morality and responsibility
- Thread starter sculptor
- Start date
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I'd say no. Cuz that would assume complicity with the action person A performed. No such complicity is entailed. Person A totally makes his free choice to act on his own. It doesn't depend on you exposing his/her previous actions in any sense.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Life isn't that simple. If Person A discovers that you ratted him out, he may come after you next... or your family!
In practice - and maybe this would be the best theoretical approach as well - it depends on the nature of the harm A is doing and the nature of the relationship one has with them - what the nature of the betrayal would be.
Avoiding betrayal, balancing betrayals, seems to be central to morality.
In American law, for example, wives cannot be compelled to testify in court to their knowledge of their husband's crimes, and that law is viewed with approval as defending basic moral principles of society. Apparently the level of betrayal of such testimony is generally held to outweigh the betrayal of strangers implicit in the wife's silence.
Avoiding betrayal, balancing betrayals, seems to be central to morality.
In American law, for example, wives cannot be compelled to testify in court to their knowledge of their husband's crimes, and that law is viewed with approval as defending basic moral principles of society. Apparently the level of betrayal of such testimony is generally held to outweigh the betrayal of strangers implicit in the wife's silence.
Well, yeah.
Yes. The only solution is to decide that what happened to person B is just for whatever reasons you can invent.
You know, kind of like a firearms salesman who doesn't know how to handle a weapon, discharges the gun, and accidentally shoots a teacher attending a child on a playground less than a half-mile away?
Of course we didn't charge him.
Or the drunk guy who shot through the wall while cleaning his gun, killing a baby in the next apartment? Just an accident. Nobody needs to go to jail.
Of course, there are also the other things we're aware of, that Jack raped his wife last week, or beat his kids. And, yes, we're guilty in those, too, if we know and choose to do nothing.
Sculptor said:
Yes. The only solution is to decide that what happened to person B is just for whatever reasons you can invent.
You know, kind of like a firearms salesman who doesn't know how to handle a weapon, discharges the gun, and accidentally shoots a teacher attending a child on a playground less than a half-mile away?
Of course we didn't charge him.
Or the drunk guy who shot through the wall while cleaning his gun, killing a baby in the next apartment? Just an accident. Nobody needs to go to jail.
Of course, there are also the other things we're aware of, that Jack raped his wife last week, or beat his kids. And, yes, we're guilty in those, too, if we know and choose to do nothing.
I cannot decide or draw a conclusion with a lack of information and the presented unknowns.
If i knew the following i could make a inference on this scenario.
1: What is the degree or type of harm that is done?
2: What motives prompted person A to perform aforementioned actions to harm person B and as you propose could cause harm to persons C-Z?
3: What type of personal gain would person A achieve in harming person B?
NEARLY 3.4 MILLION VIOLENT CRIMES PER YEAR WENT UNREPORTED
TO POLICE FROM 2006 TO 2010
WASHINGTON – More than half of the nation’s violent crimes, or nearly 3.4 million violent victimizations per year, went unreported to the police between 2006 and 2010, according to a new report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Using data from BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), this new report examines characteristics of unreported victimizations, the reasons victims did not report crimes and trends from 1994 to 2010 in the types of crime not reported to police.
The percentage of violent and property crimes that went unreported to police declined from 1994 to 2010. Across the 17-year period, victims most commonly did not report violent victimizations to the police because they dealt with the crime in another way, such as reporting it to another official or handling it privately. Among unreported violent victimizations, the percentage of victims who believed the police would not or could not help doubled, from 10 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2010.
During the five-year period from 2006 to 2010, about three in 10 crimes involving a weapon and an injury went unreported to police. Among these, the most common reason (42 percent) for not reporting was fear of retaliation or of getting the offender into trouble. This fear was also the most common reason (46 percent) victims did not report intimate partner violence to the police. Crimes perpetrated by someone the victim knew well, such as a neighbor, coworker or teacher (62 percent), or by a casual acquaintance (60 percent) were more likely to go unreported than crimes committed by a stranger (51 percent).
