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fucktoyprincess -> RE: Are you obligated to help? (12/5/2012 11:58:09 AM)
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I think one should try to help to the extent possible - which is completely situationally based, and subjective. In other words, I don't think I have the moral obligation to put either myself or others who are close to me, at risk, in order to help a complete stranger.
So the easy cases are easy. Old lady collapsed on the street type stuff. Witnessing a crime in action where you can safely get help. Yes. Call 9-1-1.
But the hard cases are hard. And if one wasn't there, I don't think we can fully know or appreciate the determination that someone else makes about their own personal safety in regards to trying to help someone else. Just recently, a man was pushed onto the subway tracks by a homeless person and got hit by a train. As it turns out, the man was actually drunk, and may have actually started the altercation with the homeless person that resulted in the pushing. According to the news reports there were many people on the platform. But I can tell you right now that if I had been there, I likely would have done nothing. At my height and weight there is absolutely NO WAY I am going to try and pull someone up onto the platform (especially a grown male) because most certainly, I would end up inadvertently pulled onto the tracks myself. And in the 22 seconds that passed, I'm not sure I would have been able to fully think through and execute on a better plan of action to save the person (I think you could save the person in that kind of situation by getting people to assist you, and using the saving someone who has fallen through ice technique to pull someone up i.e., lying flat on the platform with others holding onto you - but that takes time to implement - and 22 seconds is not a lot of time when everyone is panicked. And especially in a scenario where the victim appears drunk and belligerent, and is engaged in a hostile encounter with another belligerent person - I say where is it written that I have to risk my life and risk my mother having to deal with the death of her child - all over something that had nothing to do with me.
I know my personal and physical limitations - and I won't push myself any further than acceptable for a complete stranger. You won't find me swimming out in a turbulent ocean to save someone even if I am the only other person on the beach - I am not a strong enough swimmer. But I do know CPR and would certainly do CPR if someone else could get the person out of the water.
In addition, there have been numerous cases in the past where people have been sued for trying to help. Yes. Sued for injuries caused while trying to save the person. And while some jurisdictions have laws to protect people from these types of lawsuits, I don't believe all jurisdictions do.
As for the Las Vegas case, maybe someone more familiar with it could answer for me why Cash was not prosecuted as an accessory to the crime given that he was not a random bystander - he was a friend of the murderer. I assume it was because Cash was engaged in no other illegal activity at the time, so he was treated as being similar to a complete stranger. In contrast, for example, to the case where if you are committing a crime and one person kills someone, everyone in the group can be charged as accessories to murder? I like to think in that case that if Cash had not been a friend of the murderer that he would, in fact, have called the police. Difficult to know.
And even in the case of loved ones, sometimes one has to also determine what makes the best sense in the moment. To the extent there were other people on the beach, how much is one obligated to help this couple and their son out? Sometimes other people's voluntary assumption of risk and subjective determination of what is most important is not really our issue. Had other people gone to try and help this family, they would also be dead. Ironically, the dog survived:
http://www.local8now.com/news/headlines/Couple-dies-trying-to-save-dog-180824801.html
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