What Is Responsibility To Act

“Good Samaritan” doctrine, which imposes a legal duty to help or call for help for imperiled strangers. American bystander rule is there’s no legal duty to rescue or summon help for someone who’s in danger even if the bystander risks nothing by helping. Only a few jurisdictions follow the “Good Samaritan” rule, nearly all follow the approach of the American bystanders rule.

If you saw someone being attacked on the street, would you help? Many of us would quickly say yes we would help because to state the opposite would say that we are evil human beings. Much research has been done on why people choose to help and why others choose not to. The bystander effect states that the more bystanders present, the less likely it is for someone to help. Sometimes a bystander will assume that because no one else seems concerned, they shouldn't be (Senghas, 2007). Much of the research that has been done supports this definition of the bystander effect. There have also been recent situations where this

The study by Darley and Latane leaves society with the knowledge that everyone who is witnessing an emergency is most likely thinking the same thing “someone else will call for help or has already” so “Always act as if you are the only person there” (Darely & Latane, 1968). The concept of situationism is the driving force behind bystander effect. Situationism is “social behavior is, to a larger extent than people commonly realize, a response to people’s social context, not a function of individual personality” (Fiske, 2010, p. 7). Individuals first have to decide if they are witnessing an emergency. Then they need to decide if they have a responsibility to act which is when situationism comes in. If there are hundreds of witnesses each individual see the situation from a different perspective and responsibility to act is diffused among the crowd. On the other hand if one individual sees an emergency and believes there is no one else to help the responsibility rests on him or her. The context of the situation will determine how an individual will react, but people should consider the reality of everyone believing someone else will react and no one reacting. Kitty Genovese would still be alive if even one person would have called the cops when the first attack started.

It is the government’s ordained and foremost right to provide its citizens with reliable protection and security, especially in the face of an emergency. However, the government’s failure to provide equitable care, causing damage, injury, or death, results in legal negligence, or a person not acting to their given standard resulting in damage. In the case of Riss v. The City of New York, Linda Riss experienced negligent conduct from the New York City police department when, after she was repeatedly threatened by a rejected suitor, they did nothing to protect her until after she was mutilated with acid. With protection and ongoing investigation, Riss would have been kept safe under the responsibility that the police failed to adhere to.

This essay will ‘compare and contrast’ two approaches made in investigating the ‘bystander effect’. It will discuss in some depth as to what exactly is meant by the bystander effect, illustrating when this concept was first shown and why. An outline will be made of the different methods used, those being experiments and discourse analysis, explaining each one in turn, within the framework of two cases. The first being the murder of ‘Catherine Genovese,’ 1964.and the second ‘James Bulger’ 1993. The essay will then show examples of the differences and similarities between each method. Concluding with a summary of findings into the two approaches to investigating the Bystander Effect.

If we watched something that endangered someone´s life, is it our job to speak up and say something and will we be guilty if we had not said anything or done anything? In the Ruling of the Scottsboro Case, Sam Lebowitz stood up and fought for those 9 boys that were accused of rape, also in Wiesel´s Nobel Prize Acceptance Wiesel stood up and spoke about the suffering that he and the other went through, and To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus fought for the innocence of Tom Robinson. They all stood up and said something because if they didn´t, they would be guilty because they did not say anything when they can help them out. If we are bystanders, we cannot stay silent because it is our job to help out those in need even if it endangers our life.

The bystander effect, is a “social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present”(Weiten). Such reactions usually occur when individuals do not want to risk getting involved in the situation. In Chronicles of a Death Foretold, even though the townspeople do not desire the murder of Santiago Nasar,their unwillingness or lack of courage to take action in preventing this “foretold murder” consequently allows for the murder to happen. The idea of disturbing the status-quo and risk of involvement overshadows the Sucré citizens’ moral values. Even though a scale of individual willingness to avert the crime is presented such as Colonel Lazaro Aponte’s fulfilling his duty ,Clotilde Armenta’s multiple attempts and Father Armando’s total indifference; none of the townspeople want to be directly implicated in the matter.

The bystander effect is defined as the higher the number of people who notice an emergency, the less of a chance that those bystanders will help the victim (as cited in Aronson, Wilson, Akert, & Sommers, 2015). The importance of the bystander effect is unparalleled because it determines whether humans will still help in a situation when there are other people available. Bystanders can deal with situations ranging from the mundane to the dire, but what matters is the number of those who take action.

It states that when the amount of bystanders increases, the likelihood of one of the bystanders assisting drastically decreases. Many feel that if they have no obligation to help they should not, almost as if it's none of their business. To victims, a bystander who doesn’t take action is as equally evil as the perpetrator. The easiness of laughing along with others, or acting as if you saw nothing is correlated to the fact that it is easier than ever to be influenced in today’s society. Too often, ignoring the humiliation of another is seen. It may be the easy way out, however, it is certainly not the morally correct way

Many people would probably say that if they saw an injured person, they would stop to help them. When put in the situation, however, would they actually stop? The United States of America does not require that pedestrians, who are not involved, help the ones who are. This is no excuse not to help, though. Even helping in just a small way could save a life.

In the world, it is so easy to walk past an individual that is in distress without even knowing that there is something wrong. People notice something and expect the individual in front of or behind them to assist the distressed, and it happens more than often. For example, driving past an individual that is stranded on the side of the road is so simple. It is much easier to drive past than assist, especially when driving on a city street. Many people think about helping, and want to help, but they just do not.

When faced with intense and quick decisions, many individuals fail to take immediate action. During the attack of Catherine Genovese, not one witness acted upon the easy task of phoning the police. Since reaching the police was easy and even a small child could perform the task, people wondered why such an easy task did not get performed. Gansberg reinforces the ease of calling the police by stating, “The police may be reached by

Being responsible refers to our ability to make decisions that serve our own interests and the interests of others. We first need to be responsible for ourselves before we can be responsible for others. In learning to be more responsible it is important that we know our limitations. It does not matter how smart we are, there is only so much responsibility that one person can handle at any given time. It is also important to remember that we are not responsible for thing that are out of our control, for example, how other people think and feel or how they react to ourselves or others. Sharing responsibility for both success and failure can lead to increased responsibility to oneself and to others. When you

In the U.S. there is no law requiring someone to come to the aid of another person or to help them in a time of distress. The two articles, “If Decency Doesn’t, Law Should Make Us Samaritans” and “Good Samaritans U.S.A. Are Afraid to Act” shine a light on the controversial topic: The Good Samaritan Law. Although the writers of both articles are talking about the same topic, they both have different opinions. In the first article, the writer believes that America should have a Good Samaritan Law and as Americans we should be ashamed of not having such a law. In the second article, the writer believes that Americans are scared to come to the aid of someone because they fear for their safety and the risk of being sued.

A bystander, to me, is somebody who can possibly help during a time of need but chooses not to. Even if it is something as simple as someone falling down the stairs, I feel you still need to help. It was sad to hear about the Kitty Genovese story, she could have easily been saved, yet people were too lazy or too tired. It makes me wonder how people managed to live with themselves afterward. All 37 of those people were bystanders, and the bystanders are just as guilty as the offender. Growing up my dad always told me if I saw something taking place that I knew was wrong but did not do anything, I was just as guilty as the person doing it. That has