This question was taken out of a textbook. There was a discussion of this question between myself and a lady friend of mine, Karen. I will explain all after answers are posted. PleaseRead ... 02/13

More simplified and as a future parent someday I would have weighed the pros and cons of either losing 15 per se expensive glasses or one glass breaking and hurting my child through the shrapnel effect. I guess it would all be gauged on whether I had the finances to replace the glasses and how comfortable I was with losing such things versus my child beign possibly hurt. I more than likely would have to say it is worse for the child to reach for a glass and getting hurt by its shrapnel. Plus, reaching for a jar of say cookies that he/she knew wasn't allowed. .:Kris:.

For myself there are too many unknown variables to answer this question. The variables include what is meant by 'worse'. I went to Merriam-Webster to look for some elucidation and she informed me of the following:

1: of more inferior quality, value, or condition

2 a: more unfavorable, difficult, unpleasant, or painful b: more faulty, unsuitable, or incorrect c: less skillful or efficient

3: bad, evil, or corrupt in a greater degree : more reprehensible

4: being in poorer health : sicker

Unfortunately this only confused the matter because depending on which of the meanings I adopt my response differs. Further, I am not sure how the two situations really differ other than one is stated to be 'accidental' while the other appears accidental and one case involves 14 more glasses. 'Reaching for a jar while his parent's aren't home' seems to be implying some moral judgement but does not really tell me anything. Does the jar contain medicine for his sick little sister or his Mom's valium? Where are his parents? How often do they leave their child alone? Even if these questions are answered it doesn't really make a difference because, as with most subjective concepts, worse is simply a label I apply to situations or things that have no inherent quality in an attempt to justify my views. -Brian

I agree with Brian, in fact I was going to say a few of the same things. The question is very vague and has a lot of implications that it wants to read to make. All I am going to say about the term ‘worse’ is that it is too vague. The term ‘accident’ implies that the child was doing something they were allowed to do or even something good. The child could be doing something wrong, that was not directly connected to the glasses that caused them to break. The child ‘reaching for a jar while his parents aren’t home’ has two major problems for me. It implies that the child shouldn’t have been reaching for the jar in the first place. The child could have been allowed to reach for the jar before. Also, why aren’t the parents at home? If the child is too small to reach for a jar on the counter or self, they should not be home alone. I know I am just a weekend mom right now but when Riley is around we always have one eye on her. We don’t leave her alone unless she is in her play pin. The question also doesn’t state if the child was hurt or not. That is the first thing I would need to know to determine, which is worse; the incident where the child got hurt would be worse. If the child was not hurt in either case, then the case where the child was doing something they were told not to do would be worse, as the second situation suggests. Not because of the number of glasses broken, but because the child was breaking a rule. However, my final answer will be the second situation because the parents were not at home and the child should have supervision, not because of the broken glass and not because they were possibly doing something wrong. -Jess

-well, when I initially read this question I was like wtf? and then after reading it a few more times and trying to understand it I was like.....wtf? sooooo, I dont really think there is enough information here to give a "correct" answer, or much of an answer at all really. If I had to give an answer I would say that it would be worse to break 15 glasses than 1 glass, but that is kind of a "duh" answer. Maybe if there was some specific reason the child should not have been reaching for the jar, or if there was some significance to the child's parents not being home, then I would probably choose the breaking of one glass while reaching for a jar while his parents arent home. But as it is....I have no clue what it is really asking. I understand that it is a question to spark thought and opinions, but is there (morally) supposed to be some right answer here? Just curious.

ps. I havn't gotten the chance to read other people's responses to this question yet, so I appologize if I'm repeating anything or if this has been cleared up already and I'm behind the game, or not seeing something obvious. --Meagan

The contents of the jar are infinitely possible that they can be positive, as a secret gift for his parents, or infinitely negative, drugs. Therefore the jar is a neutral fact, and meaningless to the argument. I don't believe in accidents, and motives are always fall secondary behind the action. Therefore I negate the accident fact. The number of jars isn't important either. I do not know the value of the one glass, perhaps a million dollars, as compared to fifteen crappy glasses. I also do not know if the glass from the fifteen slashed the child to ribbons, I would have to say if the accident resulted in the child's death, that would have to be worse. The fact that the child's parents not being home seems to be more up for contention. I say the parents should be home. BAD PARENTS! WHERE ARE YOU? but we cannot assume they were home in the first case. So, without speculation we are given. --steve

Before taking a stab at solving this conundrum, I will make two assumptions that I think reasonable considering the context within which the question was posed. My first assumption is that this is a moral dilemma, and as such questions of aesthetics, prudence, and so on are of no concern. My second assumption is that second scenario involves more than a broken glass, but also a broken promise and that such a promise (to commit or refrain from certain acts) does not exist in the first, because if there was not a promise in either case, there is no moral question. Conversely, if in both cases there was a broken promise (and assuming the information presented is the only morally relevant information (i.e. there is not other issues such as pain caused by the act, which would pit consequentialism and virtue ethics against each other)), and assuming the promise in both cases was of equal weight, and assuming that child had no reason to believe that his/her actions would likely result in the broken glasses, then the number of glasses broken is morally irrelevant. I think not making these two assumptions (a. this is a moral question, and b. this is the only morally relevant information available, and therefore a promise is implied in the second scenario), the question is not a moral one, and to make it one would require writing the narrative from which this case was extracted – a book on practical ethics.

With the assumptions on the table, the question is simple. The first scenario presents no moral issue. The second does (broken promise (e.g. don’t try to grab for a jar when we (parents) are not home)), and therefore the act is morally worse by default.

I would like to respond, briefly, to Stephen’s comment that he doesn’t “believe in accidents.” I think, as he’s framed it, he probably does believe in accidents, and particularly accidents in the sense in which they’re described here. Here, an accident is an event caused by a human act (or lack thereof) without intent (and, to narrow that even further, an event that the agent did not have reason to believe was likely to occur as a result of his/her action/inaction). Inasmuch as these events do occur, to say one does not believe in them would be bizarre. But, I think he means something quite different, and in fact is not referring to the type of action described here (though he claims to be). - Cory