Is there anything wrong with a person who doesn't help anyone, but doesn't hurt anyone either?

No

*shrug*

I think I'd call them hermits.

In some situations, by not helping someone you are in a way hurting them as you are just ignoring them when they need help. It shows that you just think about yourself and are quite selfish. Whether there is anything 'wrong' with that person, is another matter but I think they are just thinking about themselves too much.

that sounds like me

If they really, truly never help anyone, then yes. That seems remarkably antisocial to me. We are social creatures living in communities in which everyone receives some help in some way, and being unwilling to return that help to your fellows--even just close friends or family--indicates to me that there is something wrong with you.

Wrong isn't a suitable word.

I think this person would be a "good enough" member of society. Not damaging or inflicting harm. They would be doing their part by making an honest living. I don't believe they owe the world anything.

People receive help usually by those who are obligated or paid, like teachers and parents.

You can't presume to know what they are thinking about.

People receive help in all kinds of ways, owing to the simple fact that they live in and thus benefit from a civilized society.

Besides the obvious 'help' (education, and being raised by parents) how might someone who never needed much to begin with get enough help that they owe society?

Do they live in a house? In a place that is safe? Do they drive their car on roads? Do people generally treat them politely wherever they go? All of these things are benefits of the kind of social contract that people have developed. Whether or not someone is paid to do them is irrelevant, since it's our feeling of obligation to one another that has made us decide that, for example, it's worth raising taxes to pay for a police force to keep people safe. If you live in a society (which just about everyone does), you are by default benefiting from it.

And you help by paying your taxes. All of this doesn't necessarily mean that you owe anything to the stranger who slipped on the ice.

Then, by your definition, the person is helping.

Even though, technically, we are forced to pay taxes, just like all those people are getting paid to do those jobs. What of a person who lives on savings and doesn't work? Are they helping? Is there something wrong with them?

I'm imagining someone who is willfully rather than passively refusing to help anyone. Yes, I think there is something wrong with that. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with failing to go out of your way to help others, but to refuse to help anyone ever seems rather meanspirited.

I would have a very low opinion of an individual who didn't offer any assistance after seeing someone hurt themselves slipping on ice. I may not think they should go to prison for failing to help, but that still doesn't make it acceptable behaviour.

What if they weren't thinking about it, or thought the person would probably be okay? Seeing but not really paying attention?

I guess I should have specified. That is a good distinction, willfully vs passively. There's a difference between refusing to help after being asked, and not feeling like anyone ever needs you.

You can "what if this, what if that" all you like, but if you see someone fall over and get hurt, you have a basic moral duty to offer some assistance. It is what reasonable, decent human beings do.

I'm not sure that I have a super-high opinion of people who passively fail to help others either, but it's definitely not as bad as going out of your way to withhold aid.

But it is forgivable if they are assuming the person would be okay, and it just doesn't occur to them that they are needed for anything.

Sometimes it is forgivable, depending on what is going on (or failing to go on) in the passively unhelpful person's head.

If that's a reasonable assumption, yes. For example, other people have already gone to help and you don't have any special skills to offer, or they're still on the ground but seem to be laughing at themselves, etc. If they are laid on the ground, bleeding from a wound to the head, or crying in pain, then it is an unreasonable assumption and not so easily forgiveable. That said, I am fairly forgiving of human nature, and I accept that situations like that can be frightening for people and they may try to rationalise what is essentially a flight response by telling themselves that the person will probably be okay.

Yep. In the worse scenario, they could also be a bit shocked and frozen into confusion, too. "What do I do?"

Though generally speaking, seeing someone slip on ice is not that traumatic or bewildering an experience. Walking up and saying "Are you ok?" and possibly helping them up would often be sufficient.

Oh... I meant shocked in the scenario where they are crying and bleeding from the head.

There are people who don't really see anything less as any big deal, and never imagine that anyone needs them for anything. These are the passive non-helpers I was thinking of.

Honestly, yes, I think someone who doesn't want to help any person in any way has something wrong with them. It's completely antisocial, which is a clinically diagnosable disorder. And I agree with what romeoandjuliet said about it being selfish.

Oh. I'm thinking of a person is passively unhelpful. Not deliberately refusing to help others, but just not bothering. I think of that as more 'asocial'. Selfish, yeah, but sometimes it is okay to be selfish.

