Getting Back To Throwing The Life Preserver

[David Sklansky]

The line between sins of omission and commission is blurrier than most people think.

Suppose you walk by a drowning man who you can save by climbing five flights of steps and throwing him a life preserver. He will certainly die otherwise. Even if you are healthy, some posters argue that you are in no way a murderer if you don't do it. And the effort required probably even absolves you from the crime of "depraved indifference".

But now lets hypothesize that you were totally prepared to save him. Except that just as you got on the stairs, some weird billionaire offered you a thousand dollars not to do it. If you take the money, what does that make you? How about compared to the fellow who wasn't saving him in the first place? Does the answer change if you turned down $1000 but then took his second offer of $50,000?

[Dan Mezick]

Very interesting!! How much money will be needed for me to look the other way, AFTER I have done the preliminary work of climbing the stairs, demonstrating my intent.

Then compare this scenario to the guy that just walked by and DID NOT climb the stairs.

Finally, recognize the subtle shade of gray in the scenario-- you are not really taking an action, simply looking the other way.

I believe the person climbing the stairs does serious harm to himself if he takes the money in any amount. This is because he has already demonstrated his beleifs by his action of doing the preliminary climbing. To take the money in conflict with his beliefs about helping the drowning man in many ways makes him much worse off than the guy in the water.

As for the guy that walked by and did nothing, he isn't experiencing any pain at all. Apparently his beliefs about helping the drowning man were acted out in his behavior of walking by. Accordingly, he's got no conflicts.

If they guy at the top of the stairs takes the money, he also gets a nasty inner conflict that cannot easily be reversed. He's unwise for taking even one cent in conflict with his belief. To fix this conflict, he has to change his beliefs. Not a pretty picture for the guy who took the cash after climbing the stairs. He just entered a living hell.

The guy that walked by is fine, for the moment.

[ QUOTE ]
belief

\Be*lief"\, n. [OE. bileafe, bileve; cf. AS. gele['a]fa. See Believe.] 1. Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Transference]

Moral philosphy on a Saturday Morning? That might be a crime in itself....

On the surface these two scenarios seems strikingly different but I'm pretty convinced these would both be instances of as you so eloquently put it "depraved indifference." The difference isnt purely semantic yet it really doesnt pertain to culpability. That is, by accepting the cash prize as it were you are an implicit accomplice and clearly exposing yourself as allowing fatal harm to another for personal gain. Clearly in neither scenario are you mudering another; you are merely substituting relative levels of 'gain' for not assisting.

So is the hitman who kills for 5 dollars any better or worse than one for 5000? I think in our society at least, with the exception of very rare cases, it is the outcome of the moral wrong rather than the extenuating circumstances that are judged.

Generally I think the scenario is not one pitting omission against commission per se, but rather varying levels of omission.

I think that was organized poorly, but like I said, its a bit early on a Saturday for this stuff! Is there like an underlying point to this one?

[Dan Mezick]

I add here that that the guy taking the cash at the top of the stairs is inviting a host of emotional, mental and physical illnesses upon himself by voluntarily entering into this near-irrevokable belief-conflicted state.

I also find it interesting that the dilemma as stated has PersonB climbing 5 flights of stairs, upward, before facing an intensely personal challenge to his integrity of belief.


Comments?

[queenhigh]

Let's say you're walking down the street with a brand new plasma TV that you bought for $5,000. A child is about to be hit by a car. He'll die unless you drop the TV and push him out of the way. The TV will break, but you'll save the child's life.

Most people would be disgusted by someone who didn't drop the TV to save the child's life. Let's say, and it's a fairly safe assumption, that a $5,000 donation to the international red cross could save a life in a disease ravaged part of Africa. Most people who would drop the TV in a second don't think twice about giving their money to charity as opposed to buying new things.

Is morality an inverse function of psychological distance?

[Blarg]

What if the man offering him $1,000 wasn't a billionaire, but was only a thousandaire?

[ QUOTE ]
Is morality an inverse function of psychological distance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. But in more ways than one.

That's why many people who happily give money to charities affecting people so many thousands of miles away they might as well be millions won't lift a finger to help their neighbor next door, their own family, or a stranger nearby literally no matter how much they are suffering. Or even show the smallest courtesy or even acknowledgement.

People, and moral questions, in real life are often all too much for us up close, and it often only becomes possible to think of other people in a moral sense once we can abstract them and see them safely at a distance.

Everybody's a great guy theoretically, at a distance, but up close and personal? It's just so yucky to have to prove. And for some, downright frightening.

[Mayhap]

Why drag George Soros into this? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Seriously, if you measure this in the light of eternity rather than the context of a single lifetime, you gain when you rescue and you gain when you turn down the billionaire and rescue.
/M

[fyodor]

I personally wouldn't hesitate to climb the stairs. I also wouldn't hesitate to kick the living bejeezus out of the millionaire when I was done throwing the life preserver.

I would drop the tv in a heart beat.

On the other hand I won't give a nickle to 'charities'

But that's just me.

I wouldn't accuse someone else of murder for not throwing the life preserver. I might be tempted to push them in should I happen by though. But then I would throw them a life preserver as well.

[paland]

I think you should just let the fool drown. It's so right on many fronts. He got himself in this predicament (Unless a Tsumani just hit) so it is not your responsibility to babysit the fool.
Plus by drowning, he is helping the gene pool by purging the human race of his DNA and, therefore, his foolish traits can dissappear from the gene pool. One could say that you are even hurting humanity if you decide to save him.

Now if you think that he plays poker and throws his chips away at the table, then you might want to save the fool, but if he is a fish, then he is currently in his element and doesn't need saving.

[bernie]

What's the counteroffer from the drowning guy?

b