Instant Ethical Choices in Recent Tragedies

In the recent tragedies in Boston and West, TX, as in every horrific event, people made the choice to run away from the terror or to run toward to help. In our last class, we were examining the concepts of internal and external sanctions, how they come about, and how they have an affect on our actions. As we learned, Mill thinks that our internal sanction (intuition, conscience) is an innate function that is shaped or organized by the society around us (external sanctions) and therefore the two are strongly linked as motivators for our actions. I have to agree with Mill's perspective that we don't act just out of thinking and reasoning but rather that there is a natural motivation and feeling that humans, as social creatures have, to act in accordance with the greatest happiness principle. You can condition people all you want to behave in a particular way but there has to be an underlying instinct that drives this. In a moment of panic and fear, as we saw in these two situations, I really think that split second decision of which action prevailed, self-preservation or aid to others, has to come from something more deeply rooted than social conditioning or adhering to a reasoned moral theory.