Does doing nothing make you complicit?

[alias_sqbr]

A question that has come up in two comments I've been pondering my reply to ¹ and on which I think I may actually have a really basic ethical difference about:

Lets assume a certain act is "bad" under your ethical code. It's hurtful, unethical, immoral, etc. If you did it yourself you would be being immoral/unethical.

If there is something bad going on, and you're aware of it, and you could (try to) stop it, and you don't, are you complicit in that bad act? Are you being somewhat immoral/unethical?

Because I say yes. Inaction is itself an action. It's not the same as doing the "bad" act yourself, but it's not completely different either.

To go back to the Bible², everyone but the Good Samaritan was complicit in the suffering of the victim.
See also First they came....

In the context of social justice, if you live in an unjust society (and unless you're reading this in some distant perfect future³, you are) and you do nothing to work against that, you are complicit in that injustice. Which means you have to work hard just to stay still, so to speak, which is horribly unfair but it's just another side effect of the broader unfairness of the social injustice.

Which is not to say that doing nothing makes you a bad person, life is hard and there's only so much you can do. But nor is it inherently better than doing actively bad things, and in some cases it may be worse (the same way that bad medical assistance is often, but not always, better than none).

To give an example: one of the Big Things in RaceFail09 was white authors saying "Well, if I write POC characters they will probably end up being a bit racist even if I try my best. So the least racist⁴ thing to do is to only write white characters!" (See Talking About (And To) David Levine)

But the active racism of a mildly racist depiction is probably better than the passive racism of following the all-or-mostly-white-characters status quo (where to draw the line is a matter of opinion)⁵. And there is NO WAY not to be a bit racist in whatever you do. Which sucks, but hey.

So, do people agree? Or do you not see inaction as just another form of action, subject the same moral/ethical rules (whatever they are, depending on your own POV) as, uh, active action? (You can tell I never studied philosophy, there's probably proper jargon for this stuff) Is there some hole in my argument or description?

1)It's quite possible you weren't arguing this anyway, and I do intend on writing individual replies. But now I can leave out a chunk of my argument and maybe stay under the comment length limit :)
2)I may not be christian, but I think Jesus was pretty good with the educational metaphorical story. See also... :)
3)In which case, hi from the past, hypothetical future person!
4)Where by "racist" I mean "acting in a way to support society wide racial prejudice", not "Actively and consciously discriminating against people based on race".
5) Which is better for an individual story on aesthetic grounds being of course a totally different question.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Ah...you made me realise I missed a really important point: the importance of respecting other people's autonomy, and the fact that the more indirect your experience/relationship to something is, the less well you understand it and the less effectively you can change it.

Which adds up to: all things being equal, if you're going to expend a certain amount of energy it's probably more ethical and more effective to change your own behaviour than to change anyone else's.

So, to return to the good samaritan example, not attacking people > helping an attack victim > actively pursuing attackers. Are you arguing that it is better not to help attack victims or am I missing your point? I can understand not pursuing the attackers, while I disagree I can kind of see the logic (and I believe in pluralism and all that :)), but if someone is asking you for help and you can help them then I think it's immoral not to.

I mean with the example of American foreign policy, I think the main issue is that they
a)Actively do a lot of harmful things overseas (pursuing destructive trade policies for example) and
b)Don't respect other countries autonomy even when they're "helping" ("liberating" Iraq against their will, for example)

So step one is definitely for them to stop that. But I don't think it's bad for them to support the requests for aid from countries with problems they're not able to solve themselves (after an earthquake say. Or as a result of previous American foreign policy)

well, I was being a bit esoteric (as usual)

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

So, to return to the good samaritan example, not attacking people > helping an attack victim > actively pursuing attackers.

Oh hell, I'm a moron, I'm always throwing myself in the way of danger to help other people, except at the time I'm way too angry to think about self-preservation. Just ask my mother, she thinks I'm going to get myself killed one day.

But that's tangible, I see something, I react. When it comes to more intangible, to things in the world which I can't directly change, then I'm a bit more philosophical about it.

But sometimes it's best not to do something, for example...someone with a drug addiction, you can only go so far to help, before you gotta sit back and let them muddle through it. You can't force people to overcome addiction, you can't force people to leave an abusive relationship, you can't save people from themselves.

That's a really hard thing to realise.

But I don't think it's bad for them to support the requests for aid from countries with problems they're not able to solve themselves

If only things were that simple. It really isn't by the way, even seemingly gifts of charity, also a political reason behind, always a debt to be paid. This is why countries always get a bit antsy when a more powerful nation offers to send in troops to help in an natural disaster, it's walking a fine line there.

Re: well, I was being a bit esoteric (as usual)

[alias_sqbr]

But sometimes it's best not to do something, for example...someone with a drug addiction, you can only go so far to help, before you gotta sit back and let them muddle through it. You can't force people to overcome addiction, you can't force people to leave an abusive relationship, you can't save people from themselves.

Absolutely. If it's not clear than any active action will do more harm than good then it probably is best to default to doing nothing.

You make a good point about the aid thing. I just read an interesting book about world debt and agriculture etc, it's certainly pretty complicated.

EDIT: Obviously you don't need me to tell you about this, but for reference and anyone else here's an article from the accompanying website. *goes to write review of the book*

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

You also gotta realise, I'm a relativist, in the true sense.

I don't believe in evil or good. I don't believe in absolutes, and anytime someone uses the word evil, or uses terms like 'That's wrong, or you're wrong' unless you're talking about some tangible fact.

And I get really itchy in my fingers when people throw such terms around, because it's so obvious to me that the world isn't that way.

But then other people seem so sure that the world is all black and white, or right or wrong, and I'm like 'How can you live you life like that?'. Because you can throw the most seemingly 'evil' example at me, and I'm like, but what about the bigger picture.

That's just me.

[alias_sqbr]

The conflict between my moral relativism and pluralism, and not standing by while other people do bad things to others or myself is one of the huge defining contradictions of my worldview.

In fact so far you've hit on a large selection of my "Huge topics I have majorly conflicting but strongly held views on" :)

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are alone in that conflict, I'd venture to say that it's possibly the biggest challenge every individual faces. (on some level)