This is a hypothetical situation:
Someone in your family that you really love got infected by a malicious disease. She/he might die at any moment and the disease is so rare that no cure has been found yet. Great thanks to dear God, a drug company just announced on a national broadcast that they have succeeded in making a medicine for this disease. Your whole family is gleeful to hear the news. However, you find out that the price of the medicine is 500 million dollars and all the joy is gone, realizing that there is no way to afford the medicine. You beg the company if they can show some mercy by allowing you to pay the money later. But they reject to do so. The only way you can save your loved one is to steal the medicine.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
I am sure that most of the people would do anything to save their family’s lives and decide to steal the medicine, even though you will have to stay in jail for the rest of your life. I don’t have any statistics to support my assumption. But I do sincerely hope that what I am thinking is true.
(*JFR, I am not saying that it is okay to run outside to somewhere to steal whatever you want for your family. I just wish that we all have a family that is most valuable to us.)
This is another hypothetical situation:
The situation is most likely the same as the one before. Except for that the person who is dying is a man who you have just met on the street for the first time. He looks so desperate for life and he is asking for help from you.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Just IGNORE the man and continue walking to wherever you were going, acting like NOTHING EVER HAPPENED?
WHAT WOULD I DO? This very question was asked in our english class yesterday by Ms. Porter and I answered without doubt that I would break into the drug company and get the medicine for the dying man. (I said I might be crazy before. Don’t be so shocked.) I don’t know exactly why I said it though. I knew that I am going to be in jail forever after committing an illegal action like that. However, I kept on thinking that I needed to save this person’s LIFE. And I thought that this is how other people would feel also.
However, very unlike my belief, almost the entire class answered that they would choose to casually walk by the ill man since it’s not like they can care so much for anybody or everybody. This was an instant hit both to my mind and heart. I was about to stand up and argue against my classmates in any moment.
SOMEONE is DYING. A LIFE is being LOST. How can you simply decide to NOT CARE just because the man is a stranger?
The emotion that was rising inside me was neither anger nor disappointment. I know it because I actually was understanding, in the back of my head, why they had to take such stance. It was me who had a problem not the other people. Who in the world would decide to steal something that is worth 500 million dollars for a man that you have just met, even if he is dying? No one in the normal state would be so kind or possibly stupid enough.
I didn’t know what bothered me so much about other people being radical and choosing to do what is best for them. However, now that I think about it, I was so disturbed because it seemed like my hope was being lost. I hate to see people turn more indifferent and emotionless. I wanted my classmates to say that they would CARE. It was not a matter of whether they would steal the medicine or not, it was about whether they would CARE or NOT when they see a poor man dying on the street.
So, this is my question to you guys.
WOULD YOU BOTHER TO CARE?
(Photo Credits to Flickr.com / This blog post was originally posted at E S P I A L)
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You and your classmates are at different stages of moral development. According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, you seem to be in the post-conventional stage, level 6. The quote below is from Wikipedia, but it says pretty much the same thing as my Ed Psch textbook, so I think it's accurate:
"In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way (see Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'[13]). This can be done by imagining what one would do being in anyone's shoes, who imagined what anyone would do thinking the same (see John Rawls's 'veil of ignorance'[14]). The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it. It appears that people rarely if ever reach stage six of Kohlberg's model."
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I have to say, your classmates are not alone in their view. I personally would do anything I could to help anyone dying- whether I knew them or not. Just because we do not know a person does not mean we are excused for not helping them. Police officers and firefighters help those unknown to them everyday- they have made it their life's work. Government actions even support fighting for those wronged and dying- evidence: War in Iraq. Some may see it as a weakness, but humanity means helping those in need.