Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

959

An obligation in the moral sense, not legal, etc. A moral obligation.

Say a child is in the middle of a road. A car will eventually hit the child, but YOU have plenty of time to save the child. There is absolutely NO risk of you getting hurt.

Is it an obligation to save the child?

If you say yes, we're at "name the trait". (Why is it a moral obligation to save a child, but not an animal?)

If you say no, then I'm interested in hearing your morals.

An obligation in the moral sense, not legal, etc. A moral obligation. Say a child is in the middle of a road. A car will eventually hit the child, but YOU have plenty of time to save the child. There is absolutely NO risk of you getting hurt. Is it an obligation to save the child? If you say yes, we're at "name the trait". (Why is it a moral obligation to save a child, but not an animal?) If you say no, then I'm interested in hearing your morals.

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (16).
[–] • 1 pt

Of coarse it’s a moral obligation to save the child, I’m curious about this name the trait thing, I think I know what it means but I’d rather not assume. Can you elaborate?

[–] • 1 pt

Sure. So if it's an obligation to save the child, but not the animal, there must be some difference between the two that allowed you to make this distinction.

Of course, there are a thousand differences. Intelligence, species, etc. Name the trait, then apply it back onto a human context to see if you're consistent with it.

[–] • 1 pt

Well a rational trait that can be applied would have to be in group preference, its an evolutionary characteristic that means we will always choose to save one of our own but not necessarily a member of another species. Thats about the only thing I could think of anyway.

A not so rational argument might be that human beings are unique and have a spirit where animals just don't, or in the case of christianity man was given dominion over the earth.

This is about the best I can come up with be gentle as I'm sure you have had this debate quite a few more times than myself.

[–] • 0 pt

Lol, I'll be gentle. So we now apply that trait back onto a human context.

By "in group preference" did you mean "they're a different species, that's the trait"? (Just for clarification). If so, here's the consistency test: If you and I were a difference species, would it be an obligation for me to save your child?

Yeah, not gonna touch the religion one. Maybe a poalcast discussion for religion.