"This would actually be a good topic for the blog."- Professor Tresan
Well then, let's do it.
Before I get into the muck of things, I want to point out that this will likely be a post split into two parts, following the two parts of the in-class conversation I found most interesting. First, my original question: Do you (anyone who wants to contribute their thoughts, anyway) think a person who is themselves not emotionally, physically, mentally or otherwise hurt, but who is part of a group in which another member is hurt, done any harm?
Secondly: The three ways to define "harm" Professor Tresan suggested.
So, first, my own question. When I was figuring out how to pose this question, I was thinking about Ferguson and the events that occurred last year. I wanted to make sure I wasn't just bringing an idea forth that applies only to one situation, and want to make it clear that indeed there are many other examples: Deaf people potentially harmed by anti-Deaf attitudes; Palestinians who live in the U.S. yet are potentially harmed by what is happening in Isreal/Palestine; Muslims who are potentially harmed by the Muslim killings at the hands of ISIS/ISIL, etc.
The main idea is this however: I was thinking about one specific person (not one I have in mind from real life, just a particular human being, go ahead and name them what you'd like). This person identifies very heavily with the certain community he is part of (Ferguson example=African-American community, Palestine example=Palestinian community, etc.). This person is active in the community and protective of it and is very proud to identify with it; in general this person is very much connected with the community.
Someone else in the community- one other particular person- is harmed directly (physically, mentally, emotionally or otherwise). Do you think this constitutes harm to the first person I described?
My thoughts are that when such a tightly knit community exists, damage done to one is damage done to them all. Not only is harm done to one of them a threat to the rest of them, but there is a care in this person I've described (and perhaps even in every member of the community) that harm is done to when another member of the community suffers.
However, I found it to be an interesting question because it's very possible that this person never cared about their community, and harm is still done to the same person, and this person is inflicted by no harm whatsoever. Looking at it from a strictly factual point of view, the original person was done no harm to them. They could carry on in their life exactly as they had before. They could act as if nothing had ever happened. Yet, it seems like the person is affected some way, and it's quite curious what kind of effect that is.
Now, for the second part, more to the idea of harm itself. Professor Tresan suggested three definitions of "harm." The first was a direct harm, the sort that the second person I described underwent. Easy enough to understand.
The second is a sort of harm that isn't inflicted directly on a person, but that the person is aware of. This would fit the first person I described.
The third- and most interesting to consider in my opinion- is a harm neither done directly to a person or a harm that person is aware of. To understand that, my mind went Poland during the beginning years of Nazi Germany, when the Nazis were going through towns and capturing Jews to bring them to concentration camps. It's not hard to imagine a young Jewish person who is kept completely in the dark by their parents, and who for one reason or another has not had any idea of the coming Nazis or that this has been happening in other cities; indeed they have no idea about Nazis or Hitler at all. That child could be playing inside with a toy while Nazis are three blocks over capturing and perhaps even killing other Jews, and are making their way through the town.
Now this situation certainly fills the criteria, and it's hard to consider if that child is being harmed or not. The reason this third option is most interesting to me is because it seems for it to qualify as harm, we have to focus on much more abstract concepts. In the example I gave, I would say the safety of that child is being harmed. That child is in danger, and the quality of its life is being harmed (surely having your community destroyed harms your quality of life), but it seems tough to say whether or not the child itself is being harmed. It would come down to whether we separate things like "the safety of the child" and "the child," which do seem like different things. However, it also seems similar to the example I gave in my question, where something important to the child is being harmed, and in this case it seems like something vital to the child's growth is being harmed, so the child is indirectly being harmed.
I'm extremely interested to see/hear what your thoughts are though.
