Introduction
Today a lot of individuals are praised for their bravery and their heroism. A lot of
these people risk their lives to save or help others when those are in need. These people
can range from firefighters who risked their lives to save innocent people from the 9/11
attack to an ordinary person who helps an old lady to carry her groceries to her house.
Even though there are a number of instances when people help others who are in need,
such as mentioned above, there are also a number of instances when those same people
avoid helping and getting involved, such as; ignoring an old lady who slipped and fell
down in the middle of the road, avoiding helping an old man to pick up his change that
fell out of his pocket, disregarding the school fight between the two students, etc.
The main purpose of this essay is to explain why and under what conditions some
people are more likely to get involved then others. It accomplishes that by looking at the
two opposite but related events in which people have a choice of whether or not to
interfere, then it tries to come up with a legit theory to describe why some people are
more likely to get involved then others, and finally it explains how the theory can be
applied to the events, as well as the flaws of the theory with respect to the events being
observed.
Description of the Events
The events that are described here come from my personal observations that have
been encountered during my early high school years. The two events are somewhat
opposite from each other, and in both cases a third-party person has a choice of whether
or not to get involved. However, according to my observations a third-party person has
interfered in one of the events but not the other.
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According to the article, Altruism and helping behavior, it is common for people to help others. Altruism is defined as “the desire to help another person even if it doesn’t benefit the helper” (Altruism and Helping Behavior. Print.). Helping behavior is “any act that is intended to benefit another person”
A brave hero often risks his/her lives to save someone else. In Zeitoun, Dave Eggers tells us a story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the hard working Syrian American owner of a contracting company in New Orleans. Zeitoun and his wife Kathy ran the company together. They have three children named Nademah, Safiyah, Aisha. Kathy has a child from her first marriage. Zeitoun is very closed with his family and he takes his family like nobody else. When hurricane Katrina landed in 2005, endless number of people were affected. Mayor Nagin ordered a first time ever mandatory evacuation. Kathy moved with the children to her sister’s house in Baton Rouge. Zeitoun refused to leave with his family because he didn’t want lose his properties, but at the same time, his customers trusted him and gave him their house keys to check on their houses, which caused his separation with his family. This illustrates that Zeitoun is a responsible, powerful, trustworthy, and unselfish person. During the hurricane, Zeitoun was using a canoe rescuing people. Due to the lack of rescue work, many people didn’t get enough supports at that time. Zeitoun had the courage to sacrifice his family, safety, and selfish needs for saving the people.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” We are All Bystanders by Jason Marsh and Dacher Keltner is an article that reflects on the psychological and social phenomenon that refers to cases in which people do not offer any assistance or help to a victim. Studies say that a person's personality can determine how they react to a bystander situation. In a book called, The Heart of Altruism, author Kristen Monroe writes the altruistic perspective. Altruistic people are strongly connected to other humans and have a concern for the well-being of others. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief exemplifies the bystander theory through Liesel and
Benjamin Franklin is someone that I look up to and his achievements are far greater than most. The first person that comes to mind when I think of a life given to the service of others is Benjamin Franklin because he pioneered the spirit of self-help in America, there was no-one who ever lived or is living on the face of this Earth who is more extraordinary and impacting than Benjamin Franklin, many people just see him as “the guy on the $100 bill” but what you will know is that he’s is truly the definition of success and by far the greatest man to ever live in colonial America.
One of our many, many heroes was Harriet Tubman.She had to go through a lot of events to be recognized.Tubman was her own person she didn't have to try to make-up a story for people to know she was a hero because she had her own story to tell.As a result of her actions Harriet Tubman saved and changed people's lives.Over all she is still known as a hero to many.
As Maya Angelou, a civil rights activist, memoirist, and American poet, once said, “I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people”. There are myriad of traits that a hero possesses, but one trait that differentiates a civilian from a hero is altruism; it is defined as the “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others” by Merriam-Webster. There are scads of heroes who possess benevolence such as Odysseus, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, and Cesar Chavez. Odysseus is an epic hero in Homer’s Odyssey, Harriet Tubman is known for freeing hundreds of slaves from their masters, Clara Barton had nursed wounded soldiers, and Cesar Chavez had protested the injustice farm workers faced. Altruism is the fundamental trait that deems a person to be considered heroic for it is displayed by all heroes and is the foremost reason for a hero’s actions to aid others.
Rescuers also put themselves in life threatening situations to save others. There are lots of helicopter crashes
Case 1 is very clear, there were two competing alternatives, to throw or not to throw the lever. So you stand there and make a principle-based choice. Some as mentioned above did not want to be involved, that is a principle choice, some people said, yes will choose the 5 due to the net positive of 5, a decision was made based on what was the most logical or rational reasoning to the person.
Heroes are often times very inspirational and a lot of people look up to them. A lot of people do good because a hero inspires them. For example, Tristan Segers was a soldier in a war that was in Afghanistan. During the war he lost his leg. He wasn’t going to give up on his dream as a cook so once he was recovered, he went to school to become a chef. Later he got submitted to go back into another war. In the story, Segers says, “I didn’t do anything special, but if the progress I have made motivated another wounded veteran to keep going, then that’s great” (Fiege 68). This is a good example because even though he didn’t think he did anything he is really setting an example for all the other soldiers who lost something and for everyday people to be inspired and never give up like he
Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism and a theory in normative ethics. According to utilitarianism, this is a theory that it is concerned on whether an action will result the greatest amount of pleasure (happiness) for the greater number of individuals (Shafer-Landau, 2014, p.138). In order to address the scenario given, the terminology of the two forms of utilitarianism (act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism) and deontology need to be understood so it can be applied on how and why each type will act in this specific scenario.
highlights the fact that ordinary citizens who up to this point have made a difference, started by
The bystander effect plays a key role in society today. More and more people ignore a person in distress.
Bystander effect, (Darley & Latane, 1970) refers to decrease in helping response when there are bystanders around relative to no bystanders. Referring to previous study stating that there are some cases of which group size may promote helping instead of hindering it (Fischer et al., 2011). Researchers then speculate the possibility of positive influences from bystanders by taking public self-awareness into consideration. Researchers proposed that high public self-awareness would reverse the bystander effect in this study with 2 independent variables which are bystander and presence on the forum. They are defined as number of bystanders (absent vs present) and salience of name (salient vs non-salient) respectively. 86 students are randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in the experiment. Response of participants in the online forum is the operational definition for the dependent variable of helping behavior. The result shows that number of response increases with respect to increase in bystanders when public self-awareness is enhanced by using accountability cue (Bommel et al., 2012). Participants were asked to rate how notable they were from their view afterwards as a manipulation check.
Utilitarianism - To put Utilitarianism into my own words, I would phrase is as whichever causes less damage in the end.
The first group that has been valued by me and many other people is the military. They might not be everybody’s favorite group , yet the things they have accomplished for the United States, and many other countries are quite significant. For hundreds of years the United States military members have sacrificed their lives for not only America’s freedom, but also for other countries that have suffered a crisis. The military is currently involved in wars, humanitarian efforts, peacekeeping missions and as well as in state sponsored missions and country missions for natural disasters. Military members must be courage’s; due to the risky situations they must endure. For instance, they must be willing to put their life on the line in order to save others. Heroism consists of many characteristics that most military members should have. Soldiers are willing to risk their lives to save their fellow soldiers or serve their country in a war no matter what that cost is. Most of these men and women fought until they neither won nor got killed during a certain war. Even though many fallen soldiers haven’t been recognized for the achievements they made, they are still heroes in people’s perspective.