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DoingWrongByNotDoing 13 - 14 Apr 2010 - Main.EricaSelig
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| | I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.
I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever). | | | There's obviously nothing revolutionary about this "out of sight, out of mind" observation. It was just a response to your post expressing guilt for not allowing a homeless man to sleep in your apartment. I still feel very comfortable stating that to let a homeless man sleep in your apartment would have been extremely irresponsible, not to mention that the next day he would still be homeless. That then brought me to my point that some of the most pressing social issues are those that we allow ourselves not to feel guilty about because they aren't sleeping in our foyer. Even within the cause of homelessness, there are more effective ways to be “kinder and more generous,” namely through organizations like the one in the article you linked to. You could make fairly modest sacrifices in your life (and to be clear, this 100% applies to me as well) and direct that extra time and money toward a plethora of social causes, including some much more dire than homelessness in New York. Yet the guilt you felt compelled to mention was the example who you are forced to consider when he literally shows up at your doorstep.
-- DanKarmel - 11 Apr 2010 | |
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> | Dan, I wasn't arguing a policy position or suggesting that local housing rights should be placed atop a hierarchy of things we care about. Just relating a personal experience that left me frustrated with the current state of what I feel is unfair resource distribution.
As an aside, this particular issue may very well become "out of sight, out of mind" as Bloomberg appears to be constructively forcing many inhabitants of homeless shelters out of the city. Although I tend to think it's "out of sight" because many of us (me included) tune out the problem.
-- EricaSelig - 14 Apr 2010 |
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DoingWrongByNotDoing 12 - 11 Apr 2010 - Main.DanKarmel
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| | I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.
I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever). | | | I like to believe that life actually means something. That the most important things are not just material. I don’t wont to be old and realize that I didn’t do anything that changed another person’s life.
-- FranciscoGuzman - 4 April 2010 | |
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> | Erica,
The distinction I was making between local and global issues is that there is an added layer of danger when certain problems are easy to ignore because their harms aren't in our faces. Regardless of what you think the proper approach to homelessness is, you're at least forced to be aware of the issue because you can't walk to class on any given day without walking by it. When I choose not to give change to a homeless person, it’s the result of a fully formed opinion where I’ve decided the short-term benefits don’t outweigh the long-term harms to the homeless person or to the community. Even if you disagree with me, at least we’ve both taken the time to form an opinion about it. The same can't be said for most people who support the diamond industry. I'm not trying to take a stand on diamonds one way or the other. I have no idea what the current state of the blood diamond industry is or how effective international efforts targeting some of the violence perpetuated by the diamond industry have been. But that's the point. I don't think about it, and neither do the vast majority of the people with rocks on their fingers. And yes, if we stopped buying diamonds that would make a difference. (What would be the cost of that, by the way?)
There's obviously nothing revolutionary about this "out of sight, out of mind" observation. It was just a response to your post expressing guilt for not allowing a homeless man to sleep in your apartment. I still feel very comfortable stating that to let a homeless man sleep in your apartment would have been extremely irresponsible, not to mention that the next day he would still be homeless. That then brought me to my point that some of the most pressing social issues are those that we allow ourselves not to feel guilty about because they aren't sleeping in our foyer. Even within the cause of homelessness, there are more effective ways to be “kinder and more generous,” namely through organizations like the one in the article you linked to. You could make fairly modest sacrifices in your life (and to be clear, this 100% applies to me as well) and direct that extra time and money toward a plethora of social causes, including some much more dire than homelessness in New York. Yet the guilt you felt compelled to mention was the example who you are forced to consider when he literally shows up at your doorstep.
-- DanKarmel - 11 Apr 2010 |
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DoingWrongByNotDoing 11 - 04 Apr 2010 - Main.FranciscoGuzman
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| | I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.
I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever). | | | Any thoughts?
-- ConradCoutinho - 1 April 2010 | |
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> | I believe that it is very wrong to live a life without helping others. I agree with Eben when he says that the moment is now. The more than we wait, the less than we do.
It would be great to actually change the system, but as David pointed out, helping particular individuals is equally important. It is useless to try to save a country if we cannot help people who we see everyday and sometimes we actually know.
I like to believe that life actually means something. That the most important things are not just material. I don’t wont to be old and realize that I didn’t do anything that changed another person’s life.
-- FranciscoGuzman - 4 April 2010 |
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DoingWrongByNotDoing 10 - 02 Apr 2010 - Main.ConradCoutinho
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| | I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.
I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever). | | | Re. your DC friend, the problem isn’t that homeless people don’t want to be in shelters per se. There simply isn’t enough room, to speak nothing of sanitation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031104330.html Also, I’m curious to know the reaction of those people who took (or perhaps threw back?) your friends card!
