[Professor Deni Elliott] How can I harm thee?
Let me count the ways.
Physically.
Psychologically or emotionally.
Financially.
And, I can cause you reputational harm.
[Beranger] A lot of times, you'll make decisions that will harm others, that will benefit you.
[Jacky] I don't think that there is any valid reason as to why you would need to or why you should
harm another individual.
Harms rarely come isolated from one another.
So, let's review the categories: Physical harm is the easiest.
It can be short-term, like, oh, being shoved out of the way and into a mud puddle by someone
hurrying down the street.
Or it can be long-term, like being injured in a car accident by a drunken driver.
Psychological and emotional harm may not carry any visible scars.
But, they are true harms.
Emotional harm is the short-term version.
When we feel offended or embarrassed or humiliated, it may be due to emotional harm.
Psychological harm makes us feel unsure of our worth or lose confidence in ourselves;
it can result from a trauma and haunt us from that point on.
The tentative child or the volatile, explosive adult may be acting from a place of psychological harm.
Financial harm is important too.
If I take advantage of you being naive about investments and convince you to put your life savings
into some "get rich quick" scheme that fails, I've caused you harm.
Last of all is reputational harm.
This kind of harm has become more prevalent because of the wide reach of the Internet.
Cyber-bullying has led teenagers to commit suicide; false or mean-spirited reviews have
led to professional ruin for individuals and for businesses.
[Shaun] Physical harm rates a lot higher.
Definitely the 9 and 10 range versus emotional harm.
[Yago] Their ultimate form of harm is torture, so I would probably put that as a pedestal
as the most amount of harm you can do to anybody.
[Hannah] Seventeen to twenty-one, I think I was, of sexual abuse.
And I think even though that was what some might consider it just physical, I think that
it affected me way more emotionally.
So I think sometimes they can combine themselves, in not so great combinations.
[Letisha] We live in a society in which it's really easy to steal someone's identity.
I recently, you know, had a credit card that I was using and I went to go pick up my prescription
at the pharmacy and they told me my card was declined, which made absolutely no sense because
I had money in the bank.
And so, when I called they said,
"Oh! We sent you a new card, didn't you get it?
It's been activated."
And I said, "No I have not!"
It hurt me financially.
It hurt me emotionally.
So, it’s just, they're all really interrelated and I don't think that there's any one that's
worse than the other.
Now causing harm can be justified, but the harm-causing action must first meet one of
the following conditions: Number one: The person harmed gave consent.
Think of someone who agrees to go through a painful surgery so that he will be healthy again.
That's consent to cause harm.
Number two: The harm caused was part of the harmer's role-related responsibility.
Sometimes causing justified harms is just part of the job.
If a parent prevents her teenager from hanging out with friends until homework is done,
she is fulfilling her role-related responsibility, no matter how much anguish she might cause
her child at the moment.
Number three: A harm was caused to prevent an even greater harm to the community as a whole.
For example, a government collects taxes, causing financial harm to some citizens, because
without taxes the government could not provide services that benefit all citizens.
[Yago] In 2007 I went to do an internship for the Danilo Perez foundation
and visiting the Embera tribe and the Darien Forest.
The country, Panama, thought it was in their benefit to intervene in this tribe, even though
it would change their perception of what the world is, but for a good in which they value,
which is the information and the knowledge that this tribe had.
After meeting one of these conditions, an act of justified harm must also pass a publicity test.
The publicity test means that we're willing for the exception to the general rule,
"cause no harm," to be widely and publicly known, and applied in all similar situations.
The harm-causer in this case must also be willing to acknowledge that she or he might
be the one hurt in the future by the same exception.
[Rich] Personally, I think that it's impossible not to hurt someone, not to cause harm to
someone, to the environment, to an animal, in trying to achieve something.
But I think what's important is that we try to make decisions that minimize that harm.
So, maybe I CAN harm you in a variety of ways.
But, being the ethical person that I strive to be, I WON'T harm you without justification.
And, I WON'T harm you unless I'm willing to explain to you and the public at large
why I am doing so.
And, I WON'T harm you without believing that you and everyone else is equally justified
in causing the same kind of harm, even to me.
[Hannah] I think that there are definitely situations where it really… who would blame who?
And can we even really clearly say that was someone's fault?
I think there are definitely situations where we can't.
[Beranger] Sometimes when people suffer such great personal harm, their own morals and
ethics become compromised because they feel,
"If I've been hurt by others or others can be this way to me, why should I be good to others?"
We're gonna be faced with ethical dilemmas as long as we're alive and as long as we're
human and if we don't talk about it, it's just going to exacerbate the problem.