Is the only time we really have any obligation to our fellow man is when there is a physical contract signed laying out the obligations in detail?
Is it not greedy to assume people owe us something if we never make it official.
Hey Superman,
Suppose that you happened to see a man fall through the ice on an otherwise deserted lake. Are you suggesting here that you ought to have no obligation to help the man, because you and he hadn’t previously signed a joint-contract explicitly agreeing to help each other in case of drowning?
Now suppose that you had, in fact, signed such a contract with that particular man. But as you approach him, you realize that he’s treading water with no problem; only, he’s already turned blue from the cold. So, you turn to leave. And upon hearing his desperate cries for help as he sees you walking away, you casually remark to yourself, “What a greedy bastard he is for assuming that I ought to help him when the terms of our contract clearly specified death by drowning, not death by freezing.”
Are you, by chance, in law school, SupermanForHire? Such a world sounds like a lawyer’s dream of Paradise on Earth.
Regards,
Michael
Looking for the other perspective too, you have absolutely no obligation to fulfil a signed contract at all, it’s just that there are societal consequences if you don’t (fines, prison, etc.).
Anyway, if you’re looking at the question from a law perspective, there are plenty of times when a verbal contract is valid too, just harder to prove in a court of law.
Some men would prefer to have their word of some value though. Call me a romantic, but man’s recent loss of desire to have their own personal ‘good word’ is perhaps the scariest recent development in human history.
Thta’s just an extension of the socialogical consequences of a written contract and you’ll probably only fine extended to the chattering classes anyway as they’ve got little else to do apart from gossip. Although i have no idea of whether that is true or not.
Haha, chatterers never tell the truth–it goes against their biology. I am talking of men so honest they do not talk to a select for fear of spoiling their own virtue. You know, the type characterized by figures like Abraham Lincoln; who would walk back 3 miles if a man selling them lumber gave him 2 dollars too much in change.
The fear of financially draining litigation has scared many people and corporations into allowing such unfair travesties in the workplace and places of education. My own employer cites “anti-favoritism” as a qualifying factor for many company policies - I read “We’re afraid of getting sued.”
I lament the new standard of judicial proceedings to conclude nearly every quibble, nowadays. There is less emphasis on morality than in times passed and I think that it shows. A man’s (or woman’s) promise should mean more than it does. I wont be getting screwed by other, however, because they betray my trust. I will neither betray another’s trust. When it comes down to it, I can only do my part.
I agree with XXL that there’s a lost value (or maybe one that never existed, we just distort history that way) in the “word as bond.” Even the religious views that things will happen to your soul should you break your word . . . “burn in hell” is a little too severe though.
On one hand contracts are societal thoughts. Lord knows we simply would not function well without them. We’re either too damn greedy or we just can’t agree on what we want.
On the other hand, they mechanize us into automatons. How many things have you done or not done, not because of your sense of morality, but because of your sense of “jail or obedience” ultimatum.
I believe at the least, all laws should exist only to the extent that they can somehow later be changed.