2022: HOLD MY TEA! đŸ”

How? How can moral culpability exist in something which, insofar as it may be said to act, has as its acts nothing more or less than the sum total of acts of all those of whom it consists? It cannot act of its own will, for it does not have one. It cannot choose evil any more than it could choose good. Those within it, though, do have that choice, and bear moral responsibility for what they do with it.

It’s not the director of a school’s job to guarantee the safety of students: it’s the students’ parents. It is the parents responsibility, if a criminal act has occurred, especially against their child, to go straight to the police so that legal action may be taken against the guilty party.

Neither is it any organization’s responsibility to “combat” sexual abuse, so why should they claim they do? It is the responsibility of individuals to take the appropriate action, up to and including going to the police, depending on the severity of the wrong.

I see the point now.

We may simply have a different opinion on this an be unable to agree. I do think organisations have a will and the ability to act, which is exactly why they are so dangerous. Groups of people are able to do things that no individual in that group would be (morally) capable of. That does not absolve the people responsible for this group of blame. It should fall on the shoulders of those at the top to guarantee the well-functioning and lawfulness of the organisation.

They have an obligation to be informed about the actions of the organisation as a whole, and to make sure that things like sexual abuse cannot happen.

I’m sorry but I can’t describe this as anything besides “ridiculous”.

If a prisoner breaks out of jail without help from the staff of the jail, does that mean the jail did its job properly? Of course not. If a school creates a work environment in which sexual predators can thrive, that school is not doing its job properly. The persons responsible for this (not for the sexual abuse, but for the possibility of such an environment to exist), is the direction of the school.

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How deep must corruption run within an organization for it to meet your standard for recognizing an organizational evil? There were many layers of hierarchy above the abusers, protecting and enabling them, for the sake of preserving the church.

This is an incredibly bleak way to look at things. Would you apply this view to all public spending that helps victims of crime? What about the public spending on the incarceration and punishment of criminals? Is that not also a society paying for the crimes of others?

I think that we should spend public money on helping victims of crimes and other misfortunes (along with other public goods like universal healthcare and higher education, and general welfare to rescue people from poverty). I don’t think of that as theft of resources from those that are innocent and uninvolved, but rather as our public institutions and society being built around supporting the values that we cherish.

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A. Job description of any position of authority and responsibility.
B. Then tuition fees should be exactly “teacher salary divided to all students + chair/ desk cost + student WC toilet paper cost” and nothing else. Since nothing else falls under it.

See how happy the church will be to only receive money to cover costs.

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Like the Ship of Theseus, one can view an organization for both the individuals it is comprised of and also the whole that they form.

When some planks are rotten, they might be removed and replaced, but concealing the problem only worsens the rot as it ravages the ship. One must also acknowledge the large-scale structural defects that gives rise to such corruption, and realize that salvage is not as simple as replacing a few problematic timbers.

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Inside any organisation’s/ company’s/establishment’s/ shop’s walls, the director is legally responsible for the behaviour, safety and other “administrative” matters regarding the employees and to an extent, the customers (children).

The director is also the key factor for the general “ambience” of a workplace in many little seamless ways. A director who can’t set the tone is a figurehead.

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I do not believe it could ever meet my standard, barring convenient language regarding a corrupt organization, which I would take to strictly mean an organization overrun with corrupt people. One in that sense could talk about the “guilt” of an organization, but only as a shorthand for the guilt of many individuals within it.

Yes, though I would consider this a matter “on which good men may legitimately disagree” so long as it is made clear than the victims are not being compensated by the guilty party, they are being aided by a non-guilty party.

This is necessary. To borrow from CS Lewis, it, like clothing, while not part of an unfallen world, is the appropriate way to deal with the world once fallen. People who violate others’ rights (above a certain level where it’s too petty to bother about; technically cutting in line is violating someone’s right, but noone should be thrown in jail for it) must, in cases such as theft where remuneration is possible, compensate the victim if possible for their crime. For some crimes, particularly ones where no just monetary remuneration is possible, the perpetrator must be removed from society not only because of their guilt, but that others may not do likewise. Basically, society has a moral responsibility to deal with wrongdoers through a court system which (at least in the general case), punishes wrongdoers in accordance with their crime, and acquits the innocent.

In a sense, but not in the sense of bearing guilt for them. If society refuses to do anything about wrongdoers, that bears a guilt, but the way to avoid that is to bring just legal consequence against the wrongdoers, not to try and pay off the victims like anyone paying committed the crime. It is paying money to ameliorate the effects of a crime, but not paying the price in the moral sense for any crime. The word “paying” has two different senses in the English here.

I’m more neutral on this than I used to be. Right now I tend to think of it as a matter on which good men may legitimately disagree, and where balance of some kind (where exactly, that is the question) is likely appropriate. I also think that in any case where private organizations can do this in place of government, it is far better that they do it than government, but the issue is not whether or not it may be done better by those other than the government, but whether or not it is an appropriate office of a government, and on that I am more neutral than I used to be.

