This is a hugely open ended question but I will first give the short answer: yes. Then I will give the not-quite-so-shot answer: yes, but not always. And for the long answer I will explore a particular instance of this question, weather leaving a man dying of starvation on the side of the road is the same as killing him.
We first need to establish what the basis of morality is. For the purpose of discussion, and because this system of morality shows a difference between these two acts, let us assume that morality is a convention within society that functions as a series of social mechanisms for the benefit of the society as a whole. Morality is enforced by social sanctions against the transgressor(s). Morality may also be a mechanism within the mind that mirrors the mechanisms of the society around it.
The moral difference in this situation is that ultimately the moral blame cannot be surely pinned to the transgressor of the act. In the case of a man taking the life of a starving man with a gun, it is quite clear that this one man is guilty and the internal and external mechanisms of morality relevant to this man will then act. But the gray ground where maybe hundreds of people walk by a starving man on the side of a city street, who is morally responsible? Are all of these people murderers? And at what point is it too much of a burden to take care of this person that it is not a morally wrong act to not help this man in order to protect ones own interests?
I would have to disagree with and add that you are adding a few characteristics in your scenarios which may be clouding your thoughts on the issue. The bare difference theory requires that all else in the scenario be equal. In the first scenario where a man kills the starving man with a gun, we can agree that he is guilty of the starving man's death.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between this and your second scenario is that the second scenario welcomes other people. in order to show the lack of difference between killing and letting die, you would have to isolate those two characters again. If the first man came across the starving man and had the ability to help this person, but chose not to, I would argue that he is just as guilty of the starving man's death, as the person who kills with the gun.
To entertain the question of would all the people who, walking in a busy city, pass by the starving man be murders; I would say that they are not quite murders, in that there is the chance that someone else could help the person. If, however, each person could read every other person's mind and know that nobody else would help him, then each one of them, given they had the ability to help, would be just as guilty of his death. Additionally, when you take self interests into account, you are varying the scenario beyond repair