Daily Times

The famous ‘trolley problem’ bears witness to the fact that it is not always easy to tell what our moral duties are in a given situation. I think there is truth in this because I have seen people trapped in figuring out what they are required to do. Take the example of a person (hereafter referred to as Z) who tells you that he came across a car that looked mysterious. It carried women, and that was totally normal, but from their pale faces it looked like they had been kidnapped, and were being transported to another destination. Z was concerned because he had heard quite a lot about abduction occurrences in town. So Z’s first thought was to ring the police. On second thought, Z wondered if the women were not abducted and were in fact safe; he took his assistance as violation of their privacy.

Now if we stop at this point we see Z sandwiched between two values: altruism on the one hand and respect for others’ privacy on the other. If like Z, our fictitious character, you were stuck in the same dilemma, what in your opinion would be the right way to go about the situation? In other words, you are asked to decide what your minimum obligations are, and whether you would or should go an extra mile for others if your assessment of the situation is based on mere suspicion. It is precisely against this backdrop of moral dilemma that we are invited to read the Morality of Law, a book written by Professor Lon Fuller, a Harvard legal professor,

In his book, Fuller draws our attention to the minimum moral compass that we are born with. In a compelling way, he argues that we are born with duty of morality and we aspire towards duty of aspiration in our course of life. At this point, as a questioning mind, you might ask what difference there is between these two moralities. Quite eloquently, Professor Fuller addresses this and informs us that the duty of morality is the minimum moral obligation we owe to others such as the ‘negative duties’ not to kill others, not to harm others and not to steal from others. These duties are our minimum moral standards of cooperation and coexistence because they tell us how to interact with fellow human beings in human societies. When these are breached we are castigated and punished with severity.

The duty of aspiration is the discretionary obligation that develops with human experience, knowledge, virtue and the desire among few to facilitate coexistence by going an extra mile

The duty of aspiration, on the other hand, is the discretionary obligation that develops with human experience, knowledge, virtue and the desire among few to facilitate coexistence by going an extra mile. This includes, for instance, helping a drowning man and saving a stranger’s cat at the risk of endangering one’s life. In offering such help one has shown moral excellence for which one is rewarded with praise.

Now if we keep these two moralities in mind and go back to our situation above, we will see how these become a guiding force for our morally perplexed Z. As a minimum, Z is required not to harm others, and one may argue this includes no harm to their privacy. On the other hand, his training and schooling might have taught him to help those who are in danger or trouble or need of help even if they are total strangers. However, being helpful also demands that we behave reasonably, that is we behave in a manner that lacks miscalculations. This means that Z should not call the police on the basis of mere suspicion coming from pale faces of women. Z needs more evidence to ensure that their privacy is not violated. Since Z is not fully sure if the women had been kidnapped, Z’s minimum obligation would require him not to harm others by suspecting and spying on them.

The story does not end here. This is because we can apply Fuller’s dichotomy to other moral dilemmas. Let us take another situation to bring his ideas home. Imagine going to a music night. You go and find yourself a place where there is warmth. You wait for the musicians to begin. They start singing and you enjoy the music. However, soon afterwards you are robbed off the melody as you hear a group of guys making noise in the back and yelling seductive words to girls around them. You turn around to see if there is any trouble. You realise that one of the girls is a friend of yours. So you immediately feel the compulsion to interject and handle the situation. However, you realise that the troublemaker are also your friends. Now you feel double minded because you are friends with both sides; helping one and not the other could lose you friendship with one of them.

Unable to make up your mind, you quietly walk out. On your way home you feel like a timid person because you did not help your troubled friends. But hang on a minute as it is exactly in moments like these that Fuller’s duty of morality and duty of aspiration come into play.

It is important to remember that your minimum duty to your friends in this situation was not to harm their freedom to socialise, which you ensured by staying away from the situation. At the same time, your duty of aspiration gave you discretion to be either reasonable that is not to pick one friend over another or to tell both sides not to create nuisance to those around them through such interactions. So you were left with the choice to let your friends take charge of their actions and take responsibility for their behaviour or to tell them why it was improper to hurl inappropriate words at others.

In walking out you picked the value of friendship over the comfort of others, and you are justified in doing that because probably your schooling, upbringing and culture taught you to value friendship in moral dilemmas.

Through these examples we learn and at least accept that there are some situations in life where deciding the right answer is not easy, and in such moments of moral panic if one can takes care of one’s minimum duty and takes decision on the basis of one’s cultural values, such actions should be treated as justified rather than becoming a point of moral mooting.

The writer is a law graduate of the University of London and teaches Jurisprudence & Legal Theory