So, I'm not really sure how I feel about negative harm. Is it a thing, is it not a thing? I don't know. My morality is colored by my religion, and that is probably why I tend to believe that if I witness a wrong occurring, and it is within my power to stop it, I am morally obligated to stop it. If I saw a person being mugged, or raped (yeah, this just got real) on a street somewhere, and did nothing to stop it, I would not be pleased with myself. Yes, it was not my fault that this bad thing happened, but I did have the ability to stop it, and I didn't do so. To me, that makes me almost as bad as the perpetrator.
Does that mean I believe in negative harm? Maybe. I do know that it is a hard thing to consider with Omelas, because there my fixing a harm being done to one person would harm hundreds. I read that story my freshman year in FYS, and we talked about it. A similar discussion to the one that we've had in this class; someone in that FYS class brought up Jesus and Christianity. Now, I try to deny to myself that I am a consequentialist, but sometimes that seeps through, and I had to stop and think for a moment about what I would want to do in this situation (rescue the child) and how that could be wrong because I would have been damning a whole city by doing so. I had to wonder (as cliche as it is) "What Would Jesus do?" I concluded that the correct answer was that Jesus would have taken the place of the child (assuming that a substitution could be made, Le Guin never addresses that).
Is that an incorrect interpretation of Jesus' teachings? Is this a deontological viewpoint, saving the child because it's right, or a consequentialist one, keeping the many people happy?
I do know that if I saw that child, and did nothing (for this post, walking away is something), I would not be able to live with myself afterwards.
I guess that makes since, Jesus was crucified for the many so if it meant being tortured for the good sake of others that would seem to be his course of action. Its been through my course of readings that I have come to realize that it would also be hard for me to ignore my individual moral principles and not do what was right just for an "idea" that opposing my principles would benifit the greatest number of people.
ReplyDeleteJesus is certainly looking at the consequences if he sacrificed himself for child and city. Or is he acting on principle that no one should suffer in another's place? Or is he doing both?
ReplyDeleteEthan, then what about the trolley case? Is it negative harm to let those 3 die when something could be done? How does that negative harm balance against the positive harm of throwing the switch and killing the one person?
ReplyDeleteI do believe Jesus would have taken the place of the child, if he could have done so(as stated the author did not address that). In the case of your trolley situation, aren't both making the choice to switch to trolley and kill the one and doing nothing and killing the 3 choices? Doing nothing is a choice in itself.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know what Jesus would do, but I honestly do feel as though he would have freed the child and punished the city in some way, shape, or form for subjecting the innocent child to such treatment. I don't think that Jesus would see any merit or good intentions in the treatment of the child. I honestly don't know. But I do believe that the child would be freed or rewarded or something and that those in the city would be punished.
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