Description:
Is it wrong to feel bad for wanting something that would hurt someone else? What if you don’t find out it hurts them until after you’ve already received it? Does that make it wrong from the start or does it become wrong after you find out? What if you never find out? Is the wrongness of the desire predicated on what you know? Surely we can’t say that ignorance is tantamount to morality.
Perhaps a more pressing question: If you get something you wanted that somehow harms someone else through no fault of your own, how much responsibility do you have to help that person? Are you obligated to help if it’s within your power? If it’s convenient? Are you required to do everything necessary to help, or is it acceptable to put in a reasonable amount of effort? If it’s the latter, where’s the line that denotes effort as ‘reasonable’?
Perhaps there is no simple answer to these questions. When it comes down to it, maybe it just depends on who’s involved.
