing or guilt.

While unavoidable harm is a natural part of living, other harms arise from negligence. When someone causes harm through ignorance, carelessness, weakness, or selfish habit, forgiveness can be appropriate, but only if there is recognition, accountability, and a willingness to change. Forgiving in these cases does not erase the harm or imply it didn’t matter, it means not letting the harm define the person forever and acknowledging that improvement is possible.

Chosen harm, however, is fundamentally different. It involves deliberate actions that set back another being’s well-being. Because the person causing the harm makes a conscious decision, forgiveness is morally optional rather than expected. Someone who intentionally lies to manipulate another person, or who injures another for personal gain, bears full responsibility for their choice. In these cases, the harmed party is under no ethical obligation to forgive, because the harm was not unavoidable or accidental - it was chosen.

Even when harm is chosen, it is not always morally wrong. Context, proportionality, and intention must all be considered when evaluating the morality of deliberate actions.

When, if ever, is harming someone morally justified?

Harming someone is morally justified only in rare cases where the harm is necessary, proportionate, and aimed at preventing something worse, not at expressing cruelty or gaining convenience.

The clearest case is self-defense or defense of others. If someone poses an immediate threat, using force can be justified because the alternative is allowing greater harm. Even then, the harm must be the minimum required to stop the danger, not a punishment or revenge.

Self-defense is an extreme and rare situation where harm can be justified. But most of the moral weight of human life does not come from emergencies like that. It comes from the ordinary fact that to live at all is to depend on others, and that dependence is often mistaken for harm.

Dependence is not necessarily harmful.

Some harms are unavoidable and not blameworthy. Similarly, dependence - a natural part of human life does not automatically cause harm. Relying on others for care, resources, or infrastructure creates a form of impact, but it does not make anyone worse off if it is proportional and non-exploitative.

Think about an infant who needs their mother’s milk to survive. When an infant drinks a mother’s milk, there is a physical cost: the mother’s body uses energy to produce the milk, but this isn’t harm in the ethical sense because it’s not exploitative or damaging beyond what the mother willingly accepts.

The “cost” exists, but it does not constitute a setback to well-being in the morally relevant sense.

This distinction between dependence and harm helps clarify another important contrast: some harms arise from systems and structures rather than from our individual choices.

Systemic harm vs individual harm

Bourdain points to the structural costs of modern life.

Systemic harm refers to the mass-scale damage and suffering built into societal structures. Global supply chains, industrial agriculture, pollution, cobalt mining for electronics, and fast fashion factories are examples of harms embedded in the systems around us. Most of the harm we benefit from exists at this structural level, not as the result of a single person’s actions.

Individual harm, on the other hand, is the direct consequences of our decisions and actions. It’s the damage we knowingly impose on others. This is where distinctions like unavoidable, negligent, and chosen harm matter.

How to lessen the individual harm?

The first step is being aware. Noticing the impact of your choices allows you to make informed decisions. Buying eggs from a free-range farm may be the first step.

The harm exists at the systemic level regardless of your individual choices, but what you can influence is whether you participate in it. Choosing free-range eggs doesn’t stop the system, but it’s a conscious decision to avoid contributing to the suffering.

Individual responsibility isn’t about eliminating all harm, because that’s impossible, but about selecting the path where your participation causes the least unnecessary damage.

Conclusion

Harm is woven into life, but we can decide how much harm to inflict and what kind. By minimising avoidable harms, we can live more ethically.

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