Letting someone die is just as bad as killing them.

"Scenario A: You shoot an sick African kid in the head Scenario B: The sick African kid dies of TB, because you didn't donate any money for the simple medicine he needed to live. The fact is, these two actions are not MORALLY THE SAME! The African kid may have died anyways, the key difference is YOUR role in the person's death. In scenario A, YOU ACTIVELY assisted in the person's death, while in scenario B, you DID NOTHING! The key difference is YOUR ROLE in the actual death. In his scenarios, my opponent has a key difference between the two scenarios. In his first scenario, person X is actively PARTICIPATING in the killing, while in the second scenario person X is inactive. My position is that the actual participation warrants more moral blame than inactivity. My opponent is not taking into account YOUR ROLE!!!! He merely cites the consequences of your actions. BUT IT IS LOGICALLY CLEAR MORALITY IS NOT WHOLLY ABOUT CONSEQUENCES!!!!" You have never demonstrated why my active role in the death is any different than my passive role. The actions are morally the same, because in both, you could have prevented an immoral consequence with insignificant loss to yourself. You have never given me any logic, or any reason why active participation is any different than passive participation beyond "in a) you're active, and in b) you're inactive" You act as if there is an obvious difference between the two. The fact as, there isn't, both situations have you responsible for one's death, either because you actively killed them, or passively killed them. The consequences are the same, ergo the morality is the same. Of course you will say the consequences aren't everything, and we can't take a consequentialist POV. We have to. If we don't, actions that cause more harm than good will be considered moral. In other words, in any other system, actions that hurt the world and the people in it can be considered just, or moral. That is what is illogical. "And are the two scenarios you're describing not the same thing? The first situation, you're participating in the murder (I.e furthering his cheating), and the second, you're just "letting it be"." What I'm saying is that he'll be even more successful with your help, which makes the difference. It changes the whole calculus. "This is not the point, the point is the whether the moral consequences between the two actions are equal, which in this case, they're not. Furthermore, I do not see how this statement deals with my helping friend cheat and not helping your friend cheat…I am not advocating killing anyone.. In my example, there is a stark difference between the two actions." I'm saying that helping your friend causes more harm. I may be wrong, in which case they would be equivalent. "The outcome does not matter in my example. It is the MORALITY of the person's actions that matters. Furthermore, telling on your friend is not an option that was given in my scenario. The consequences do not matter because the morality of helping your friend cheat is considerably worse than not telling on him. If you somehow disagree with the actual moral difference between the two actions, please give some reasons. His arguments have no direct link towards my example. The simple fact is, in my analogy, the MORALITY OF THE TWO ACTIONS ARE DIFFERENT." Why doesn't the outcome matter? I have shown that the outcome is all that matters in the case of morality, and he hasn't shown anything. You haven't shown why the morality is different. You seem to think that morality is intuitive, but it's not, it is logical. The ethos should be determined by the logos, not the pathos. In scenario b) however, telling would have to be the alternative to doing nothing. Telling may harm your friendship. And again, if it doesn't, than the actions are equivalent. Outcomes determine morality, that's my point. "WHAT WAS THE ACTION? The failure to do an action is not an action, it's called an INACTION! INACTION IS NOT ACTION. As said by my opponent, it was "passive approval". If it was "active approval", we could judge the morality of it, but it was passive, connotating that NOTHING WAS DONE. Thus, we cannot pass moral judgment on it. The simple fact is, the conscious decision not to help the child IS NOT AN ACTION. An action is according to www.m-w.com is "a thing done". In this case, he has done NOTHING, thus, any moral calculus cannot be done on something that has never been done!" If moral calculus cannot be done on inaction, than it would be perfectly fine to let Hitler kill the Jews, as inaction cannot be judged, or it would be fine to let everyone die in Darfur, as inaction cannot be judged. Not judging inaction leads to bad consequences, such as letting Hitler kill the Jews, or letting Darfur implode. If inaction is immune, than no blame at all is on the brother in b), which is undeniably false. "i) A consequentalist interpretation of moral will lead to even worse things happening. For example, someone could justify killing 90% of the world's population because of the possible future harms (i.e global warming, starvation, nuclear war, overpopulation) that could result due to exponential population growth. What shall it be? 1 person dying to a immoral murderer? Or 5.4 billion people dying due to consequentalist morals?" You just used consequentialist morals to determine that the death of 1 is better than the death of 5.4 billion. If killing 90% of the world caused more good than harm, (which it wouldn't) it would be moral, as not doing so would cause even more harm. "ii) The "murderer at the door example" is not in line with deontological ethics. It would take far too long to explain why it does not fit in the paradigm of deontological ethics, thus I shall refer to http://peasoup.typepad.com...... to explain why the opposite choice (i.e to lie to the murderer) is infact in line with Kantian ethics. " That was one example. And that man is wrong. Kant says that lying is always wrong, no matter what. Anyways, I have shown above why we must take consequentialism. "iii) A consequentalist interpretation does not tell us what is essentially moral and immoral. There is no bright line to separate what is moral and immoral, thus, deontological ethics is in this manner superior to consequentalist interpretations (i.e having a definite set of "moral" and "immoral" actions)" There is a bright line, that is, we should not do things that cause more harm than good. "Singer's article shows that something that is morally correct should be done, and he provides numerous justification for his thesis. However, it is readily clear that his thesis has not been adopted (i.e not everyone is donating 25% of their income to UNICEF) by the world. This could be due to various reasons such as greed, laziness, or just plain human nature. Whatever the case, the simple fact is, Singer's thesis (which states moral correctness = action) has been clearly rejected by average society (unless my opponent shows that American society donates 25% of its income to starving African kids)." Average society doesn't accept most moral systems besides there own intuition. That doesn't mean that we should determine morality with our intuition. Average society is often wrong. "Along this line of logic, if society itself does not conform to the concept of 'moral correctness = action', why should person X do so? He has no compelling reason to obey this moral concept that my opponent has forced upon him." Because it is the right thing to do. In the 1800's, even in much of the 1900's, much of society was racist and sexist. That doesn't mean it is okay. I'm running low on characters, so I'll summarize. In this contention, my opponent has resorted to a conformist argument, and I have shown conformism is wrong. C5: i) and ii) I was using the article you cited. Really they are equivalent.