Moral obligations

[Aimless]

How do you feel about the concept of moral obligations?

If you can do a very good thing, do you feel you have an obligation to do that thing?

Is it different if your failure to act results in very bad things?

In other words, do you have a moral duty to promote good or prevent evil?

[wiggin]

Why is that an 'or' question?

[GGT]

In other words, do you have a moral duty to promote good or prevent evil?

Yes to both.

btw, your signature tags are broken.

[Aimless]

Well it's not an XOR in my experience, some people distinguish between the moral value of doing good (relative to the neutral state or at least status quo) and that of letting evil occur. Ie. it's okay to not do good, but it's not okay to not prevent evil. I get the impression this is esp. true when you are or can be directly involved. In the general sense I guess it's a question of positive and negative rights and obligations.

[Dreadnaught]

I'm not sure morality can be judged in terms of such generalities. Is that belief in itself immoral?

[GGT]

Well it's not an XOR in my experience, some people distinguish between the moral value of doing good (relative to the neutral state or at least status quo) and that of letting evil occur. Ie. it's okay to not do good, but it's not okay to not prevent evil. I get the impression this is esp. true when you are or can be directly involved. In the general sense I guess it's a question of positive and negative rights and obligations.

Sounds like the "moral dilemma" is about commission and omission, action or inaction, active vs passive. Rather hard to discuss without specifics, since these things always have elements of variables and context to consider.

Are you talking about Good Samaritans who intervene, or bystanders who don't want to get involved? Do you mean professionals or lay people?

[GGT]

PS, If this is an extension of the "Baby stolen from bi-polar tourist's womb" thread....being more specific would be very helpful.

[Aimless]

I'm looking for answers relevant to the general case, not situational answers.

[GGT]

I'm looking for answers relevant to the general case, not situational answers.

Are you going to get many "answers" if you remove situational context?

[Aimless]

Yes

[Lewkowski]

How do you feel about the concept of moral obligations?

If you can do a very good thing, do you feel you have an obligation to do that thing?

Is it different if your failure to act results in very bad things?

In other words, do you have a moral duty to promote good or prevent evil?

Failure to act is bad. If you see a child drowning and you don't do something (at the very least alert someone) you're a monster.

[LittleFuzzy]

Are you going to get many "answers" if you remove situational context?

Yes

Granted it's only been sixty hours or so but it doesn't really like like your affirmative answer has been correct.

[Asmodian]

Failure to act is bad. If you see a child drowning and you don't do something (at the very least alert someone) you're a monster.

First of all I agree you should try and save a child, assuming you can swim there would be no benefit in drowning to keep him company, but that's kind of easy, what about if you see a homeless person obvious starving are you obliged to give him money or buy him food or annoy other bystanders by drawing their attention to the homeless persons plight? What about if you see a girl being beat up or even raped, should you intervene beyond calling the police (which you know will be late). Should you still intervene if you are not confident of success or even your own survival if you do so, is it fair towards your loved ones to risk your life on behalf of someone you don't know and don't really care about. Your example does not really have a sacrifice or the sacrifice is minimum so decision to help is easy.

I think the question is not one you can answer and most answers would be wrong as you will not really know what you will do until confronted with a situation. Even the morality of it is questionable, take my example above you intervene you die but you save the girl who has a chance to escape. However you family that relied on you for income is left with out a source of income (here you can draw whole bunch of disastrous outcomes for your family members altogether probable).

[Flixy]

As much as I'd like to think that I'd involve myself in a situation like that, I've never been in a situation like that so I honestly don't know what I'd do. I have 'jumped between' fights, but I was working as a bartender then which made it both my responsibility, and gave me authority (and regulars would have my back) so that's different.

[Lewkowski]

First of all I agree you should try and save a child, assuming you can swim there would be no benefit in drowning to keep him company, but that's kind of easy, what about if you see a homeless person obvious starving are you obliged to give him money or buy him food or annoy other bystanders by drawing their attention to the homeless persons plight? What about if you see a girl being beat up or even raped, should you intervene beyond calling the police (which you know will be late). Should you still intervene if you are not confident of success or even your own survival if you do so, is it fair towards your loved ones to risk your life on behalf of someone you don't know and don't really care about. Your example does not really have a sacrifice or the sacrifice is minimum so decision to help is easy.

I think the question is not one you can answer and most answers would be wrong as you will not really know what you will do until confronted with a situation. Even the morality of it is questionable, take my example above you intervene you die but you save the girl who has a chance to escape. However you family that relied on you for income is left with out a source of income (here you can draw whole bunch of disastrous outcomes for your family members altogether probable).

Homeless person situation - Giving him money is counter productive and further enables their addictions. Buying food is better but there are a lot of homeless shelters and soup kitchens and other charities - money going towards those organizations is far more efficient.

In terms of someone being raped it depends on the context but the right thing to do is to try to stop it. I wouldn't call someone a monster if all they did is call the police like I would in the child drowning situation. In places where the 2nd amendment is still respected it does make things easier.

[Illusions]

I wouldn't call someone a monster if all they did is call the police like I would in the child drowning situation. In places where the 2nd amendment is still respected it does make things easier.

Shoot the drowning child to put it out of its misery?

[Lewkowski]

Shoot the drowning child to put it out of its misery?

You're not good at the whole reading thing are you?

[Ominous Gamer]

whoosh