Are we morally obligated to help other people?

[OrangeAppled]

I do not think morals are really about what we should or should not do as obligations. It is more about spiritual truths. How is our experience impacted, long-term and short-term, by particular actions? Whether it is good or bad, or whatever value, depends on how we categorize the impact (personally and as a group).
The spiritual truth is that giving makes people happy. The spiritual truth is that we are not islands and that the misery of others does affect our own happiness. If you think of humans as a body and the self as a part of the body, then it is clear that your actions and theirs are rarely totally independent and without impact on eachother; it may change how you treat the rest of that body.

This doesn't mean we always or ever are conscious of these connections, just as we do not always identify a physical pain and its source that easily.

If it becomes a matter of obligation, then it does not have the same meaning, and this breeds resentment.
I think it is good to teach people these spiritual truths, because otherwise they think that self-sacrifice and giving is just some abstract "good", especially when the impact is not immediate or in an easily measurable or identifiable way. I do not think people inherenty know these things. This is why I think spirituality is so much more powerful than laws or social customs, which at best encourage and reinforce healthy practices.

Selfishness is sort of addicting like junk food. It has immediate gratification and it may be hard for someone in the habit of consuming it to feel healthier options are more enjoyable and bring more to their life in the long-term. When people try to change such a habit form a standpoint of obligation, then they complain and it is a chore. But when they view it as, say, caring for themselves, enriching experience, etc, then it can even become preferrable to the old habit. I think some key ideas here are "what is the habit" and is the action a chore or motivated from a deeper realization about yourself and others? Is it really loving to myself to abuse my own body even if momentarily it brings me pleasure? Is it really a sacrifice to care for my own body even if it seems less fun at the moment? Now think of humans as a body. What part are you? How can and do you contribute to the function of the whole? Whether you are a baby toe or the stomach, you are a part of it.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I will pretend that this is a game of poker and rise the stakes: What about situations where helping the other person is illegal ?


(Nazi behaviour towards Jews is obvious example)

 

[Thursday]

Morally no. Pragmatically yes, but thats if/when its out of co-operation and has little to nothing to do with pity. I like to consider such help as an investment rather than throwing money away.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

 

[Mole]

They say we take money from poor people in rich countries and give it to rich people in poor countries.

Human relations usually work on reciprocity. So to foster good relations through reciprocity, we could engage in trade. We could finance trade instead of foreign aid, arms sales, and standing armies.

Trade is a relationship of reciprocity. China, for instance, from 1981 to 2010 has moved 680,000,000 Chinese out of poverty through trade.

Oz has a free trade treaty with the USA and the balance of payments is strongly in favour of the USA. However Mr Trump says he wants to restrict free trade, this will put an end to reciprocity and return us to might is right.

 

[uumlau]

"Moral obligation"... is an oxymoron!

No, obligation is an essential part of morality. Only if you view morality as some sort of abstraction divorced from interaction between human beings could it be an oxymoron. Morality is one of the primary means by which human beings enforce obligations on each other. An argument against obligation is rarely ever along the lines of "morality doesn't oblige me in general", but is usually more like "in this case, for these reasons, morality doesn't oblige me".

I do not think morals are really about what we should or should not do as obligations. It is more about spiritual truths. How is our experience impacted, long-term and short-term, by particular actions? Whether it is good or bad, or whatever value, depends on how we categorize the impact (personally and as a group).
The spiritual truth is that giving makes people happy. The spiritual truth is that we are not islands and that the misery of others does affect our own happiness. If you think of humans as a body and the self as a part of the body, then it is clear that your actions and theirs are rarely totally independent and without impact on eachother; it may change how you treat the rest of that body.

This doesn't mean we always or ever are conscious of these connections, just as we do not always identify a physical pain and its source that easily.

If it becomes a matter of obligation, then it does not have the same meaning, and this breeds resentment.
I think it is good to teach people these spiritual truths, because otherwise they think that self-sacrifice and giving is just some abstract "good", especially when the impact is not immediate or in an easily measurable or identifiable way. I do not think people inherenty know these things. This is why I think spirituality is so much more powerful than laws or social customs, which at best encourage and reinforce healthy practices.

