Why Is It Morally Right To Save A Drowning Child

505 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does mill affirm Justice through utilitarianism

In my opinion, I honestly believe that it is morally right to save a drowning child even if the reason behind it is because one will be monetarily rewarded for it. I agree with John Stuart Mill’s argument that it is acceptable, even though the reason for helping is selfish. If a child was drowning and there is no hope for the child to save him or herself, then it should be common sense for one to go in and save that child. I personally believe that every individual on this Earth has a valuable life with a worth, so for me to just walk away and ignore the drowning child to die would bring so much guilt and that decision will haunt me forever. In order for the child to be saved, something or someone had to be sacrificed; in this scenario, I am sacrificing my own morality at the cost of saving the child. …show more content…

Although it is me that receives the greater risk, in the end, it was something for the greater good; this greater good is the child still being alive. All in all, I agree with Mill’s argument and it was morally right for me to save the drowning child, even though my intentions is so that I will be monetarily rewarded. As long as the child is safe and did not die, then my intentions should not matter. Assuming that I succeed in saving the drowning child, in my opinion, I believe that it is the desirable consequences that make my action right. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble . This is a win-win situation for both participants in the scenario: the child is saved from drowning and I am monetarily rewarded. The desirable consequences may appear very greedy to others, but what matters is that the child is alive and I did not abandon him or her to

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Peter Singer's The Obligation To Assist

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    Peter Singer’s position in his work “The Obligation to Assist”, is that all people are morally obligated to help one another without it causing any additional harm. He refers to “comparable moral significance”, which means that helping another must not cause anything worse to happen, or be a morally wrong action in and of itself, and must also be done if a comparably awful event can be stopped. His first premise is that if absolute poverty is wrong, and it can be stopped without worse consequences, then it should be stopped altogether. His second premise is that if you were to see a drowning child, you would help them out of the lake, even if your coat happens to get wet. His third premise is that morals do not need to be examined, as the need to help others should be logical without examining the morality behind it. His final premise is that the First World is rich enough to reduce poverty, and can therefore feel obligated to help. The implication of this position is that no matter what situation surrounds the person in need of help, another person would be obligated to assist them. Thusly, people who could help without having to forgo “comparable moral significance” and refrain from

    Read More

  • Is it Ethical to Have a Child for the Purpose of Saving another Child´s Life?

    1010 Words  | 3 Pages

    ‘Is it ethical to have a child for the purpose of saving another child’s life?’

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Man In The Water By Roger Rosenblatt

    937 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, “The Man in the Water” the author, Roger Rosenblatt, shows humans potential selflessness. After a plane crashes into the ocean, one man, the hero of the story, saves the lives of many before saving himself. As the rescuers were handing down the floaties to bring people to safety, every time one was given to this man he risked his life and handed it to someone else. Every time that he decides to save someone else he is one step closer to dying, and he knows that too, but instead he helps those in need around him. Although in the end he did not survive, what he did had effects on those watching. It showed people that any person could be a hero. The man in the water was a man with courage, and no fear, he sacrificed his life for the life of many who may not have survived if it wasn't for him or what he had done. While nature was against him and the people he fought against it to let those people live the rest of their life. In the article, the author, Roger Rosenblatt demonstrates the potential heroism and

    Read More

  • Singer Cullity

    1687 Words  | 4 Pages

    Contributing more money would itself harm me enough to excuse my failing to save any single life directly at that cost.

    Read More

  • Barbara Huttmann's A Crime Of Compassion

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    whatever it takes to keep them alive. That is not moral, that is legal. But

    Read More

  • Treating or Terminating: The Dilemma of Impaired Infants and the Right to Be Human

    1420 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aiding the death of infants is a much disputed controversy in healthcare. H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. provides an ethical view that there is a moral duty not to treat an impaired infant when this will only prolong a painful life or would only lead to a painful death. It is these individuals, like Engelhardt, who must defend this position against groups who consider that we have the ability to prolong the lives of impaired infants, thus we are obligated to do so.

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill's Case: Deontology Vs. Utilitarianism

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."(Mill) Utilitarian’s choices and decisions are based on the results of having the maximum number of happiness to the minimal number of pain. For instance, with this case study, Utilitarianism would be pro for the shooting of the intruder. The reasoning behind this is if the intruder were to open fire on the family, there would be several casualties. Whereas if you were to shoot the intruder there would only be one casualty. This would maximize the happiness with having more lives saved, rather than the pain with more lives lost. With saving more lives you are going with the majority which is the amount of people being saved for the one life that is loss. Also Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. Meaning in this example that watching your family die would be extremely painful for yourself and the loved ones going through the tragedy. But saving your family would create happiness or “pleasure” because they are now safe and not in any type of danger. The pleasure of saving your family greatly outweighs the pain that would come from watching your family die. Having to mourn all the

    Read More

  • The Utilitarian Views Of John Stuart Mill And Philippa Foot's To Kill Or Let Live

