I was driving by the park last night. A large pickup truck was stopped at the light, two cars in from of me. The light changed and the truck did not move. The car in front of me began to beep it’s horn, then he laid on it and angrily sped by. At this point, the driver, an older woman, was getting out of the vehicle. She walked around to the front of the truck, bent down and picked up an injured duck.
My mind flashed back to a Moral Philosophy class I had taken over twenty years ago. I remember studying John Rawls and Social Contract Theory. And, while this thought isn’t exactly what he meant by the Original Position, I couldn’t help but wonder if the impatient driver would have reacted in a similar fashion if he had known that, on the other side of the truck was not a an injured duck, but an injured person...and to take it a step further, what if that injured person was a member of his family.
My mind flashed back to a Moral Philosophy class I had taken over twenty years ago. I remember studying John Rawls and Social Contract Theory. And, while this thought isn’t exactly what he meant by the Original Position, I couldn’t help but wonder if the impatient driver would have reacted in a similar fashion if he had known that, on the other side of the truck was not a an injured duck, but an injured person...and to take it a step further, what if that injured person was a member of his family.
