What do I owe my fellow man?

Great Debates
21

I agree wholeheartedly. Of course, self-obligation is usually the strongest kind, and almost impossible to walk away from. Funny how that works.

22

I think the “first do no harm” principle sounds good but is impractical. All the things you do have consequences good and bad and inaction has consequences good and bad.

I gotta go with the three principles my Mom taught me:

  1. Take care of your own - You gotta define that yourself. Your family, your friends, your inner circle, those people you love. Kind of a “Think Globally, act locally” sort of deal. Spend your energies on those around you where you can have the most effect.

  2. Do unto others - nuff said.

  3. Give everybody a chance, if you can - This is the toughest one.

23

I dunno about this “You don’t owe anybody anything, except do no harm and be nice to your children”. Here’s how I see it:

“Owe” is a funny word, by which I mean moral obligation is a funny concept. What do we mean when we say you owe it to your children to be decent parents? Well, seems to me what we mean by it is just that you’re a particular degree of asshole if you don’t. But if that’s what moral obligation is, then I would imagine it applies in more than just parent-child relationships. Perhaps not as strongly (though I don’t think the parent-child relationship is so uniquely privileged as that no other obligations can ever be as strong), but nonetheless, you have other obligations too. There are different degrees of asshole, and, accordingly, different degrees of moral obligation, but I’d say, at different degrees, you owe various things to your family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers on the bus. If you see a stranger having a heart attack, you have a decent obligation to call 911. To a lesser extent than that, you owe it to your friends to at least try to cheer them up when they’re feeling down and come to you for consolation, even if you’re really busy (You can weigh that obligation against other factors and decide to go through with it or not; it’s not a character-destroying sin if you don’t fulfill it, but it’s some sort of small obligation on your part anyway). And, to a lesser extent than that, you owe it to your coworkers to not take food from the fridge that isn’t yours. (I can imagine feeling the last two should be reversed in priority, but in considering how I’d feel about a person who engaged in each of the transgressions, I have to go with this ordering. Though, of course, context is everything.)

Of course, there’s some subjectivity to determining the assholishness/acceptability of various behaviors, and thus to just how much you owe the people around you in various situations. But I’m ok with that; at any rate, I don’t see any reason to bleach the concept into a totally binary thing where you owe most people just about nothing in most contexts on the grounds that the only moral obligations you have are the ultra-strong ones like “Do no harm”.

24

Of course, if the one you are advising to “do unto others …” is a masochist, we have a problem. :wink:

25

Here’s my moral intuition on the subject: There but for mostly luck go I.

I’m not living through genocide/famine/homelessness/tuberculosis by any keen merit of my own. It’s just luck. I didn’t create any of these situations, but not being in them, I can’t help but feel some obligation to help. And I think that arises out of the sense that I could easily be in that situation if fate hadn’t rolled the dice and stuck me here.

Suppose we all started out with nothing, toiling in a field. And one day, by luck, I found a secret passageway to a mansion with a swimming pool. I might not let you all live in my mansion, but I’m sure as heck gonna let you swim in my pool. I’d be a dick not to.