Until the legal system adjudicates, it is ambiguous what responsibility is borne by the two parties; also unclear are expectations or assumptions regarding accountability, foreseeability, and preventability of actions or effects.
If I could not have reasonably prevented you from running into me, it isn’t my fault that I didn’t avoid it, but it may still be my fault for moving in a manner in which I can’t respond to situations outside my control. Likewise, if could have acted differently to forestall, reduce, or prevent a problem from occurring, and yet I did not act in a way which would avert known unwanted results, I am not necessarily culpable, but I may be found lacking in grounds to blame the other for also not acting differently.
Good Samaritan laws[1] try to embody this implicit social expectation, but enforcement of these laws can lead to its own sort of selective moral policing.[2][3]
Many of these same social undercurrents also seem relevant to the new focus on social justice and cancel culture. It seems that those being judged often feel that they are judged too harshly, and bristle at being judged at all. I hope we can find ways to stop pointing fingers and start linking and building. It’s far easier and quicker to tear down than to build, and its impact is just as fleeting, thus the need for more finger pointing. Outrage is a renewable resource, but we as moral agents are only capable of feeling so much before we become desensitized to it in some way.
I worry that one day people won’t be able to care about bad things happening in the world, because they don’t relate to a shared society at all. I hope for a future society[4] where social and civic participation at the individual level is collaborative and welcomed, and where all perspectives are judged on their merits outside an echo chamber.
If I could not have reasonably prevented you from running into me, it isn’t my fault that I didn’t avoid it, but it may still be my fault for moving in a manner in which I can’t respond to situations outside my control. Likewise, if could have acted differently to forestall, reduce, or prevent a problem from occurring, and yet I did not act in a way which would avert known unwanted results, I am not necessarily culpable, but I may be found lacking in grounds to blame the other for also not acting differently.
Good Samaritan laws[1] try to embody this implicit social expectation, but enforcement of these laws can lead to its own sort of selective moral policing.[2][3]
Many of these same social undercurrents also seem relevant to the new focus on social justice and cancel culture. It seems that those being judged often feel that they are judged too harshly, and bristle at being judged at all. I hope we can find ways to stop pointing fingers and start linking and building. It’s far easier and quicker to tear down than to build, and its impact is just as fleeting, thus the need for more finger pointing. Outrage is a renewable resource, but we as moral agents are only capable of feeling so much before we become desensitized to it in some way.
I worry that one day people won’t be able to care about bad things happening in the world, because they don’t relate to a shared society at all. I hope for a future society[4] where social and civic participation at the individual level is collaborative and welcomed, and where all perspectives are judged on their merits outside an echo chamber.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
[3] https://www.policeone.com/police-jobs-and-careers/articles/a...
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20170221125058/http://lareviewof...