It would be like - the difference between avoiding situations where you would be called upon to help, and finding yourself in that situation and flatly refusing, even in an emergency.

Whatever. I have my opinion and you have yours.

i don't think you can be sure that someone who never helps doesn't hurt anyone...... when i am working if someone is drowning in their work with their patients and someone else's day is going smoothly and they don't help...... it definitely hurts the whole team!

> Sometimes it is forgivable, depending on what is going on (or failing
> to go on) in the passively unhelpful person's head.

maybe sometimes it is forgivable but you are arguing that the person doesn't help anyone, so that would mean ever........... that isn't something that just happens all the time. you really have to actively not help people for it to happen all the time.

> Oh. I'm thinking of a person is passively unhelpful. Not deliberately
> refusing to help others, but just not bothering. I think of that as
> more 'asocial'. Selfish, yeah, but sometimes it is okay to be selfish.

again, this isn't "passive" if it happens ALL the time..... that is active avoidance of helping anyone! and that is a problem, not JUST selfish.

If you are never in a position to be called upon to help anyone, you might not ever help anyone. I know if I didn't have kids, there wouldn't be many opportunities at all for me to help anyone, and I certainly wouldn't be called upon to help.

If they are never asked, it is passive. They just don't bother.

but if you are not in a position because you actively avoid it, that is completely different!

i disagree completely..... there are enough opportunities that present themselves in EVERYONE's lives to help in some way. if you wait for someone to ASK then you are actively avoiding the opportunities presented. maybe the presentation itself is the cosmos way of asking! not bothering in my opinion is seeing the need but just being apathetic to it! my opinion, and as has been said you are welcome to your opinion but i don't agree with it!

It wouldn't really be that hard to avoid. And if you manage to avoid it successfully, at no detriment to anyone else, what's wrong with that?

Ok, how can a person who stays home all day almost every day have much opportunity to help anyone?

Nope.

this back and forth could go on forever, we disagree. if you manage to avoid it successfully how would you know it was at no detriment..... you wouldn't!

It wouldn't matter. It would be like not being there at all. I am not at the store right now. How do I know that I could be helping someone there who needs help! I don't. But it isn't something to lose sleep over.

i didn't say anything about someone staying at home. you are changing the argument everytime someone disagrees with you. if someone never comes into contact with anyone then fine but that doesn't happen to the majority of people and isn't even worth talking about.

> It wouldn't matter. It would be like not being there at all. I am
> not at the store right now. How do I know that I could be helping
> someone there who needs help! I don't. But it isn't something to lose
> sleep over.

oh jees this is ridiculous, of course it matters to the person you didn't help!! i'm done...............

I still think a person can go out all the time and avoid helping others passively. You don't get in that many situations where you would be needed. I very rarely ever run across situations to be helpful.

No it doesn't, because they are none the wiser, and another person helps. I think we are imagining different kinds of scenarios.

i think you just can never concede that someone might disagree with you, which i do.

No, I just think we are imagining different situations.

I have never ever been in any situation where my help was a matter of someone's life or health. If I never helped anyone (ever) there would have been no detrimental consequences. A person can actually avoid situations like this. Others would be there!

I once got onto a bus that had no seats left and a man walked down to the front and pointed out his now-vacant seat. I assumed that he was getting of the bus at the next stop, thanked him and then went and sat down. He then stayed on the bus for several more stops. I had just had a really rough day at work, and somehow this man's one small act really touched me, to the extent that I was welling up on the bus and have never forgotten it. He was clearly an IV drug user, and I assume he had seen my nursing assistant's uniform (and weary face) and offered me his seat after having a positive experience in the hospital where I worked. You never know how small acts of kindness or aid might benefit others. Often it's the small things that count - someone had treated him with some kindness and he was passing that along. Okay, I wasn't on my way home to kill myself, but imagine a world where all members of society acted as you suggest... No-one holds a door open for other people, or helps someone pick up the shopping they've dropped on the floor, or drops a few cents into a charity box, or helps a mother with three small children carry her pushchair onto the bus, or clears their elderly neighbour's drive of snow, or drives a friend to the airport, or helps someone up who has fallen, or cracks a joke to cover someone's embarrassment, or buys a homeless man a sandwich, or helps a lost child to find their parent, or stops the elevator doors from closing as someone runs towards it... Where everyone lives in their own world, oblivious to those around them. Where there is no society. That's what is wrong with behaving like that.

