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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Plato, A and B
Message-ID: <919@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Aug-83 05:04:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.919
Posted: Sat Aug 20 05:04:15 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Aug-83 09:45:37 EDT
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Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 21

For those of you who did not find my previous submission on Plato and 
Democles knotty enough, consider this. Democles asks you for
the sword. Without thinking, you hand it to him. Then he
tells you what he is going to do with it. Do you have a moral
obligation to stop him?

Suppose you hand him his sword, he goes on his way, and next
day you hear for the first time that he killed his wife and lover.
Do you feel guilty? Does your answer change if Damocles placed
their bodies in a safe spot where neither you nor he can be
found out?  Does you answer change if Damocles lied to you
and told you that he needed his sword to kill a mad dog he had in
his atrium? What if Damocles *did* want the sword to kill the mad
dog, but it was only after dispatching the dog that he discovered
his wife (and that she had a lover), and in a rage he killed the two? 

When you accept responsibility for the sword, how far does this
responsibility extend?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura