(LifeSiteNews) — It is OK to cheat on your spouse if he has Alzheimer’s disease, according to an “ethicist” for The New York Times.
Kwame Appiah writes “The Ethicist” column for the Times and also teaches philosophy at New York University. He drew widespread criticism for an August 19 column endorsing adultery when asked by a woman if she could start dating other people because her husband has Alzheimer’s.
“My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease four years ago, and in the past year his decline has rapidly accelerated,” a woman wrote. She explained that she has a minor daughter and is the sole breadwinner.
“Lately I’ve been wondering if and when it’s ethically permissible for me to start dating other people,” she said, noting her husband’s irreversible condition and her desire for “physical and emotional intimacy.”
Appiah said that the woman should still help her husband, “but given that his condition has evidently left him unable to sustain a reciprocal emotional and marital relationship, these obligations don’t mean you have to give up emotional and physical intimacy for the rest of his life.”
The ethicist then suggested the duty to remain faithful to her spouse could be boiled down to merely providing nursing.
“Fidelity, in a situation like yours, involves a duty of care, but with the effective loss of a companion, you’re entitled to care for yourself as well,” he wrote.
He made clear the wife should go ahead and pursue an adulterous relationship if she wants but that she should consider how to explain it to her daughter.
He wrote:
Anyone you become involved with will need to know that you are married and that you remain responsible for your husband’s care. You should also consider the effect of a new relationship on your daughter and, depending on his level of awareness, on your husband. Those considerations, though, bear on how you pursue a new relationship, not on whether you may have one.
The advice column drew widespread criticism, with many noting that “until death do us part” and “in sickness and in health” are clear conditions of marriage.
Daily Wire writer Megan Basham called the woman’s question “utterly selfish” and “self-worshiping.”
“Of course The New York Times says it’s OK to cheat on your dying spouse. Because they represent the values of the world,” she wrote.
Basham contrasted the question and answer with how her husband stood by her side throughout her ongoing battle against stage four cancer.
“Glory to a God who commands something so much richer and more loving from His children,” Basham wrote on X. “And glory to God for my faithful, godly husband who would never ask a question like this and would immediately rebuke anyone who told him what the NYT’s abominable ‘ethicist’ says here.”
I just happened to see this article after a recent conversation about what the matrimonial pledge “in sickness and in health“ means to Brian and I these days in the face of stage four cancer.
I lamented how I have even heard stories of people who claim to be conservative… pic.twitter.com/0Fu7U92lMA
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) August 25, 2026
“I cared for my first wife for 2 years before she died of cancer,” another commentator wrote. “This is what it means to be married. Care & fidelity is what the covenant means.”
The comments section on the column itself included a mixture of endorsements of adultery as well as criticisms of the premise and response.
“Who would ever want to date a married woman in need of a relationship to distract her from her moral obligation to her hopelessly ill husband?” one person asked. “The woman knew what she was signing up to by marrying an older man. Now that this dynamic no longer works for her, she should seek therapy, not look for her next victim.”
Another pointed out that marriage, and life in general, involves self-sacrifice.
“I’m not saying don’t take care of yourself – as a (full-time) caregiver for my parents for the last several years I really understand that,” one person wrote, adding:
… it seems that as a society we have discarded the idea that it is good for us [as a] society to accept seasons of our life that don’t revolve around ourselves, that serving others in need, even for extended periods, can have unexpected lessons and value for us and those around us, and that life’s purpose in general should not be about fulfilling ourself first.
Another, whose husband died from Alzheimer’s, said she rejected those who told her to date while he was alive.
“Whatever happened to a marriage vow?” she asked.
“I get it, life can be incredibly hard, but do you only keep a vow when it’s convenient for you?”