Who's To Blame?
Oct. 29th, 2015 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeast(CN: abortion, a hypothetical scenario including ablism)
I recently got into an overlong discussion on abortion with one of those who self-identify as "pro-life". I repeatedly made the argument that, for women in poverty, strong social safety net, laws protecting pregnant employees from termination, and a high minimum wage would make the difference between choosing to abort a pregnancy or not. The response was that she should have done what it takes not to get pregnant and that, if she has an abortion, she is to blame, not the person with which I was discussing.
This isn't a post about abortion, it's a post about a part of my thinking that applies to a number of issues, specifically through a hypothetical about who's to blame.
This is a hypothetical I first encountered in High School Psych Class. This is one of those moral quandaries. (Note: the scenario includes mental health ablism and I'll be glad to hear fixes for that.)
In the hypothetical, we have a river, a bridge, and a ferry.
A madman lives on the bridge and is a severe threat to the life of any who try to cross.
The ferry's operator will carry you across the river for a fee.
On one side of the river lives one married person. Each day, that person takes the ferry across the river to have an affair. Each day, that person takes the ferry back across the river to return home before the spouse.
One day, the person, having already crossed to the affair, finds the funds to return absent, lost or perhaps forgotten in the first place.
The person asks the affair, who refuses to give or loan the money to pay the ferry operator. The ferry's operator refuses to carry the person for free or to take deferred payment.
The person, desperate to get home before the spouse, braves the bridge... and dies.
The question: Who is responsible for the person's death?
Feel free to take some time and think out your own answer. It's not a riddle, but a quandry, meant for you to think through and come to your own conclusions. So, please go ahead before reading my own answer.
...
...
Okay, time for my answer. For me, the answer is in another question. "Who am I talking to?"
For each individual, the relative guilt of the others is just a distraction. Each one made a choice, themselves, individually, that had a reasonably foreseeable consequence. The person, the affair, the ferry operator, the town that knew about this threat and didn't neutralize it, the community that didn't have an effective and compassionate response to mental health issues, the voters who didn't want to pay taxes so that crossing the river safely would be guaranteed regardless of personal finance. Any one of these could easily forsee the consequences and either did or did not act to address that consequence.
I could talk to the ferry operator about how the person "shouldn't have had an affair", but once the person needed to get back or else try the bridge, that wasn't going to stop anybody from dying.
This isn't a good analogy for a lot of problems. The person did wrong and desperation has no obligation to attach to any kind of personal failure. But, it is a matter of responsibility, in the moral if not the legal sense.
It's also worthy of note that I can't go too far into this. There's over-blaming to be done for anybody who couldn't figure out how to help a loved one on a bad path.
But, the important part is that this doesn't give an easy out from responsibility because "they're to blame". Blame and responsibility aren't in finite amount. More people sharing doesn't mean each has less.
I recently got into an overlong discussion on abortion with one of those who self-identify as "pro-life". I repeatedly made the argument that, for women in poverty, strong social safety net, laws protecting pregnant employees from termination, and a high minimum wage would make the difference between choosing to abort a pregnancy or not. The response was that she should have done what it takes not to get pregnant and that, if she has an abortion, she is to blame, not the person with which I was discussing.
This isn't a post about abortion, it's a post about a part of my thinking that applies to a number of issues, specifically through a hypothetical about who's to blame.
This is a hypothetical I first encountered in High School Psych Class. This is one of those moral quandaries. (Note: the scenario includes mental health ablism and I'll be glad to hear fixes for that.)
In the hypothetical, we have a river, a bridge, and a ferry.
A madman lives on the bridge and is a severe threat to the life of any who try to cross.
The ferry's operator will carry you across the river for a fee.
On one side of the river lives one married person. Each day, that person takes the ferry across the river to have an affair. Each day, that person takes the ferry back across the river to return home before the spouse.
One day, the person, having already crossed to the affair, finds the funds to return absent, lost or perhaps forgotten in the first place.
The person asks the affair, who refuses to give or loan the money to pay the ferry operator. The ferry's operator refuses to carry the person for free or to take deferred payment.
The person, desperate to get home before the spouse, braves the bridge... and dies.
The question: Who is responsible for the person's death?
Feel free to take some time and think out your own answer. It's not a riddle, but a quandry, meant for you to think through and come to your own conclusions. So, please go ahead before reading my own answer.
...
...
Okay, time for my answer. For me, the answer is in another question. "Who am I talking to?"
For each individual, the relative guilt of the others is just a distraction. Each one made a choice, themselves, individually, that had a reasonably foreseeable consequence. The person, the affair, the ferry operator, the town that knew about this threat and didn't neutralize it, the community that didn't have an effective and compassionate response to mental health issues, the voters who didn't want to pay taxes so that crossing the river safely would be guaranteed regardless of personal finance. Any one of these could easily forsee the consequences and either did or did not act to address that consequence.
I could talk to the ferry operator about how the person "shouldn't have had an affair", but once the person needed to get back or else try the bridge, that wasn't going to stop anybody from dying.
This isn't a good analogy for a lot of problems. The person did wrong and desperation has no obligation to attach to any kind of personal failure. But, it is a matter of responsibility, in the moral if not the legal sense.
It's also worthy of note that I can't go too far into this. There's over-blaming to be done for anybody who couldn't figure out how to help a loved one on a bad path.
But, the important part is that this doesn't give an easy out from responsibility because "they're to blame". Blame and responsibility aren't in finite amount. More people sharing doesn't mean each has less.
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Date: 2015-10-30 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-31 04:14 am (UTC)