Doing Without Doing

Stimulus

Describe (and draw) the following two scenarios:

Scenario A: You see someone walking along and next to you is a plank of wood. They are not looking where they are going. You decide to place the plank of wood in front of the person so that they will trip over. You do this and they don’t notice and they trip over and hurt themselves. Everyone around laughs at them as they sit on the floor looking miserable.

Task Question 1

Did you do something in this situation?

Task Question 2

Are you responsible for the person getting hurt?

 

Stimulus

Scenario B: You see someone walking along not looking where they are going and in front of them is a plank of wood that they are about to walk into. You could quickly kick the plank out of the way so that they avoid tripping over it but you decide to do nothing. The person then trips over the plank of wood and everyone around laughs at them.

Task Question 3

Did you do something in this situation?

Task Question 4

Are you responsible for the person getting hurt?

 

Stimulus

Later on, when the teacher is telling you off for causing the person to get hurt, someone else, who was watching the whole thing, says to the teacher, ‘He didn’t do anything. He didn’t move an inch. I was watching.’

Task Question 5

Is the boy right to defend you?

 

Extension Activity

Imagine that you believe it is wrong to lie. There is something you don’t want to tell someone. They ask you directly to tell them the information.

Task Question 6

If you remain silent does that mean that you have not lied?

Nested questions:

• What is an action?
• Can you perform an action without moving?
• What makes someone responsible for an outcome?

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