Hey /his/, is there a difference between doing something and failing to prevent something?
>pic unrelated to philosophy or Nagel
Nagel says the difference is the aim. For instance, if you twist a child's arm, the aim is pain. Failing to prevent is "less evil". You don't seek the pain in twisting the child's arm.
>>378849
You arguably fail to prevent a lot more things than you do. I think the question should be wether or not you can be held responsible for an event, either by action or by inaction.
>>378879
If you intentionally allow something to happen, are you more responsible for its happening that if you failed to prevent it?
bump 4 interest
>>378888
I'd say so, intention matters.
>>378993
If someone is dying of starvation in the same room as you, wouldn’t it be a sort of murder to let them starve while you have more food than you need?
If someone, however, is dying of starvation a few countries away, doing nothing is called “living the American dream”.
>>378888
Your argument would be; if you walk by a lake, and see a child drowning, is it not your moral responsibility to try and save the child?
And, if you choose to not save the child, is that morally equivalent to jumping in the water and drowning the child yourself?
>>379037
I image that if it within your means, and if its inconvenience to you is less than that of saving the child- you're morally obligated to save that drowning child.
What I'm interested in is if there's any flaws in my reasoning.
>>379011
Right, proximity certainly creates responsibility. Letting someone starve in the same room can hardly be characterized as failure if you jad the means of preventing it.
Preventing starvation in foreign lands would require a form of collective action that I'd figure is pretty hard to achieve from an individual perspective, so at best there's a liability to contribute in the evnt that a feasible solution arises.
>>379078
Nope, that's sound reasoning, 95% of ethics professors would agree with you. I find it interesting when you add the element of groups.
In other words, if you're walking by that same lake with another person, how much less obligated are you, if any. What if it's 3 people? 10?
>>379121
The issue I'm worried about is that inconvenience thought. Surely, I owe it to those starving in Africa to try to support them, as my minor sacrifice to save another life is negligible. This thinking gets dangerous because, theoretically and morally, I owe it to everyone in suffering to try to aid them.
>>379115
Let's assume then that it would take the same amount of effort, but I simply don't have any personal connection to the person on another continent. I'm not ignorant to its happening, I'm just not in the immediate proximity of the starving man. I don't know his name, I don't know his face.
>If it's equally difficult to help the man I know and the man I don't, are their situations different?
>>379162
Wait, are we talking about a situation when two people are starving, or about to situatilns of one person starving? I'd say in the former case, your relationship with the person, or lack thereof, is relevant, but I'm not sure about the latter case. A diffusion of responsibility is likely to occur, but I don't really know what to make of such diffusion, as it often leads to the complete lack of ethical behaviour in everyone involved.
>>379216
I'm not starving, and I have the means to save someone who is starving at the expense of some of my health. Assuming I don't starve by aiding, am I equally morally accountable for failing to feed him as I would be if I intentionally starved him?
What if this man wasn't known to me?
>>379232
Since a substantial sacrifice is involved, failing to deliver cannot be equated with intentionally starving him, but there will be some responsibility, whcih grows with the degree of aquaintance, given that friends are the people you might be expected to make sacrifices for, whereas strangers usually aren't.
>>379148
The child in the lake analogy omits fault of any kind from the discussion. So to say that not helping the drowning child next to you is morally equivalent to not sending food to a starving african is probably incorrect.