But the reality is, not everyone behaves like that. The helpful people more than make up for the bubble dwellers. How many bubble dwellers are there really? Not many. And how many people help sometimes, but not all of the time? If I help people regularly, would there still be something wrong with me when I decide not to?

And I think holding a door for someone who does not have their arms full is a bit unnecessary. Nice, but unnecessary.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ragging on helpfulness. I'm just saying that if a person isn't the helpful type, and would rather avoid helping, there's nothing wrong with that.

> Don't get me wrong, I'm not ragging on helpfulness. I'm just saying
> that if a person isn't the helpful type, and would rather avoid helping,
> there's nothing wrong with that.

I think that the man who has the door swing shut in his face, the lady who is late to pick her children up from school because no-one helped her pick up her shopping, the patients at the cancer hospice that isn't receiving charity donations, the mother who battles to get onto the bus (and other passengers who are delayed by it), the elderly neighbour whose drive is too dangerous for him to venture out, the friend who misses their flight because of unreliable public transport, the person left on the floor, the humiliated teenager, the hungry homeless man, the lost child and their parents, and the woman late to her interview because she missed the elevator might all disagree with you.

I wouldn't care if they did. I can kind of understand looking down on someone who never helps anyone (though I still wouldn't totally agree), but to expect a person to be helpful every time they see a need --- thats way over the top in the expectation area. A person who helps frequently isn't nice "enough"?

I would not expect anyone to help me just because they saw that I needed it. I wouldn't blame them if I missed an appointment. They may have been helping people all day.

By the way, I have been in some of those situations and not been helped, and I still don't disagree with myself. In fact, I have been in many many situations where no one was helping, and I still don't think they should have been. Thinking back, it never even occurred to me to think someone should have helped, in the situations involving strangers. I've even fallen and hurt myself twice, and strangers helping never entered my mind.

The question wasn't about a person who doesn't help someone, but about a person who doesn't help anyone. Of course we all miss or ignore opportunities to help people, but the question definitely implied never.

Feeling entitled to help and being grateful when it is offered are two entirely different things.

Okay. I think there are enough helpful people around that the 'never helpful' people are okay. I still don't think there's anything "wrong" with them.

I wouldn't even feel grateful, unless it was an emergency

I think it's strongly suggestive of pathology.

But that's not always the case. Something's wrong with a sociopath, but nothing's wrong with someone who would never use harsh language with people, much less hurt them, just because they don't help people either. They don't create harm. Life goes on without them.

Never helping others suggest lack of empathy which is pathological. The harm they do/do not do is irrelevant. Someone who has cancer doesn't harm anyone else, but you surely wouldn't argue that there was nothing wrong with them?

Never insulting others or never wanting to hurt someone or hurt their feelings shows there is empathy. So when one person shows those nice kind traits, but would also avoid helping other people, do they have empathy or not?

Not insulting others could well be for self-preservation. It doesn't necessarily show empathy.

Maybe, but what about people who genuinely don't want to hurt feelings?

They're unlikely to be the same people who never do anything to help others.

They could be if they are lazy or oblivious.

If they are lazy or oblivious to that extent, then there is likely something wrong with them.

Seriously, this is going round and round in circles...

OK, possibly. Basically what I am thinking is that if you happen to witness someone not helping another person, there's no real reason to be shocked or alarmed.

I agree that witnessing a single incident is not sufficient reason to assume that they don't help "anyone", but that's a whole different question.

True. I probably just get antagonistic when it comes to stuff like this, because I've noticed so many people getting shocked and alarmed over unimportant stuff. If I saw someone who might appear to others need help but I thought he didn't really need it, I might be tempted to not help, not because I don't care about the guy, but because it would be funny to alarm any easily-alarmed witnesses.

What an interesting "back and forth'...... and my empathy rests with Clare , though If I see someone fall down, my first instinct is to laugh especially if the person is not badly injured, having said that I am forever giving money away to the homeless etc

No there is nothing wrong with this at all. It is my purgative.

Yeah, they're a waste of space. May as well turn them into dog food or something.