These cases seem not at all analogous to me because of the differing amount of uncertainty in each.
In the case of the drowning child, you presumably have high certainty that the child is going to die. The case is clear cut in that way.
In the case of the distant commotion on an autumn walk, it’s just that, a distant commotion. As the walker, you have no knowledge about what it is and whether or not you could do anything. That you later learn you could have done something might lead you to experience regret, but in the moment you lacked information to make it clear you should have investigated. I think this entirely accounts for the difference in feeling about the two cases, and eliminates the power of the second case.
In the second case, any imposition on the walker to do anything hinges on their knowledge of what the result of the commotion will be. Given the uncertainty, you might reasonably conclude in the moment that it is better to avoid the commotion, maybe because you might do more harm than good by investigating.
Further, this isn’t a case of negligence, where you failing to respond to the commotion makes you complicit in the harm, because you seem to have no responsibility to the machinery or the conditions by which the man came to be pinned under it. Instead it seems to be a case where you are morally neutral throughout because of your lack of knowledge, and your lack of active effort to avoid gaining knowledge that would otherwise make you complicit by trying to avoid becoming morally culpable. That is not the case here and so your example seems to lack the necessary conditions to make the point.
My reading of the post is quite different: This isn’t an argument that, morally, you ought to save the drowning man. The distant commotion thought experiment is designed to help you notice that it would be great if you had saved him and to make you genuinely want to have saved him. Applying this to real life, we can make sacrifices to help others because we genuinely/wholeheartedly want to, not just because morality demands it of us. Maybe morality does demand it of us but that doesn’t matter because we want to do it anyway.
Weird, that sounds strange to me because I don’t really regret things since I couldn’t have done anything better than what I did under the circumstances or else I would have done that, so the idea of regret awakening compassion feels very alien. Guilt seems more clear cut to me, because I can do my best but my best may not be good enough and I may be culpable for the suffering of others as a result, perhaps through insufficient compassion.
These cases seem not at all analogous to me because of the differing amount of uncertainty in each.
In the case of the drowning child, you presumably have high certainty that the child is going to die. The case is clear cut in that way.
In the case of the distant commotion on an autumn walk, it’s just that, a distant commotion. As the walker, you have no knowledge about what it is and whether or not you could do anything. That you later learn you could have done something might lead you to experience regret, but in the moment you lacked information to make it clear you should have investigated. I think this entirely accounts for the difference in feeling about the two cases, and eliminates the power of the second case.
In the second case, any imposition on the walker to do anything hinges on their knowledge of what the result of the commotion will be. Given the uncertainty, you might reasonably conclude in the moment that it is better to avoid the commotion, maybe because you might do more harm than good by investigating.
Further, this isn’t a case of negligence, where you failing to respond to the commotion makes you complicit in the harm, because you seem to have no responsibility to the machinery or the conditions by which the man came to be pinned under it. Instead it seems to be a case where you are morally neutral throughout because of your lack of knowledge, and your lack of active effort to avoid gaining knowledge that would otherwise make you complicit by trying to avoid becoming morally culpable. That is not the case here and so your example seems to lack the necessary conditions to make the point.
My reading of the post is quite different: This isn’t an argument that, morally, you ought to save the drowning man. The distant commotion thought experiment is designed to help you notice that it would be great if you had saved him and to make you genuinely want to have saved him. Applying this to real life, we can make sacrifices to help others because we genuinely/wholeheartedly want to, not just because morality demands it of us. Maybe morality does demand it of us but that doesn’t matter because we want to do it anyway.
Weird, that sounds strange to me because I don’t really regret things since I couldn’t have done anything better than what I did under the circumstances or else I would have done that, so the idea of regret awakening compassion feels very alien. Guilt seems more clear cut to me, because I can do my best but my best may not be good enough and I may be culpable for the suffering of others as a result, perhaps through insufficient compassion.