Good Samaritan Laws

[luckyme]

I'll pull a DS -
This post is not about Good Samaritan Laws and if you discuss them I'll tie heavy weights to your danglers. -

That said, Good Samaritan Laws of the european variety ( where you must help if you can in certain situations) tap into our approach to commission/ommission. I tend to see them as the same entity and any boundary between them seems very murky and ill-defined.

Would a reasonable divide be the amount of effort required for you to change course to affect the outcome? How do you differentiate?

luckyme

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll pull a DS -
This post is not about Good Samaritan Laws and if you discuss them I'll tie heavy weights to your danglers. -

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd comment, but there's already too much SM stuff going on in these forums.

[ QUOTE ]
That said, Good Samaritan Laws of the european variety ( where you must help if you can in certain situations) tap into our approach to commission/ommission. I tend to see them as the same entity and any boundary between them seems very murky and ill-defined.

Would a reasonable divide be the amount of effort required for you to change course to affect the outcome? How do you differentiate?

[/ QUOTE ]

Crimes of omission versus comission are an excellent example of how arbitrary most moral systems are. A majority of people make decisions on normative rather than moral grounds. In another thread I just posted that I'd allow my friends to rape someone - many people will probably not like that answer, but I wish them luck establishing where to draw the line. Some of Sklansky's strongest threads have been about this subject - and much of it seems to come down to immediacy and emotional proximity.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> Would a reasonable divide be the amount of effort required for you to change course to affect the outcome? How do you differentiate?
</font>

I think there will always be an element of ambiguity. One of the last episodes of Seinfeld comes to mind, where they witnessed a fat guy being robbed. I mean, what should one's obligation be? At what point does perceived danger to yourself (by getting involved), become a factor?

Is it wrong to look the other way if you see a gangster style hit taking place? Is it morally wrong not to want to be a witness to gangster-like crimes if doing otherwise might put your family at risk?

That said, I still like the law but won't get into it, because because I don't want my danglers messed with.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there will always be an element of ambiguity. One of the last episodes of Seinfeld comes to mind, where they witnessed a fat guy being robbed. I mean, what should one's obligation be? At what point does perceived danger to yourself (by getting involved), become a factor?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, it gets even messier when danger to ourself gets involved, but I'm probing for just what it is that we'd be weighing when we assign causation. Sitting here watching the cat get ready to knock the lamp off my desk I could just reach over lazily and smack it and save the lamp. Knowing that and knowing that I know it seems a case of direct causation because the effort required is so minimal ..plus the exercise will be helpful in preventing carpal finger.

I think most samaritan laws have a 'no/low risk to self' clause but I'm not sure. There seems to be various things we could consider -
risk to self
other costs to self, time, money
effort in various forms, such as change of plans
what else am I missing?
Intent only enters into it as far as 'foreseeable' does. Once the result is pretty obvious then our intent must be to let it occur if we don't interject ourselves into the situation.

luckyme

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Crimes of omission versus comission are an excellent example of how arbitrary most moral systems are. A majority of people make decisions on normative rather than moral grounds. In another thread I just posted that I'd allow my friends to rape someone - many people will probably not like that answer, but I wish them luck establishing where to draw the line. Some of Sklansky's strongest threads have been about this subject - and much of it seems to come down to immediacy and emotional proximity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have trouble following why, sitting at my desk,
"pushing the button" is commission
"scratching my nose" is ommission.

When pushing the button will cause one known result and scratchingnose will cause a different known result, one bad one good, say.

luckyme

[madnak]

Do you have a standard according to which both of those acts are crimes of commission, but the same doesn't apply under other circumstances?

Also "scratching your nose" is rhetorically deceptive, as it's a matter of "pushing the button" or "not pushing the button" - scratching your nose has nothing to do with anything.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have a standard according to which both of those acts are crimes of commission, but the same doesn't apply under other circumstances?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't have a standard because I can't get them separated. That's the target of the OP, I'd like to hear how people do that ... two acts both with known outcomes, yet one is a commmission and one is ommission. It seems I could label them anyway I want and not change anything, either result would the the one I opted for.

[ QUOTE ]
Also "scratching your nose" is rhetorically deceptive, as it's a matter of "pushing the button" or "not pushing the button" - scratching your nose has nothing to do with anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it does, because the actual situation is like the ultimatums my wife gives me.
"If you push the button X will happen."
"IF you do anything else, Y will happen"
why does it matter that whether the 'anything else' is one thing or 100 things.

Or to try this tack, what's difference between the above and -
"Push the button and X will happen."
"Scratch your nose or tap the screen and Y will happen"
Only thing I see is that in the first situation the list of Y is too long to write out.

I can't be clear, I don't seem to get these ommission-commission at the level of my action being a factor.

luckyme

[madnak]

When was the last time you bought something expensive? A television, a car, you get the idea...

How many lives do you think you could have saved with that money if you'd acted differently? Imagine that you could have spent the money from that television to save a single life (and you could probably do even better). Now, if you buy the television the African kid dies. If you buy a Wii the African kid dies. If you stick the money into your saving account, the kid dies. But if you donate the money to (appropriate charity), the kid lives.

Is buying a television the same as killing the kid?

[FortunaMaximus]

A DS for a DS.

It depends.

Well, how do you develop a structure of good, if you don't let random growths develop? Pain, evil, sadness, grief. It gives the structure a happy balance.

And nobody likes too much of that [censored]. You only need a little anyway. It's a rigged ratio. Because evil can be such a malevolent, powerful force, that such a little amount of it creates an inverse explosion of good.

<font color="pink">Or something</font>

Take care, y'all.

K.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Is buying a television the same as killing the kid?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, let's see, first let's stipulate that the results are known ( not as easy as it sounds).

Option A - the kid lives.
Option TV - the kid dies.

hmmmm... yep. I'm not concerned with the moral implications at this time, merely trying to establish if there is any meaningful difference between ommission/commission.

If I'm going to let the kid die I want it to be because I've fully faced the situation and can accept the choice. I don't want to be hiding behind some semantic quibble over equivalent choices.

luckyme