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Analysis Of 'The Moral Logic Of Survivor Guilt'

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In a life or death situation, what do you do? If you had to decide to save yourself and let a friend die, or try help your friend, when odds are you will perish as well… what would you do? Would you even be accountable for your actions? In dire situations it seems people cannot control their actions, like the boy in “The Seventh Man”. This idea is also reinforced in “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” from the view of a war survivor. This belief is challenged as well in “Taking Advantage: The Social Basis of Human Behavior” by Richard F. Taflinger. I firmly believe that people in life or death situations, will be focussed on self preservation, and they cannot control it, and they shouldn’t accept complete responsibility for them .
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These things are uncontrollable, uncomfortable until you're in the moment. Richard F. Taflinger has a great way of explaining this. “The instinctive view is instant and uncontrollable: it’s the way the mind is wired…” “...staying alive is a personal quest for any animal. It is personal survival that allows it to continue its genetic line.” (Taflinger, paragraph 4). In the seventh man’s situation, his body went into self- preservation mode. The boy instinctively did not want to die, and trying to save K would’ve put himself in serious danger, so his instincts, not his morals took charge. In a situation where you don’t make the decision, is remorse a logical emotion post traumatic event? Would you feel guilty for someone letting someone else die, if you had absolutely no control over the event? Most likely not, but these are logical questions to dictate whether or not the seventh man's decision was one he should take responsibility. Yes, it was his body that ran away, but at what point do we separate a human body from its barbaric, prehistoric instincts? The majority may never make a black and white decision, but in my personal opinion decision seems, possible, to reach for

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