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian belief that the moral thing to do is that which creates the greatest amount of happiness to greatest number of people, as well as, Immanuel Kant’s belief that murder is always morally wrong. In Rescue II, where the one individual is trapped on the path leading to the party of the five that need to be rescued; John Stuart Mill would suggest running over the one individual to save the party of five. His belief that saving the party of five would create the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number people or vice versa; that saving the party of five would create the least amount of suffering to the least amount of people is absurd. While John Stuart Mill has a great point with his views; this is still considered murder and or killing. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of one human being by another; and according to Immanuel Kant, the majority of the population, and the laws it is morally wrong. I concur that Immanuel Kant’s belief that murder is morally wrong. Kant says “I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him” (Kant). This statement does in fact coincide with one of universal law. In no way, shape, or form would it be acceptable to murder one individual to save the lives of the party of five. Making the choice to prioritize the value of one individual’s life over

    Read More

  • On Utilitarianism

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    In defining utilitarianism, J.S. Mill counters the popular belief that this theory only deals with the pleasure yielded by actions of individuals by stating that, "the theory of utility... [is] not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure... together with exemption from pain" (596). He goes on to argue that the foundation of this principle lies in the fact that an individual's action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to "produce the reverse of happiness" (597). For example, an enemy forcibly entered your village with the intent on killing every woman and child in town if no one turned over the sniper that took some of their men out. If you tell them who the sniper is, no harm will be done to the women and children, but since the sniper is long gone, you decide to tell the enemy that the town bum is the sniper. Since you judge his life to be of least worth in all of the village in terms of future goodness, would it be right to send him to his death? The answer is yes, this act would be the right act as it would promote the happiness in the rest of the village because his life isn't worth the hundreds of lives of women and children (Paraphrased from Joyce, ...

    Read More

  • Extreme Poverty In Peter Singer's 'Rich And Poor'

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    This statement leads me to my next point of Singer’s argument that being one of many to assist does not take away the responsibility that you have as an individual. He supports his viewpoint with a progressive scale of every person donating at least one percent of their income and taxpayers giving five percent of their income. If everyone in affluent countries donated with Singer’s proposed scale, they would raise $1.5 trillion dollars a year –which is eight times more than what poor countries aim for in hopes of improving health care, schooling, reducing death rates, living standards, and more. Even though Singer proposes the progressive scale for giving money to aid extreme poverty, he does not introduce any alternative methods to giving aid. Singer presented this point in the argument accurately, but is not strong enough to support the child-drowning example. In comparison to the child drowning, Singer’s proposal is weak because you cannot hold people accountable for not donating a percentage of their income; however, you can hold a person or group of people accountable for watching and not saving the child from

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism In John Stuart Mill

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Stuart Mill argues that the rightness or wrongness of an action, or type of action, is a function of the goodness or badness of its consequences, where good consequences are ones that maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In this essay I will evaluate the essential features of Mill’s ethical theory, how that utilitarianism gives wrong answers to moral questions and partiality are damaging to Utilitarianism.

    Read More

  • Global Poverty

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Peter Singer, in his influential essay “Famine, Affluence and Poverty”, argues that affluent people have the moral obligation to contribute to charity in order to save the poor from suffering; any spending on luxuries would be unjustified as long as it can be used to improve other’s lives. In developing his argument, Singer involved one crucial premise known as the Principle of Sacrifice—“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it”. To show that such principle has the property to be held universal, Singer refers to a scenario in which a person witnesses a drowning child. Most people, by common sense, hold that the witness has the moral duty to rescue the child despite some potential costs. Since letting people die in poverty is no different from watching a child drowning without offering any help, Singer goes on and concludes that affluent people have the moral duty to keep donating to the poor until an increment of money makes no further contribution.

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    Act-utilitarianism is a theory suggesting that actions are right if their utility or product is at least as great as anything else that could be done in the situation or circumstance. Despite Mill's conviction that act-utilitarianism is an acceptable and satisfying moral theory there are recognized problems. The main objection to act-utilitarianism is that it seems to be too permissive, capable of justifying any crime, and even making it morally obligatory to do so. This theory gives rise to the i...

    Read More

  • Mercy Killing Case Study

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is a big question that most people often struggle with to decide when it is consider appropriate to assist an individual with mercy killing. In 1993, Robert Latimer a Saskatchewan farmer took the life of his twelve-year old daughter Tracy in an act of mercy killing. Latimer’s daughter suffered from the most dreadful form of cerebral palsy. She was severely disabled and had a mind of a four month old baby. Tracy was confined to a wheelchair and had endured multiple operations. She couldn’t walk, talk, or feed herself and she was in constant pain. After Robert Latimer learned that his daughter needed to go through another round of surgery, he knew he had to do something to save her from going through more pain. Therefore, Mr. Latimer decided

    Read More

  • Moral obligation to help

    1924 Words  | 4 Pages

    Morality can be based on consciousness and various perspectives but morals, regardless of distinct cultures, have a core fundamental of comprehending what is right and wrong. By this, we are held to an obligation to assist those in need. This means that we should feel obligated to do whatever it is within our might to aid situations that need assistance.

    Read More

More about Why Is It Morally Right To Save A Drowning Child

Open Document