I think there are a lot of variables that are at play in each situation. So let's say the Nazis never kill the Jewish child or their parents. We already know from the story that people very close the child are killed by the Nazis. Does the death of these people have any lingering effects on the child? Does it increase the fear of the those around the child and alter their behavior? Can the child play outside or spend time with their friends? Can the child go to school? Were some of the people killed going to have positive interactions with the child if left alone? Does the behavior of the Nazis alter the behavior of others outside of the group (not Jewish)? If the answer to any of these questions (and others that I didn't think of) are yes, then I think you have a justifiable case of harm done. The magnitude and duration of harm are still in question, but I think we could see that there are many cases where harm done to a group can cause harm to an individual who belongs to the group but is not directly harmed themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis effect has been a serious problem in the LGBTQ community in the U.S. over the past few decades. A member may not have been harmed directly, but the harm caused on others (even if they aren't specifically aware of it) caused a level of fear and shame throughout the community that caused psychological issues that are still felt today. Even now, suicide rates and depression in the LGBTQ community are much higher than the general population. There may be several reasons why this is true, but there is a strong case that a major factor for the increase has to do with the way members of the group have been treated in recent history.
These are super good points that I find compelling; both of them. I think the suicide option is a bit stronger though because the first is victim to the argument of strict harm. Something along the lines of "That harms factors that could help the child grow and develop, however the child itself is done no harm. Opportunities may be taken, but the child undergoes no physical or mental harm; they remain in have complete health."
DeleteThe suicide part you mentioned for the LGBTQ Community seems much stronger. It's hard to deny that psychological and sometimes fatal damage isn't directly harmful. An argument might be able to be made saying the harm is then done to the environment, and the hostile environment is what causes those things? But I think that's a bit of a stretch. This point is a good one, I think. It fits the situation I gave in the first part of the original post and gives a more solid example of harm being done.
This seems to me to be a consequentialist discussion. For this kind of idea, you would need to predict as many outcomes as you can, as you both have done, then evaluate the net harm. Of course, you'd need to define harm first, which may not be easy. One would need possibly a combination of various, measurable parameters, then assign levels of harm at discrete levels of net utility. It's quite daunting, really. But we do need objective measurements to assist us in our decision-making; the question is, is the methodology simply an unavoidable tool, or is it the actual source of the morality? It does seem a little bit too mechanical for a moral discussion.
ReplyDeleteThis goes back to the "infamous" question: if one rapes another without the person knowing and without any "negative" consequences, is it morally permissible? Did you "harm" them?
Your point of all the things we would need to do is a good point, but not entirely the case that we need to do those things. We would only need to do those things if we were trying to prove without a doubt, and to a level of perfect precision, that this is true. But even science, the generally accepted gold stand of trying to find the truth of a matter, rarely has this sort of threshold. Usually scientists are trying to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that that whatever it is that they are researching is, in fact, happening. So while your the sort of testing methods you bring up are ideal, and the fact that many cannot be reliably done is a problem for consequentialism, I think we can within reason make certain inferences and look at broad cases to at least give us a sense of what may be morally right or long. But the fact that consequentialism in many cases is nigh impossible to precisely calculate means we have to be very careful in considering what can be inferred and what simply cannot.
DeleteThere are typos in my previous comment. I usually publish and then read/edit. It seems on blogger I shouldn't do that. Sorry for the typos...
DeleteThere are typos in my previous comment. I usually publish and then read/edit. It seems on blogger I shouldn't do that. Sorry for the typos...
DeleteYour point of all the things we would need to do is a good point, but not entirely the case that we need to do those things. We would only need to do those things if we were trying to prove without a doubt, and to a level of perfect precision, that this is true. But even science, the generally accepted gold stand of trying to find the truth of a matter, rarely has this sort of threshold. Usually scientists are trying to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that that whatever it is that they are researching is, in fact, happening. So while your the sort of testing methods you bring up are ideal, and the fact that many cannot be reliably done is a problem for consequentialism, I think we can within reason make certain inferences and look at broad cases to at least give us a sense of what may be morally right or long. But the fact that consequentialism in many cases is nigh impossible to precisely calculate means we have to be very careful in considering what can be inferred and what simply cannot.
DeleteAnd just a quick note: I do not think it is quite a stretch to think that "damage to the environment" was done. In contributing to an intolerant culture, you are likely directly causing, as least in part, the actions of that culture. It's the butterfly or ripple effect. All things are technically related. So the real question is where do we place the limits, and why. Ultimately, I think it's a matter of definition rather than objective science, unfortunately.
ReplyDelete