Selfishness is sort of addicting like junk food. It has immediate gratification and it may be hard for someone in the habit of consuming it to feel healthier options are more enjoyable and bring more to their life in the long-term. When people try to change such a habit form a standpoint of obligation, then they complain and it is a chore. But when they view it as, say, caring for themselves, enriching experience, etc, then it can even become preferrable to the old habit. I think some key ideas here are "what is the habit" and is the action a chore or motivated from a deeper realization about yourself and others? Is it really loving to myself to abuse my own body even if momentarily it brings me pleasure? Is it really a sacrifice to care for my own body even if it seems less fun at the moment? Now think of humans as a body. What part are you? How can and do you contribute to the function of the whole? Whether you are a baby toe or the stomach, you are a part of it.

I can totally see where you are coming from, philosophically speaking, but this is an example of regarding morality as an abstraction ("spiritual truths") divorced from the nitty-gritty reality of reaction between human beings. See my reply to Mole, below:

Human relations usually work on reciprocity.

This is an essential truth of morality. So in a very strict sense, one is not forced to reciprocate, morally or otherwise. That is one's right. So "obligation" doesn't mean "compulsion". But if you choose to interact with other humans, you immediately become subject to moral obligations. You can disregard these obligations, but just as ignoring the obligation to do productive work in one's job can result in one's employment being terminated, ignoring one's moral obligations to other people terminates those relationships to other people.

As reference, specific to the first situation:

As an example, this is the list that we use, consciously or not, to identify where we place ourselves in a hierarchy of class. If someone were to have the most "privilege", do you believe that it would be "inhumane" of us to choose not to put ourselves out there in order to help people who might have less privilege?

Notice how you don't describe any interactions between humans. You describe social status ("privilege") and the potential obligations of that social status, but you describe no motivating factors other than social status. To follow this reasoning to an extreme point of view, if two people make a bet, and one wins and the other loses, the winner is "obligated" to help the loser, presumably until they're even again. This isn't morality, this the antithesis of morality disguised as morality: repackaged Marxism (see my sig ), in which envy is a virtue and not a vice, in which people deserve more just because other people have more. It is the "morality" that one deserves other peoples' stuff just because other people have it and oneself does not. Such a morality is the antithesis of reciprocity, an antithesis of how morality evolved over the course of civilization. It embodies the compulsory obligation to which [MENTION=6561]OrangeAppled[/MENTION] objects.

As I originally noted, morality is a primary means of how human beings enforce obligations on each other. As such, plenty of people will make false moral arguments to bolster their own case and enforce their personal views of what is morally incumbent upon others. The Marxist narrative of "oppressor" vs "oppressed" is a common example of such a false moral argument. The reason it is false is that it is purposefully designed to always be violated: there are always "oppressors", and the oppressors are designated not by their actions, not by whether they fulfill their moral obligations to others, but by arbitrary group classification, by properties that cannot be changed by an individual, such as race or sex and so on.

One can avoid violating the moral to not murder people by refraining from murdering other people: that is how one can make a moral choice and choose to be a murderer or not. One cannot similarly avoid violating the (invalid) moral rule to not be an "oppressor", because as defined one cannot refrain from being an "oppressor" by making a moral choice. If we were talking about actual oppression, such as being the dictator of a country and ordering the slaughter or enslavement of millions of people, then it is possible to make the moral choice to not slaughter/enslave people, for example.

Thinking of it in another way: climate change, and majority is caused by human activity. Majority of us are aware of it and I'm almost sure that all the people in this current world would die before they'd experience the dire consequences that would come with it. So right now, it doesn't really matter, especially in first-world countries, if we make decisions based off of whatever we think would help ourselves over others.

I do believe that we are obligated to good environmental stewardship, though people can disagree as to what counts as good stewardship in the case of climate change.

So that, to me, begs the question - is that okay?

Yes, we are obligated to help other people, because doing so is required to participate meaningfully in society. We just aren't obligated under the spurious terms you cite.

