“What is worse, a child who breaks 15 glasses on accident or a child who breaks one glass while reaching for a jar while his parents aren’t home?” asked Karen.
“I don’t know… breaking fifteen glasses...?” responded the younger sister of twelve years.
“Alyssa, you’re too old to not realize the correct answer. It’s obvious that the amount of glasses broken is inconsequential to the morality of the action. It matters more how the glass was broken, not how many.”
“Why?” asked Kevin.
“Because the book says so. ‘Younger children will associate the higher level of damage as being more immoral than the reason why it was broken. It is only through reasoning that we may determine which case is worse. In this instance the child who broke the one glass did it while disobeying his parents, therefore causing the problem.’ Kevin, you can’t say that you think the glasses broken on accident was worse because there were more glasses involved.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying I don’t think that the one glass being broken was worse either. Just because the first kid broke the glasses by accident doesn’t mean that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Shouldn’t one be more cautious of their surroundings whilst in the presence of fragile objects? And who’s to say that the second kid was doing a bad thing by reaching to get the jar? Maybe he is suppose to occasionally reach for high placed objects, a sort of sick game the parents play with the kid everyday, and he’ll be punished horribly if he hasn’t reached said object by the time they arrive. Or what if his little sister is dying and he needs to reach her medicine that has been placed in a jar, high above, out of her reach, not to mention the dog?”
“It’s obvious that a child should not be putting themselves in such a dangerous position while their parents are not home. If some anomaly had occurred that would have made the act permissible, it would have been mentioned. And besides, the first child may not have known the glasses were by him. Think about it in this manner, a man, while driving accidentally hits a bicyclist while looking down at the radio. Another man accidentally hits a bicyclist while angrily swerving around traffic. Which action is more immoral?”
“That’s another point a wanted to bring up. Breaking the glass isn’t the immoral act, but rather the act that resulted in the broken glass. Both situations resulted in broken glass, one is just seemingly more irresponsible. And since you’ve set this situation up in the same manner, I will have to use the same answer. The first man should not have been looking away from the road. The second man should not have been swerving in and out of traffic. The consequences of the actions are sad, but don’t cause either action to be more or less immoral, that, we can agree upon. My point is that you don’t just go around breaking glasses without any sort of primer, we don’t know what that was, so we can’t say that this is a poor kid in an unfortunate situation.”
“So my grandfather who accidentally gave the wrong coordinates in the Spanish War and killed fifty of his own men is just as bad as a guy who robs a bank and his gun accidentally goes off and kills some innocent bystander?”
“Yes, in that they both had the intention to hurt someone, pacifism, 101. One might even say your grandfather is worse because he meant to kill someone, the other guy may not have even thought the gun was loaded. But again, it doesn’t matter what result the person wanted, they made a mistake. If your grandfather meant to drop candy and teddy bears on the people, then this conversation might be going somewhere. I just do not agree that such a simple statement can be quantified with, ‘the kid who was alone is worse.’ Maybe these horrible parents, leaving their kid alone should have everything they own broken and burned to the grown. Would that change your answer, or the books? These people who sodomize and beat their child every single night, and play sick games of hide the dildo in the highest place possible for the kid to find, do they deserve to have breakable glasses? I just think that we should be a little more critical about supposed authoritative commentators. Because this guy is published, does that mean we have to punish the kids he tells us to? Certainly there has to be some kind of guidance when it comes to ‘moral’ activity, but that’s what laws are for. I wouldn’t know that seat belts save lives accept that there is a law that tells me to where one because it does so. I wouldn’t know that drugs have horrible long-term effects, accept that laws tell me not to do them because I’ll die and potentially kill others. And finally, I wouldn’t know that it is a bad idea to leave children under the age of sixteen home alone, accept for two things. First, the law that says so, and second, the story that tells me that that little punk is going to break one of my good wine glasses and end his escapade with five of my freshly baked cookies from the jar I placed on the top shelf.”
“Whatever, you’re making me angry. Let me finish my homework.”
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:.
The question is dependant on whether the criteria for "worse" is the amount of aggregate harm caused by the actor's actions, or the intent of the actor in causing the damage. On utilitarian or consequentialist grounds, the lower level of harm, ie; the fewer glasses broken is held to be preferable regardless of the motivations of the actor. from a deontological perspective, the second action is worse only if the child was prohibited from reaching for the jar in question, as willful intent to violate a norm can be shown.
-David
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
15 glasses accident
1 glass reaching for a jar no parents
the fact that stands out between the 2 is the no parents. Therefore in a judgment call I would say the 1 glass is worse because of the bad parenting.
--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
I think that Cory understood what I was trying to get across in my argument with Kevin. Many of you are focused on the parents, but what would you say if the parents were home but not watching their child at that moment? My main arguement in this conversation was that the immoral motive in the second case scenario makes it the worse of the two situations.Many of you also mentioned that whether or not the child got hurt would change the situation. Say he got hurt in both situations, the first was just an accident.The second however, was the result of him ignoring his parents wishes to not reach for the jar on the high shelf.There are of course many factors that are not given but I guess I don't always think of the "What ifs?" The information was given to me and the question was asked. the answer I came up with reflected my experiences as a child combined with what I've learned so far in my applied ethics class. :)- Karen
I want to interject these comments into the narrative as omniscient thoughts, as if people are commenting on a movie that they are watching. Please add interjections if you'd like.
KevinRb
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