-- EricaSelig - 31 Mar 2010 | |
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> | Has anyone on here ever heard of the lifeboat hypothetical? I know that we are discouraged from thinking about "science fiction" scenarios, but I think the lifeboat hypothetical is realistic enough to have some significance in this discussion.
The basic idea is this: There is a shipwreck and several people are on a lifeboat. There are provisions enough such that all the individuals on the lifeboat can survive comfortably and a little extra--lets say enough to give everyone an extra cookie a day. There is another individual from the shipwreck floating in the water yelling for help very close to the lifeboat. The people on the boat can give up their cookie to save the drowning individual. Is it ever morally permissible for the individuals on the lifeboat to forgo saving the other individual in order to keep their cookie?
The parallels are fairly obvious. The individuals on the boat represent those individuals with enough material wealth to live comfortably and the drowning individual represents those that can be saved if we were to forgo just a bit of our wealth. Thus, the example is supposed to say, we are morally obligated to help the drowning person--in fact, we are morally required to help every person we can if we can do so while continuing to live.
Any thoughts?
-- ConradCoutinho - 1 April 2010 |
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DoingWrongByNotDoing 9 - 01 Apr 2010 - Main.EricaSelig
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| | I keep thinking back to something Eben brought up in class last week (Tuesday)- namely, the idea that if you see a problem, or something that you don’t think is OK, you should be doing something about it. I think Eben’s comments resonated with me because they struck a chord with a sort of guilty feeling I’ve often had. The guilt doesn’t come from actively doing anything wrong, but from not actively doing anything that seems particularly right. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the idea that my life could be considered a moral life when I don’t really think I do anything to correct problems that I see around me. I think the issue boils down to a question of inaction as a morally culpable offense. I do think there is a moral imperative to act when we see something that we think is wrong. I think this idea leads to guilt because I don’t think that I do enough to act, and it’s something that I hope to change if I can figure out how. It made me start thinking about ideas that I’ve struggled with before- for instance, what difference is there between letting someone die before your eyes and not giving them (for example’s sake) the five dollars in your pocket that could save them by buying them food, and not sending food or support somewhere when you can spare it and where it could have a similar lifesaving impact? When does not doing something become as wrong as doing something positively wrong? It’s hard for me to figure out the difference- maybe this is because there isn’t a meaningful one.
I’m wondering what other people think about this. If a person sees something wrong in the world and doesn’t do anything about it, is he or she more culpable than someone who simply doesn’t see the wrong, by choice or by chance? It sort of reminds me also of the philosophical question- is a person brave who isn’t scared in the face of danger, or is a person truly brave who is scared and proceeds anyway? I can’t really articulate how these are connected, but I think it has something to do with making active choices and being aware of situations and choosing to overcome them (as opposed to not facing those choices whatsoever). | | | Hm I might not have been phrasing my main point clearly enough - I definitely recognize Eben's emphasis on this "micro level" change. It came up again (abstractly) in our discussion about the Mignionette, when he pressed us to drop all the moralizing and think about how we would try this case, where the crime was, if anywhere. This emphasis on case-by-case decision making and on thinking before each and every decision is nothing if not good works on the smallest level. What I was saying was merely that it took about three weeks of Eben's class before I understood the difference between working for the big picture Good, and doing good every day, in every decision. And I am glad that distinction has been made, because I think it is a critical one, and not necessarily one encouraged in college, or here by those running public interest programs. | |
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> | AerinMiller | | |
@Aerin | | | It was never actually confirmed that the dog starved in the studio and various reports suggests it was released or escaped the next day, shortly after they had taken the photos required to cause the uproar. I'll admit that I was relieved to hear the dog probably starved in the streets instead of in the studio.
-- DanKarmel - 31 Mar 2010 | |
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> | @ Dan
I don’t understand the significance of your distinction between housing rights on the one hand and labor rights and sustainability issues on the other. If anything, we should be more concerned about local issues, because we have more control over them. “Think globally, act locally,” right? Besides abstaining from purchasing “blood diamonds” or non-fair trade food, there really isn’t a lot most of us can do about these particular systemic problems. On the other hand, we, as a community, could be kinder and more generous to each other. I spent my spring break in San Francisco, and the culture that exists there really embraces the homeless community. From what I gathered, they were by and large treated with respect and dignity and weren’t isolated to the extent that I think many are on the east coast.
Re. your DC friend, the problem isn’t that homeless people don’t want to be in shelters per se. There simply isn’t enough room, to speak nothing of sanitation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031104330.html Also, I’m curious to know the reaction of those people who took (or perhaps threw back?) your friends card!
-- EricaSelig - 31 Mar 2010 |
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