From: Rick Knight (rknight@platinum.com)
Date: Mon Aug 25 1997 - 08:27:22 MDT
EvMick wrote:
My position is that it's none of my business what someone else
does...with his dog..his property...or his children...however
reprehensible or noble it may be...as long as I have no
responsibility...am not damaged....then I have no authority..and would
be well advised to mind my own business.
Rick Knight responds:
One quickly advances into ethical discussions as to the point where
one decides it necessary to intervene in morally-offensive or
life-threatening situations. If you see your neighbor abusing his
dog, do you call the SPCA? If you hear domestic violence in the house
regularly, do you call the police? If you see your neighbor behaving
like a voyeur peering out the window with telescope at a neighboring
window, do you inform the neighbor they are being spied upon? If you
see your neighbor dumping waste oil down the gutter, do you alert
environmental authorities? If you know your neighbor's stealing cable
tv access, do you call the company and report it?
Everyone has a different line they draw. Any of the situations above
seem intolerable to me but all would dirive a different reaction for
me based upon the dynamics of the relationship I had with the
neighbor, my own sense of safety, etc.. They're not black and white
for me though they are all essentially ethically inappropriate.
Until the point where humans in a civilized capacity become
accountable for their own actions individually, I have to accept some
ownership of our actions by governmental authorities. Perhaps the
discussion should be shifted from the questions of involvement and
ownership to how to we embue accountability on the masses?
Brain experts, is there an "accountability center" we can regulate?
(presuming we can agree on what constitutes accountability <G>).
Rick
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