 

[SpankyMcFly]

A really great video on morality in animals by primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal ~
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequity_aversion

If that's boring here have a video of a chimp who was taught to a a first person shooter

 

[Lark]

I believe me are, although I also believe that morality, in so far as it has been normative and enduring, corresponds to a difficult to discern natural order or human nature too. No matter how much individuals, systems and fortune/misfortune has diverged from this order and erected its own alternative as the given social order and social character selected for reinforcement, and I do think this is the case.

Its a fundamental human need to relate to others, no matter how introverted you are you still are bound to select some medium for this, ie TV shows, books, media as opposed to actual relationships, anyway, in any case it is a need and part of the way to satisfy that is by helping others. Needs taken to extremes can become vices or are vice like for sure but kindness or helpfulness has been one of the most heavily socially policed behaviours in human memory, needlessly so I would say.

Also there is the question of what "help" is under discussion, caring for the infirm, elderly and sick is a far cry from aiding and abetting criminals or human trafficking for instance.

 

[Noll]

It's our absolute duty to give as much as we can to those who are worse off. There's no discussing it even, it's too obvious. In general, people give too little.

 

[Blackout]

I think the question is actually in some ways the reverse, and that's what people don't realize.


You have to respect other people, and allow them to the basics of a decent life for themselves; if not then so help you. Oh and "helping" can be anything but, and drastically depends on the context. Let us not delude ourselves here.

And you know who it is. Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaseeeeeeeeeee, this question almost makes me roll my friggin' eyes.

 

[Typh0n]

I find it hilarious that people really identify their own selves based on such in my opinion absolutely generic, traditional, too old and absolutely non-important things... Words like gender, race or "sexual orientation" should not even exist in a human language.

Dunno it seems utopian and idealistic to think categories like these have no importance to people at all, or shouldn't have any importance.

In primitive societies, identifying someone as part of a group, "us vs them" thinking was a survival tactic, since it would allow you to know that if all members of group A have harmed you, whereas members of group B have been your allies, its a safe bet to assume all further members of group A you meet are enemies whereas members of group B are to be trusted. In fact, when you are in a dangerous social environment, its best to rely on this type of thinking as others are doing the same.

Now, I realize that you might not come from the streets (I don't either) but its simply silly to think that putting labels on people and putting them into groups is a human trait that will just dissapear and fall off like some scales from your eyes due to being in a safe environment, you may not need to resort to such thinking where you are in life, but some day you will find yourself in a difficult situation and goodness help you if you can't indentify your enemies.

Don't get me wrong I don't think its a good thing to rely on these types of judgements, especially when it can be overlooked (again due to being in a safe environment). I'm all for overcoming barriers between people, but to say this instinct will completely go away is wrong imo, since we need it on some level.

 

[Elfboy]

your children: yes
the rest of your family: perhaps
anyone else: no

helping people is great, but it's not an obligation. the urge to help people is a natural biproduct of being in a good place yourself and wanting to lend a hand up to those you care about.

PS: this shouldn't suggest that others don't need help (to think otherwise is arrogant. no one pops out of the womb able to be hyper-productive or survivalist unless you are a lizard)

 

[Yama]

If we are, then I'm probably going to hell.

 

[Hawthorne]

In general, my moral framework is made up of guidelines not rules. I may feel a stronger inclination to take up practices that support the relevant ideals but I do not expect nor desire for all my actions to be dictated by a framework.

Given two actions, I will typically choose the one that progresses me closer to my goal. If the choice is between a less polluted planet vs the convenience of not having to search for a trash bin, I will mostly likely choose to suck it up and go on the hunt or hold on to my trash because in most situations, I value the convenience of littering less than my ideal of a cleaner environment.

In contrast, while I still value a less polluted planet, I also value the independence that a personal vehicle affords me. Until I am in a position where switching to an eco-friendlier alternative is reasonably possible (and at less of a value deficit), I will choose to bear my chains to the oil industry because I value maintaining my current quality of life more than minimizing my environmental impact in this area, at this time.

I'd be surprised if this outlook was uncommon.