This article got me thinking alot about the case with the baby in the bathtub. Why is it the case that the outcome is the only thing that matters? It seems that both situations in which the parent has left the baby in the bathtub the parents are equally to blame for their neglegence. It seems that the parent has done something awful in both cases, whether or not the baby drowns, but then why is it the case that we hold the parent of the drown child culpable but the parent who was lucky enough to run back and find their child still alive is merely "careless"?
It seems that in an ideal world, both parents would be to blame equally for their neglegence and carelessness. But in this world it is too hard to blame people on the basis of their motives, for example whether the mother/father intentially walked away, or somehow it just slipped their mind, or maybe their child actually got into the bath while they were away. Its hard to find someone culpable on the basis of intentions for in a court of law, the facts (the dead child) generally outweigh the parent's words. Which places the parent of the dead child at fault, while the parent of the child with no harm done is off the hook.
To me it seems that both parents are to blame equally because the only difference in the two cases was of some sort of luck which was out of their control. How is it that we can use this difference of luck to find one parent more blameworthy than the other? Although the death is more tragic than the other scenario, that doesnt mean that the other parent has not done something just as awful by exposing their child to a life threatening situation.
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What you are getting at with the bathtub baby example is really another example of what Nagel is showing throughout the whole article. Is it fair or right that one of the parents is judged more harshly even though they both did the same exact thing? The thing with these examples is that while we –want– to say that both parents are equally blameworthy, we know that we could never judge the parents the same and the parents themselves could not feel the same. The parent of the child that survived gets another chance with the same child – he can feel incredible remorse and learn from the experience and still have a loving relationship with his child. The parent of the child that died is responsible for the death of his child – he doesn’t get a second chance with that child. He can’t say to himself “I’ve learned from this and won’t let it happen to my child again” because his child is dead. It’s a descriptive claim that the two parents respond and react to their situations differently because their outcomes are so drastically different. But with this description – which Nagel is posing as undeniable – how can it be true that both people are equally blameworthy? While even the father that didn’t lose his child should still feel incredible guilt, surely he couldn’t feel the same guilt that the father that lost his child would.
It’s because of situations like this that we need to address moral luck. Although we might think in a fair world both parents should be equally culpable, things don’t work out that way in our world.
This question seems to be at the heart of the moral dilemma. Do the forces outside your control change the moral implications of your action. A consiquentialist would say that if the baby lived then the mother would have the moral fault of being careless. Now the fact that she is careless with a baby rather than careless with someone who is capable of taking care of themselves is very meaningful. a person who is unable to properly take care of a newborn could be considered to be a immoral. If looking directly at the character of the indivudual one could say that it was a moral flaw to undertake the raising of a child if you are incapable of remembering to watch the baby while in the bath. that being said if a person with that character flaw were to leave the baby in the bath and the baby lived, he or she couild be found more copable than if he or she were a moral person because rather than an honest mistake or lapse in judgement it would be an action which speaks to the character of the person. Rather than being a person who lost a child from one innocent mistake the person would be an irrisponsible person who is unable to take care of a child. Either way the person is responsible for the life of the child but in addition to that there is a character fault which take the situation to an entirely new area.
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