Law in Contemporary Society

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DoingWrongByNotDoing 10 - 02 Apr 2010 - Main.ConradCoutinho
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 I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.

I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever).

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 Re. your DC friend, the problem isn’t that homeless people don’t want to be in shelters per se. There simply isn’t enough room, to speak nothing of sanitation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031104330.html Also, I’m curious to know the reaction of those people who took (or perhaps threw back?) your friends card!

-- EricaSelig - 31 Mar 2010

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>		Has anyone on here ever heard of the lifeboat hypothetical? I know that we are discouraged from thinking about "science fiction" scenarios, but I think the lifeboat hypothetical is realistic enough to have some significance in this discussion.

The basic idea is this: There is a shipwreck and several people are on a lifeboat. There are provisions enough such that all the individuals on the lifeboat can survive comfortably and a little extra--lets say enough to give everyone an extra cookie a day. There is another individual from the shipwreck floating in the water yelling for help very close to the lifeboat. The people on the boat can give up their cookie to save the drowning individual. Is it ever morally permissible for the individuals on the lifeboat to forgo saving the other individual in order to keep their cookie?

The parallels are fairly obvious. The individuals on the boat represent those individuals with enough material wealth to live comfortably and the drowning individual represents those that can be saved if we were to forgo just a bit of our wealth. Thus, the example is supposed to say, we are morally obligated to help the drowning person--in fact, we are morally required to help every person we can if we can do so while continuing to live.

Any thoughts?

-- ConradCoutinho - 1 April 2010


Revision 10r10 - 02 Apr 2010 - 02:18:07 - ConradCoutinho
Revision 9r9 - 01 Apr 2010 - 22:21:59 - EricaSelig
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