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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    42
    It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child h... — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the child.

    Justice & Punishment
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Whether a failure to rescue constitutes harm depends on the chosen baseline.
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    • 2.Relative to the baseline of a world where the bystander was never present, the child would have drowned anyway.
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    • 3.The bystander's absence would not have changed the child's outcome.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The morally relevant baseline for harm is not a counterfactual world without the bystander, but the child's legitimate expectation of continued life.
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    • 2.A bystander who can rescue at negligible cost occupies a causal role that makes non-intervention a choice to let a harm persist, not a neutral omission.
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    • 3.Joel Feinberg's setback-to-interests account entails that failing to prevent a foreseeable worsening of another's condition constitutes harm when prevention was readily available.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Selecting the 'bystander never present' baseline is question-begging because it presupposes that positive duties cannot generate harm, which is precisely what is at issue.
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    • 2.Mill himself held that society may coerce individuals to perform 'certain positive acts for the benefit of others' such as saving a life, implying the failure to act is a harm-relevant event.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty

    Connections

    1 linked claim · 1 topic

    Moral Responsibility3 linked
    It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the child in the c...

    Related

    A bystander who can rescue at negligible cost occupies a causal role that makes ...It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the child in the c...Joel Feinberg's setback-to-interests account entails that failing to prevent a f...Mill himself held that society may coerce individuals to perform 'certain positi...
    +6 moreShow less
    Relative to the baseline of a world where the bystander was never present, the c...Selecting the 'bystander never present' baseline is question-begging because it ...The bystander's absence would not have changed the child's outcome.

    Similar

    It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the chil...96%Relative to the baseline of a world where the bystander was never pres...79%One may judge that Sergio ought to save the larger group of drowning p...77%If the failure to rescue does not constitute harm, the harm principle ...75%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill-moral-political
    View source passageHide passage
    In discussing enforceable duties to give evidence or Samaritan aid, Mill claims that the failure to confer benefits constitutes harm. But it is not in general true that the failure to provide benefits always counts as a harm. In many cases it seems not to. You would benefit me by transferring all your savings to my bank account (let us assume); it doesn’t follow that your failure to do so harms me. Why not? Presumably, because we assess harms counterfactually: if x harms me, it makes me signific
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    The morally relevant baseline for harm is not a counterfactual world without the...
    Therefore the bystander has not made the child worse off relative to that baseli...
    Whether a failure to rescue constitutes harm depends on the chosen baseline.
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit