Hurricane Katrina's Moral Obligation

891 Words4 Pages

Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy that devastated many families, homes, and lives. Within that devastation, a tough situation arose for many public officials. Among them, police officers, were heavily affected. The question that washed among the shores of the gulf states was the moral dilemma that affected the police officers who served the community. In a situation like Hurricane Katrina, was their moral obligation to the public or their family? The question is incredibly tricky. There is no one way to answer it; there are too many variables to consider. My belief is that public officials have a moral obligation to their individual family, always first and foremost. Your family are people in which you are often bounded together by blood to protect. There is always a risk when making a decision. In the case of officer Paul Schubert, in Kevin Johnson’s article of USA Today, he believed his moral …show more content…

If we try to understand it from a hurricane survivor's point of view, their allegations of public officials can be justified. If the people who are paid on tax dollar money to serve, yet in the most crucial circumstances they are missing, it would lead many to question as to why they were even hired in the first place. Clearly, officials also have a moral obligation to the citizens of the region. Yet as individuals in times of need and tragedy, it is important to remember to care for one another. Our overall moral obligation in life is to coexist with one another. If one person is in dire need of help, it is a obligation, no matter what job title you may hold, to lend a hand. Our moral obligations are set by our values. Assuming that our values are all different, we might never see eye to eye with everyone. Yet by using different perspectives of duties, compassion, and self interest we can come to a better understanding of why a moral obligation for one person might be different from