Is it OK to Order Go-Food/Grab Food when it’s Raining Heavily?
Morality is hard
Here is a thought. It’s raining, and you are hungry. It makes zero sense for you to go outside and brave the rain yourself. Why not have someone else do it instead? There is a ride-hailing Super-App installed comfortably in your phone. Is it morally justified for us to order Go-Food or Grab Food, therefore exposing Mr. Driver to the heavy rain?
Long story short, I put up a survey on Instagram Stories with these two questions in mind:
- Is it OK to order Go-Food when it’s raining heavily? (OK/NOT OK you evil turd)
- Why is it OK/Not OK to order Go-Food when it’s raining heavily?
With 92 people answering the 1st question, and 23 answering the 2nd, I set out to glean some sort of insight.
(DISCLAIMER: I myself, believe that’s it’s totally OK to order Go-Food when it’s raining, but I’m not counted in the survey data)
So from 92 respondents, 67 of them (that’s about 72%) thinks that I am an evil turd. Because I willingly had Mr. Driver deliver my warm meal, and made him exposed to the rain.
22 of the answer is accompanied by a explanation as to why they answer OK/Not OK. The answers can be roughly categorized into several groups:
I’ll run you through by my classification:
- NA, is pretty explanatory. This is for answers not accompanied with explanations
- by choice, means that they think it’s OK (or NOT OK) to order Go-Food in the rain because they believe the choice is made consciously by consenting adults (like asking consent before sex, then it’s OK…maybe). “ok.by choice” means that OK with the reason accompanying as explained. For the “no.by choice” it was kind of contradictory to be honest, oh well let’s just ignore it.
- pity, means that they think it’s not OK to order Go-Food in the rain because they feel sorry for Mr. Driver for having to brave the rain.
- quality of food, means that they have concern that the rain might affect the quality of the food when it arrived at your house.
- business, means that they think it’s OK because that’s how the business goes.
- unknown, it’s for answer I can’t readily categorize because I just don’t understand it.
Taking out the NAs from our discussion. We’ll proceed to sample several answers from the respondents, representing each categories.
Taking Pity on the Drivers VS Delegating Choice to the Driver
According to you, good people, the main reason for not ordering Go-Food in the rain is because you feel bad for Mr. Driver. After all, who in their good mind would willingly subject an innocent driver to the heavy rain? Turns out, about 28% or so of my audience (+me) in Instagram do.
Below is several of the responses (translated into proper English):
“I feel bad for the driver he might get sick and get into accident” (Ms. PB, Doctor)
“Have some empathy for the driver” (Ms. ST, consultant)
“It’s very uncomfortable to ride in the midst of rain” (Mr. FR, fashion enthusiast) (I know, the rain crashing into your body hurts like a bitch)
“We need to think about the safety of the driver” (Mr. A, student)
“Humanity” (Mr. T, consultant)
So most of the response cites concern for the driver. They might get sick, or they might get into an accident. Apparently I should also question my capacity for empathy and humanity.
To those at the “OK” side, this might seem unreasonable. Mainly because we believe that the driver is given a choice as to accept or reject the order. As explained in my previous piece, they have a several seconds window to decide, in which they hurriedly accept without reading because they are competing for orders with other fellow drivers.
If they do get soaked, sick, or even get into an accident, the burden of the guilt is with the driver for accepting in the first place. By accepting the order while knowing it is raining, the driver consents to whatever risk it entails.
Fortunately there is quite a compelling argument for being against ordering Go-Food when it is raining.
“It violates Kant’s second categorical imperative” (Mr. WK, Master’s student)
On Morality of Ordering Food during a Heavy Rain
So why does ordering Go-Food during the rain violates Kant’s second categorical imperative?
What the hell is Kant’s second categorical imperative anyways?
Kant’s Categorical Imperative, is one moral theory by Emmanuel Kant. The main idea for the theory is morality should be separated from religions/deities. Morality, Kant argues, should stem from pure reason.
If morality stems from religion, or lack of thereof, morality from person to person would vary in accordance to their belief (or lack of thereof). Kant’s first categorical imperative is that morality, should be able to be universally applied. Meaning that before you set out to do something, let’s say, stealing, one should first assess what would it like if everybody do the same thing. Everybody stealing from everybody does not seem like a good idea for a society.
Hence, one should not make exceptions to the rule to him/herself.
The second categorical imperative that was referred to is that we should not use another human being merely as means to an end. The idea is one should respect another one’s autonomy and interest.
For instance, let’s say you want to borrow money from your uncle and you say it’s for your tuition fee. As it is in your uncle’s interest to have a well educated niece, he agreed, and give you money for your tuition.
Then you used the money you received from your uncle to buy cocaine.
This way you are abusing your uncle’s autonomy and interest to “have a well educated niece”, and use the money to advance your interest instead, to snort cocaine, and become a junkie.
So the key idea is here consent. a friend of mine liken this to asking consent before sex. If the other party consents, it’s all good. If the other party do not consent, we call that rape, or rather, violation of Kant’s second categorical imperative. Your uncle didn’t give you consent to snort cocaine, but you lied to him and use his money to solely advance your own interest.
How does this all relate to ordering Go-Food in the rain?
Assuming drivers are forced to accept orders, it is clear that we are violating upon his autonomy by forcing him to deliver food in the midst of the rain, when it is not in their interest to do so (their interest would be, to work while still protecting their health and well-being).
But we now know that drivers actually have a choice as to accept the order or not. How does this violates the second categorical imperative?
The core of Kant’s second imperative, is to protect the interest of others. By ordering Go-Food during heavy rain, customers are creating a demand for “food during heavy rains”. The drivers, needing money, will feel compelled to complete such orders, regardless of they wanting to do it or not. Unwittingly, customers demand for food during the rain created a situation where it is expected of the drivers to complete the orders during heavy rain, thus subjecting the drivers into a situation that is against their best interest.
Borrowing the word of the good man himself (Mr. WK), “one can counter-argue that it is in their best interest not to be given work in the pouring rain, i.e. they will get sick, regardless of their ‘want’.”
A Matter of The Quality of Food
We had an input on this category, saying that you shouldn’t order Go-Food when it’s raining. Because most likely, our food will be soaked wet together with our driver. After all they are riding bikes. And as far as I know, they don’t have the fancy bag thingy like the ones McDonald’s and Pizza Hut use. I once received a soggy Meat Lovers pizza because it was raining very heavily.
A quick Google search shows the following:
Are the drivers in Indonesia already using these? If yes, I must have missed them. Never seen ‘em.
Pro-tip: When it’s raining, order delivery directly from the restaurant. They have that fancy anti-rain bag and they are obligated to deliver the food to you. Unlike Go-Food or Grab Food, they don’t have a choice. But your food choice will be limited to restaurants offering delivery service, and it’s kind of a dick move.
The Bottom Line
So is it okay to order Go-Food/Grab Food when it’s raining? I don’t know. Regardless of whether there is consent from both parties (customer and driver), riding a bike in the midst of rain is not a pleasant experience at all.
Being hungry is also not a pleasant experience.
Quoting from a similar piece from lifehacker.com, “The ethical question then becomes: does a delivery guy, who’s at work and on call anyway, prefer to sit around being dry and warm but doing nothing and earning no money, or does he prefer to go out and get cold and wet and get paid?* I suspect the answer is different for each individual delivery person.”
So if you do have to order Go-Food/Grab Food when it’s raining, just make sure to tip more than usual. That’s the very least that we can do.
