"Why should any morality be obligatory?"?

Question

If a man walking along a river bank, sees a man drowning, should he drown saving him or watch him drown. IF it was a woman or child would the obligation be stronger? Why? ( to both questions ).

Answer 1

Its not obligatory; its human nature. We are by nature social animals and it is our sense of survival that kicks in when these situations occur; maybe not for one's self but for others.

Answer 2

mmm tricky question.i believe we each have a moral obligation to help one another and especially people in a weaker position than ourselves.The problem is the man would not have any definates in this scenario but would have to weigh up a lot of options i.e could his actions benifit the drowning man ,what the chances are of him surviving his rescue attempt ,if he didnt how would that affect people who were reliant on him ,wife , children etc. But i believe that we all should help anyone in a weaker position ,no matter what that may be , even if there is a risk to ourselves .As regards wether it should be different if it was a woman or child the answer is no but unfortanately human nature has not got pc yet and i believe most men would take a bigger risk to save a woman and both men and women would take a huge risk to there personal well being to save a child

Answer 3

Morality is not an obligation. It is a judgement. There are many things that would affect my judgement of the situation. Anything I decide to do in the situation would only be my obligation to myself. The obligation I would have to myself would be stronger or weaker according to my judgement of the situation.

In my case, I highly value other people. Life would be boring without them. And I would not like to live in a world in which people just let others die when they could be helped. Therefore, I would tend to want to help a person drowning. For me, the only consideration in helping the person would be my risk to myself in doing so and my likelyhood of being able to save the person. As an extreme example, if there was 100% risk to myself and 0% chance of it helping the person, I probably wouldn't try. Of course, at the spur of the moment, there usually isn't much thought between seeing and taking action, so who knows what I might risk to save someone.

Answer 4

Morality is a protection mechanism in society. It ensures that all members of society are reasonable safe. If individuals are allowed to define morality on their own terms, what would prevent someone from assuming that your life is unworthy and that it could be taken. Or someone could decide that because you are not dually degreed that you work day is somehow less important and should not be compensated as well.

If a man sees someone a man drowning he should help him because one day, it could be him in the need of kindness from a stranger. The obligation should be stronger if it is a woman or a child because of the physical limitations. Most women and all children are physically weaker and more vulnerable in times of physical crisis. Hope that helps.

Answer 5

If I saw a man/woman/child drowning, I'd try to save them. If I"m not a good swimmer, I'd try to find a line or floaty for them, or yell for help. I would not watch them drown, when I can try to save them.

Sadly in our society, many would watch that man/woman/child drown because we are a very me-orienatied society. What's in it for me is becoming our motto. We have the obligation to be moral because it is no longer our common practice.

Answer 6

Because man is a social being and to be accepted among his own he needs to exhibit qualities of caring which include an obligation to help one another. Alone he is nothing.

The obligation to save someone from drowning should be the same whether its a man woman or child.

Answer 7

Morality is not obligatory. It is completely voluntary. You choose to save a man, woman, child from drowning because it would make you feel good that you did a good deed. Some may choose not to do it because it's too much trouble. It wouldn't matter if it were a man, woman or child.

It is immoral to cheat on your spouse. If morality was obligatory, we would not cheat. It is immoral to kill, steal and lie. Yet we as a society do those too. Morality is not obligatory. It is completely voluntary.

Answer 8

No one is obligated to save anyone, but a person of strong moral character does not turn a blind eye to the desperate needs of others. We may not be able to help everyone who has a need, but we can do the best with the resources and abilities we have.

Answer 9

He should try to save the person. If the only way to save him is to die himself, he need not save him at the expense of his own life. However, there will very likely be other ways to help him and reduce the likelihood of his drowning.

It's exactly the same for a man or a woman or a child.

Answer 10

Morality is a social contract...not obligatory unless you want to benefit in any way from the society.

With respect to your hypothetical: if you can't swim, you can't save the drowning person...so your obligation is to "aid" the person, not to sacrifice yourself...

Answer 11

If he cannot swim, why should he try if he is absolutely unable to help him.
Sure, try something, but don't end up with two victims doing it.

The obligation is no stronger regardless who it is. If you cannot help, you cannot help.

May I ask what the point of the question is?

One point to keep in mind----when giving resuscitation, the instruction given to me was to stop after 30 minutes. Why, well two reasons. One, chances are the victim is not going to revive. Two, they don't want to come up on you also dead for trying beyond the limit.