More - http://ojp.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2012/ojppr080912.pdf
TO POLICE FROM 2006 TO 2010
WASHINGTON – More than half of the nation’s violent crimes, or nearly 3.4 million violent victimizations per year, went unreported to the police between 2006 and 2010, according to a new report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Using data from BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), this new report examines characteristics of unreported victimizations, the reasons victims did not report crimes and trends from 1994 to 2010 in the types of crime not reported to police.
The percentage of violent and property crimes that went unreported to police declined from 1994 to 2010. Across the 17-year period, victims most commonly did not report violent victimizations to the police because they dealt with the crime in another way, such as reporting it to another official or handling it privately. Among unreported violent victimizations, the percentage of victims who believed the police would not or could not help doubled, from 10 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2010.
During the five-year period from 2006 to 2010, about three in 10 crimes involving a weapon and an injury went unreported to police. Among these, the most common reason (42 percent) for not reporting was fear of retaliation or of getting the offender into trouble. This fear was also the most common reason (46 percent) victims did not report intimate partner violence to the police. Crimes perpetrated by someone the victim knew well, such as a neighbor, coworker or teacher (62 percent), or by a casual acquaintance (60 percent) were more likely to go unreported than crimes committed by a stranger (51 percent).
More - http://ojp.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2012/ojppr080912.pdf
No. I think it is a bit too simplified & not 100% true with the qualifier only but we would be much better off if more people gave it much consideration.
Yes. Life isn't that simple. Define your parameters. There are going to be seven billion people in the world in a few more years. Most of them live far from me. You probably live far from me too. So what if person A is in Darfur, Sudan/South Sudan and B is the person he is harming for personal gain? What am i to do? I may truly want to help, but what am I to do? Do I feel responsible? I just know I feel bad. (or perhaps in another case, I'd like the cut of personal gain person A is responsible for sending me)
kx000
Valued Senior Member
You your self can be good. What goes around comes around.
As others have made reference to, this is a difficult question to give a simple answer to. I suppose I am fortunate in that I have seldom been witness to such a circumstance. The one time I saw two young lads pull blades and looking like they were going to sort it out, I phoned a respected elder for assistance.
His advice?
Just stay out of harm's way.
If one of them actually did draw blood on the other, the authorities would deal with the outcome.
The set-up was not a concern, only the outcome. :shrug:
Just the other day, a senior was physically assaulted for telling a cyclist that they should be riding in the bike lane and not on the sidewalk. WTF?!! People are crazy these days and you never know who is snapped out of their gourd on drugs or packing a weapon. I consider myself to be an honest and fair person, quick to step up to the plate for many causes yet I find that I am far more wary of situations these days than I was even a few years ago. The demographics of this city are changing and not for the better in my opinion.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/riverdale-senior-assaulted-by-man-on-bicycle-1.2734481
When others do the right thing, it contributes to my & my family's safety. If I do not do the right thing, my family & I are less safe because we could be the next victims of Person A.
A wild card variable in this equation is connected to subjective verses objective harm. There is an old saying that describes an example of this. Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me. Large sticks and stones can do objective harm. We can run a test and show everyone getting hurt by these flying projectiles so this is objective harm. But names are noises people make, that don't work the same for all. This can also be shown with an experiment. This is a subjective form of harm that morality was not designed for, since one can use subjectivity to game the system.
With objective harm, there is a benefit for me to intercede to prevent the stone from being thrown, since I know it will harm others based on experimental data. But when it comes to subjective harm, it is more up to the neurotic to deal with this on their own. If I am qualified it would be helpful to get them to deal with this personal problem, before they request the system do objective harm in retaliation.
