Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

Paedophile priests, soccer coaches, etcetera are part of organizations and these organizations shelter them, cover up for them and provide a ready source source of victims for paedophiles. These organizations have a duty of care and must be held accountable when they fail in this duty.

[Pattern-chaser]

The idea which you seem to be expressing, that oh well it happens elsewhere too, does not change the fact that people in positions of power tend to avoid serious consequences for their crimes by association and by their failures to do their duty as citizens.
Until people like the Archbishop, are treated with the same legal force as other enablers then people in power will contonue to abuse that power. We know that Trump was an Epstein frequent flier, prince Andrew was also a pædophile. But where are the consequences?

Sorry but I can't agree that the organizations aren't culpable.

I'm sorry, I must've written very poorly. I sought only to include enough context to balance our thoughts here. The core issue is that children are abused by pædophiles. The secondary issue is that organisations, and individuals within those organisations, fail to focus solely on the welfare of children, and focus too, or instead, on the consequences for themselves of action or inaction.

The wrongdoing of the churches, schools, and so forth, is down to *appearances*. How it would/will seem to others if children are abused, and how it could appear that the organisations are responsible for that abuse. And they have a (minor) point. It is the pædophiles who are the abusers. But that is not the only responsibility, as you have both observed here, quite rightly.

Our laws place certain responsibilities on those who care for children, in particular, to report abuse, so that it can be minimised whenever and wherever possible. And it is this that has led to the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He bears guilt, for sure, but he is not the only one. That doesn't decrease or excuse his wrongdoing, of course, but it would be wrong to think that, because one man has been found out, that it's all OK now. There are others in the Church of England who also helped to cover up the abuse, and others in other organisations, maybe schools, are also guilty of the same wrongdoing. And that wrongdoing is clear and simple: they failed to report abuse because it might seem like they were complicit in that abuse, with negative consequences for their organisations, and for their own employment and prosperity. This is understandable, but not acceptable.

But it doesn't help to focus too tightly on, say, churches, when the problem is child abuse and child abusers. And the secondary problem is the priority we give to appearances over actuality, which encourages the despicable cover-ups that we are discussing here.

[Sculptor1]

Our laws place certain responsibilities on those who care for children, in particular, to report abuse, so that it can be minimised whenever and wherever possible. And it is this that has led to the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He bears guilt, for sure, but he is not the only one. That doesn't decrease or excuse his wrongdoing, of course, but it would be wrong to think that, because one man has been found out, that it's all OK now.

Here's the problem. You follow "He bears guilt" with "BUT he is not the only one."
That is the language of an apologist.
"BUT" is not an appropriate modifier here. And he does not bear the guilt: he has excused himself of it .
If there is to be a modifier in this "but" is poorly chosen. Try "and".
His resignation is nothing more than a hand-washing. He is neither admitting to his horrific complicity, nor taking responsibility for it.

[Pattern-chaser]

Our laws place certain responsibilities on those who care for children, in particular, to report abuse, so that it can be minimised whenever and wherever possible. And it is this that has led to the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He bears guilt, for sure, but he is not the only one. That doesn't decrease or excuse his wrongdoing, of course, but it would be wrong to think that, because one man has been found out, that it's all OK now.

Here's the problem. You follow "He bears guilt" with "BUT he is not the only one."
That is the language of an apologist.

No, it isn't. It says what it says, you only have to read. It says that the wrongdoings we are discussing and describing are widespread, not confined to one man or one organisation. If we are saying that those responsible should be punished — and I think I agree with this — then *all* of those responsible should be punished, not just one, or maybe two.

If six police officers beat a suspect to death, it is not sufficient to blame and charge only one of them. That is not justice.

**************************

The other point is this. If your organisation turned out to be guilty of a cover-up like this, would *you* be a whistleblower, given that it might result in the loss of your own employment, and ability to pay your car-loan? Would I?

To make such a personal sacrifice is a big thing. We all know that we *should* do the 'right' thing, but do all of us have the courage? Or would we try to hide it, if we thought we could get away with it? Or, if it was already fairly well hidden, would we unearth it?

N.B. I know what I describe here is wrong and immoral behaviour, and I do not condone it, but how many of us are willing to lose our jobs, and maybe our homes, to do the right thing?

[Sculptor1]

Our laws place certain responsibilities on those who care for children, in particular, to report abuse, so that it can be minimised whenever and wherever possible. And it is this that has led to the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He bears guilt, for sure, but he is not the only one. That doesn't decrease or excuse his wrongdoing, of course, but it would be wrong to think that, because one man has been found out, that it's all OK now.

Here's the problem. You follow "He bears guilt" with "BUT he is not the only one."
That is the language of an apologist.

No, it isn't. It says what it says, you only have to read. It says that the wrongdoings we are discussing and describing are widespread, not confined to one man or one organisation. If we are saying that those responsible should be punished — and I think I agree with this — then *all* of those responsible should be punished, not just one, or maybe two.

If six police officers beat a suspect to death, it is not sufficient to blame and charge only one of them. That is not justice.

Yes, they are all guilty, but there is also a genicide going on in Gaza

[Fanman]

If we break your question down to its fundamental notion, it is a question of contrasts and if we perceive those contrasts as being independent or contingent on one another. Good and evil can be placed into the category of what we call standards, that is, human standards of behaviour, moral and immoral. There are behaviours that are generally considered as being good and vice versa for evil. Since the behaviours associated with both of those standards can exist independently, we need not posit that they cannot exist without each other. I personally cannot conceive of many reasons that they would be contingent upon each other. The only reason I can think of where that may occur is when there is a conflict between the two types of behaviour. For victory to occur, they are contingent on one another.