Which one of the following assertions from passage A provides support for the view attributed to Maritain in passage ...

jgoldman on September 17, 2019

Question 3

Why in question 3 when we diagram the contrapositive do we switch "and" to "or"? To be "morally justified", isn't it a requirement that the person both knew of the harm AND consented? I don't understand why in the contrapositive it changes so only one of the parameters is required. Thanks!

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SamA on September 17, 2019

Hello @igoldman,

I think I can explain that. You are correct, it is a requirement that we have both consent and knowledge of harm in order to be morally justified. That is exactly why we switch to "or" in the contrapositive. We only need one of these necessary conditions to fail in order to reject the sufficient condition.

If consent is given, but without knowledge, then benefitting from harm is not morally justified.

If the harmed party knew about the harm, but did not give consent, then benefitting from harm is not morally justified.

In each of these examples, only one necessary condition failed, but the sufficient condition was rejected all the same.

crushcity on January 19, 2021

Can I assume that in question #3, are we to assume Max and Mark are the same person?