LogFAQs > #961105993

adjl posted...

Do you really think that the thought process of "my kid's getting mauled by the dog, I need to save him" actually takes long enough to process such a complex emotional response as "now that I consider the risks associated with adopting a rescue pit bull, I recognize that I bear responsibility for this current crisis, and because of that guilt, I'm going to intervene even though I stand a good chance of being injured"? That's not how brains work, dude. If you want to flippantly dismiss literally sacrificing her life as being a simple emotional response, at least suggest that it was maternal instinct. That's still a ridiculous way of looking at things (since you're actively trying to come up with an excuse to not applaud somebody for meaningfully risking her life, and that's never going to not be absurd), but at least it's remotely plausible.

I was noting the moral justification, so regardless of instinct she was additionally responsible for solving the problem. Instinct will happen regardless and says nothing of her character, it's simply that if she didn't do that, she'd be even worse than anybody else.

adjl posted...

It doesn't have to. You can screw up and also be heroic. Had she survived, her heroism wouldn't change the fact that she shouldn't be able to adopt another dog like this, but it would nonetheless have been heroic to intervene.

You can't heroically intercept your own screw up, that's your moral obligation, to not try to fix it is immoral. The fact she didn't deal with it earlier makes her worse than someone who didn't create the problem and thus didn't need to act, not better.

Heroism requires that you are doing beyond what is expected of you, this is the bare minimum after what she did.