If I throw the name caller in jail, or undermine his/her career, this is tangible harm being used that would harm anyone. This objective harm is defined as the punishment to protect a special interest from neurotic subjective harm. There is no justice if we harm someone in reality, to buffer another from their own fantasy. Justice requires we deal with the subjective fantasy so no objective harm is done.
Victimless crimes make use of subjective harm and becomes the next stage of this scam. We come up with a subjective criteria where there is no objective standard of harm; there is no real victim. To defend this subjective standard, the law will allow the infliction of objective harm on the subjective criminals it defines. In terms of morality, the subjective legal system is the immoral one because it does objective harm in favor of special interest fantasy.
Subjective harm creates confusion because this is sold to be the same as objective harm. Most people prefer to stay out of this, rather than become a moral criminal protecting subjective laws.
Say two people are running a foot race in front of their friends. Both wish to win the race to gain popularity. Person A wins the race making Person B subjectively feel harm, because he thinks has lost face. Do we help Person B get even with Person A, just in case, Person C is a poor sport, too? Or do we think in terms of objective standards and try to help the neurotic. To much injustice occurs when you defend subjective harm.
Too Many Spaces in the Line
One factor your outlook appears to accidentally omit is the question of one's objectivity being another's subjectivity.
Take your footrace example. Subjective harm, indeed. Unless, of course, Person B was secretly handicapped. You know, like a racehorse.
And then everyone who threw the competition that way is guilty of objective harm.
But in the modern world there is some dispute about the weight of fact versus opinion. One accused of objective harm simply declares it subjective, and now we're down to anyone standing for fairness and justice being questioned as a "poor sport".
This is the problem of attempting to identify moral principles within a system of such dimensions and attributes as to deliberately stifle both morality and principles, specifically and in general.
Take the controversial subject of rape, for instance. If it's ever your turn to lie in the operating theatre while doctors use sharp blades, needles, sutures, and glue to address severe damage to your urogenital and excretory organs, there are plenty in the world who simply would not question the facts of what happened. But those who would tell you that you have no right to complain about your own "buyer's remorse"?
How much credibility should we grant such attempts to transform such an objective harm done unto a person into something subjective?
This gap in your line is big enough that I could sail an armada of the world's rapists through undetected. Or murderers. Or thieves. Politicians, lawyers, corporate executives, clergy ... anyone who needs a subjective definition to wash away their evil has that opportunity within the outlook you've described. This is functionally problematic to the point of invalidating your entire exploration of the proposition regarding objective and subjective harm.
How do you close that gap?
Wellwisher said:
One factor your outlook appears to accidentally omit is the question of one's objectivity being another's subjectivity.
Take your footrace example. Subjective harm, indeed. Unless, of course, Person B was secretly handicapped. You know, like a racehorse.
And then everyone who threw the competition that way is guilty of objective harm.
But in the modern world there is some dispute about the weight of fact versus opinion. One accused of objective harm simply declares it subjective, and now we're down to anyone standing for fairness and justice being questioned as a "poor sport".
This is the problem of attempting to identify moral principles within a system of such dimensions and attributes as to deliberately stifle both morality and principles, specifically and in general.
Take the controversial subject of rape, for instance. If it's ever your turn to lie in the operating theatre while doctors use sharp blades, needles, sutures, and glue to address severe damage to your urogenital and excretory organs, there are plenty in the world who simply would not question the facts of what happened. But those who would tell you that you have no right to complain about your own "buyer's remorse"?
How much credibility should we grant such attempts to transform such an objective harm done unto a person into something subjective?
This gap in your line is big enough that I could sail an armada of the world's rapists through undetected. Or murderers. Or thieves. Politicians, lawyers, corporate executives, clergy ... anyone who needs a subjective definition to wash away their evil has that opportunity within the outlook you've described. This is functionally problematic to the point of invalidating your entire exploration of the proposition regarding objective and subjective harm.
How do you close that gap?
kx000
Valued Senior Member
Were not safe even if we are moral. We gotta pray for that kind of stuff. Absolute safety.