Comment by pdpi 14 days ago
Fundamentally, rules almost always come with compromises — for the sake of making rules understandable by humans, they have to be relatively simple. Simple rules for complex situations will always forbid some amount of good behaviour, and allow some bad behaviour. Many of society's parasites live in the space of "allowable bad behaviour", but there is a lot of value to knowing how to exploit the "forbidden good behaviour" space.
AKA "perverse incentive"[0]
In law there is the concept of "rules VS. Standards" which seems to relate to what you explain.
For which side?
Most examples boil down to common sense. Nobody is going to arrest a 14 year old for driving their dying parent to the hospital.
Similarly, it is reprehensible but legal to pull up a chair and watch a child drown in a pool.
There is a difference between law and morality, and humans will use the second to selectively enforce the former.
> Similarly, it is reprehensible but legal to pull up a chair and watch a child drown in a pool.
In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy.
> In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy.
There's video from a few years back that shows very American cops standing outside a burning house at night, knowing there was a young child still in it. A passing pizza delivery dude[1] rescued the 6-year old, handed her to cop, and ended up requiring hospitalization. In the online discussion, everyone called the rescuer a hero, but I don't recall seeing a single condemnation of the cops (a "first-responder") who didn't enter the burning house.
edit: 1. the hero's name is Nick Bostic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBlE52qKKuw
I think you'll never find a case where someone got in trouble for not being a hero. I've recently found myself in a somewhat related situation where a guy turned violent in a pub... first I tried to calm him down and almost got hit... he then turned to other guys who were nearby, and one of them got punched in the face and fell unconscious. My family was with me and told me to stay the hell out of it, but I thought that would be extremely cowardly so I jumped at the guy to try to keep him down, but he was strong and I got a punch in the eye which cost me a week with a black eye, but could've easily turned out much worse for me. If I had just stayed quiet, would I be "negligent"?? The police told me what I did was good as I was trying to help someone, but I didn't have any obligation to do it.
In the case of a child in a pool, the difference is a matter of degree. What if I am terrified of water myself? Does that justify my inaction? What if I just "froze", which is common in stressful situations. Does anything justify not doing something?
In France at least, and I believe in the US to, it is illegal to not do something if you can.
It does not mean that you should dive and bring him back. In fact, it is not recommended unless you know what you are doing as you may put yourself in danger and need rescuing yourself. But if there are other people around who can help and you don't alert them, or if you have a working phone and don't call whatever emergency number is appropriate, than that's illegal.
EDIT: It appears that it is not illegal do do nothing in most of the US. The law only protects you from consequences of trying to help.
I suppose it would depend a lot on the specifics of the situation, but there's less obligation to help others than I would have thought:
> Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy.
Then you're living in a fantasy world.
The law is not indented as a one stop shop for instructions for life or how to be a good person.
The law serves to stop people from damaging each other, not make them help each other.
Most of common law is based on the premise you dont owe anyone anything but to be left alone.
Unless you are the parent, legal guardian, or someone with some other special legal duty to the child where this might be criminal neglect, yes, this is legal in, AFAIK, every US legal jurisdiction — there is no general legal duty to render aid.
In Germany it is different.
- failure to render assistance ("unterlassene Hilfeleistung") up to one year in prison or a fine
- Exposed to a life-threatening situation ("Aussetzung", § 221 StGB) – If a person leaves someone helpless in a life-threatening situation, they could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison
Edit: Also note that murder would often give you 16 years in germany even though it is called live long.
This example does not illustrate what do you think it does.
The first is technically illegal. The second is not only within the law, it's required by the law. The speed limit isn't a limit and in most jurisdictions, the law requires you to reduce to a safe speed when the conditions require it. The speed limit is not the only law that dictates a legal speed.
Or, further, taking waste food to distribute to homeless is also against the rules. I used to work at a pizza hut express, we would have small personal pan pizzas in a ready to go area for like 15-20 min then throw them away if they were unsold. At the end of the day you'd have a trash can full of personal pan pizzas that were honestly fine to eat. You'd get fired for doing anything with them though.
The worst of all worlds is when a blind application of the rules results in bad behavior.
This situation seems to come up frequently, and I'm very often appalled at how readily otherwise normal people will "follow the rules" even when it's clearly and objectively bad, and there may even be existing pathways to seek exceptions.