Ethical relativism and moral objectivism compared

Fountain Lady, Ethical Relativism and Moral Objectivism

In the following pages I will be discussing the possible connections between the "fountain lady" and the ways in which we define, find, establish or change "value." The lady who fell in the fountain in the mall manifested her intentions to sue the mall, while her lawyer declared they wanted to establish the guilty parties.

The situation is quite simple and in order to establish who is right we must analyze the facts. The woman fell in the fountain because of her own negligence as she was texting and did not see where she was going. Fountains such as the one in which she fell are a common feature in public places such as malls. If they were potentially dangerous, they would be banned. There is a law which states that if a person gets injured because of her own negligence then there can be no other culprits.

Did anything bad happen to the woman? Just like she declared, she had no injury after the fall. Therefore, there was no damage done to her. And if there was no damage, then there is no reason for her to sue the mall. It is obvious that she had her feelings hurt, but this is to be connected to the fact that the video recording of the fall went online and became a viral success. There are several issues that could be discussed here. The first one is the respect of privacy. People are entitled to have their privacy respected and protected, but she was in a public place, where security cameras have the purpose of maintaining the environment safe. Therefore there is no valid argument which she could bring against the recording of the video.

The second issue that can be brought into discussion is the right to one's image. The fact that the video went on Youtube is not correct, but in the end we must value if this harmed the woman's image or not. Looking at the recording we notice that the face of the woman is not visible. One can not even tell if it is a woman or a girl, since the camera was too far in order to record details. This means that it was impossible to know the identity of the person who fell. Taking this into consideration, it is safe to say that there was no damage even after the video became viral.

Did something bad happen? The incident was unusual, falling into a fountain is not something one would expect. The woman must have been a bit scared and also ashamed. It is true that it would have been nice to have someone ask her if she was ok and perhaps offer her a blanket or something that could help her dry. There is an universal moral duty to help your fellowmen who are in need, but there can be no punishment for those who fail to do so. The incident might have had negative consequences, such as a physical injury and at that point the situation might have changed.