The argument of the shallow pond is really quite simple: A child in a pond is going to die unless you get your pants muddy and save them. It’s a fairly simple cost benefit analysis and it is generally accepted that the child’s life is worth more than clean pants. All is well, the child lives, and you can change into nice pants later. Appiah doesn’t let it slide like that though.

What about the outside factors? Is it so hard to imagine a situation where the simple form of the cost benefit analysis doesn’t apply? And what should one do in that case? Appiah provides some such examples, but here is one of my own construction:

You are part of a group of survivors from a plane crash. You have been starving for days, as have your companions, to whom you have grown very close. It is becoming increasingly obvious that with no other sources of food, cannibalism may be the only viable option. Still, nobody wants to default to this option, and the longer you wait, the more likely it is that there won’t be much nutritional value in such action anyway. Everybody is growing thin and sick. But then, when you’ve stepped away from the group to get some water, your luck changes. You see a plump child to whom you have no personal connection, standing in the middle of your little water source. Not only does their baby fat provide much more promise than the bunch you left by the fire side, but you also wouldn’t have to lose a friend. In fact, this child seems to be rather rude, putting its grubby feet in your only source of fresh water. You’d feel pretty bad killing a child though. Low and behold more good luck! The child falls forward due to extreme lack of coordination and begins to drown in the shallow pond. You don’t even have to take any action against it, just sit passively. Or, you could save it, getting your only pair of pants muddy in the process.

NOW how does the cost benefit analysis turn out? Not in the child’s favor certainly. But, does that mean it is right to let him drown? This rather extreme example of course, but in general the question will always arise in more complex situations than the one the original argument raises, and in the end there may not be a ‘right’ or ‘obligatory’ choice. Well, if we cannot always decide when and how we are responsible in this manner, what do we do?

Our morals have to be our own. There is no ‘responsibility’ except that which we give ourselves. It’s my personal opinion that we should all do our best to help others, even strangers, and that’s about all I can say. There are also certain laws we have to follow, like not leaving children in cars to bake (shall I make another small child cannibalism joke? nah), but even those can be ignored, so long as we don’t care about the consequences.

So, if nobody has any obligations, how does the world not degenerate into cruelty, theft, and the consumption of babies? Well, some would say it has or will, but I have some hope for the human race. You see, despite our flaws, we do have some pretty good qualities too, and there are plenty of stories to back this up. People giving their lives to save other in fires, people returning valuable items that they could just as easily have taken, or rescuing lost pets to help them find their owners. It is not our ‘responsibility’ that makes society function, but the ways we do good OUTSIDE of our obligations.

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