However, this should never be remuneration for crimes, as the guilty parties are not the ones paying. Society should not pretend to hold guilt which it does not.

Fair enough, there is a moral responsibility of all adults to protect children, with the most appropriate response for most people, if they have solid evidence of something truly bad going on, being to go to the police. But parents have a greater responsibility to their children. If we must blame adults at the school, how much more should we blame the parents? But neither of them can we blame more than the individuals who acted wrongly.

Of course minimizing waste in the public school system would be desirable, in a more reasonable fashion than described above.

I do not think it would then by acting as a healthy church should. We see examples in Acts of churches supporting widows and orphans, and missionary efforts. More strictly, we see both examples of wealthier members of the church providing support to people directly, as well as entrusting money to another member (I believe it was Peter in the Jerusalem church, but I could be remembering wrong) to distribute (he then appointed a board of sorts when there arose contention over whether the resources were being distributed fairly). A church which is only taking in enough money to cover costs, is, if filled with Christians, of course better than no church at all, but it is not the ideal: it is not what should be aimed for.

This is a difficult case to make of any organization, though, on two counts. First, it must be established that the axe with both haft and head replaced is the same as the original axe, and if so, that it is the same in a sense which would ensure that if it had a faulty edge before the replacements, it must still have now. Second, it must be established both that the structure of the organization in question is such, that if all bad elements were replaced with good, it would still produce bad fruit, and that there is a better alternative available (nothing at all is on the table as this alternative).

I would say there is a responsibility there to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of employees and customers, but not for the behavior of people despite the reasonable steps taken. A parent has a responsibility to raise their child to be a moral being, but if the child, later in life, decides to act immorally, that is their sin and not the parents’.

Definitely, a good director or manager at any level can do a great deal of good.

Yeah, we do seem to disagree on this point.

I agree with the first part, but not the second. I agree that members of a school who do not report abuse against children, are not doing their job properly. But it is not some director’s responsibility to ensure they do, it is the parents’. It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that the school their child attends is doing what it claims to be doing. There is a lesser responsibility on other adults, but the greatest responsibility is on the child’s parents.

A fraction of the wealth to those in need, and really do I need to go in detail about how many things are wrong with “missionary efforts”?

Church receives public funding as well, I’d rather give my tax money to the causes I want, but sadly we can’t get rid of that.

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I wasn’t clear, sorry. I meant that a head who overlooks/ignores/belittles testimonies is equally responsible for what is going on in their establishment (school, church).

Quite true.

Not really.
They raise funds specifically for this kind of purpose, they don’t spend their own.

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In many (most?) parts of the world, parents can’t choose which school to send their children to, and have little control on what happens inside the school.

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If you’re talking about the Godly churches described in Acts, I believe you are mistaken. If you’re talking about modern churches, obviously it depends on the church.

I’d agree, there. That would be really cool if at least some tax money was earmarked for going to accredited charities of the remitter’s choice. Kindof like a 100% rebate for charitable giving, at least on some taxes.

Yeah. Even when they nominally have the choice of where to send their children to school, options can be severly limited by finances. Doesn’t make it how the world should be.

I don’t know what you mean.

Absolutely agree; I believe that malicious false witnesses should be tried and, if found guilty, be subject to the same punishment as they intended should happen to whom they accused or lied on behalf of.

Acts 2:45 “[A]nd they [the Jerusalem church] began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.”

Acts 4:34-35 “For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.”

Acts 6:1-7 covers the story of appointing a “board” of sorts for the distribution.

A. I’ve read the texts of Greek version Christianity and only for research purposes. :woman_shrugging:t2:
B. I’m not Christian or any other team, so let’s leave it at that.

To come back on this, I assume it varies depending on the country but in France (which the initial article was about), the “Church” is very much an abstract idea. Legally speaking, there is no legal person that would qualify as the “Catholic Church”.

The difficulty here is that you face a duality of legal system: French law, and Canonic law.

In terms of Canonic law, the organization of the Church is very detailed and follows a clear hierarchical structure. However this is not relevant in court.

In French law, there is no such thing as “the Church”. From my understanding, what you have at the top is the Vatican (a foreign state) and then simply a large number of small associations (associations diocĂ©saines) which serve a strictly financial purpose: they legally hold some assets and money. However they do not run anything, and the priests are not their employees, so they can hardly be found responsible for anything. The whole point is that the structure of the Church as it exists in Canonic law is not mirrored in French law.

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That should include Acts.

Well, those attending churches should be, so what Christianity has to say about what a church should be is relevant.

I’ve read most of the current discussion and I think that a simple approach is the best in this matter.

If you are a door-to-door salesman for insurance, for example, and during the course of work you get into people’s house and steal their pencils, unbeknownst to the company (since the offense is so minor), then the company is not to blame when you get caught.

However, if you use your ability to enter houses to scout them for future heists and full blown burglaries and the company knows you are doing that and still keeps you under its employment and provides you with the ability to perform your crimes, then the company is equally to blame (if not more, depending on the case. In the case of someone being a clergyman, that automatically comes with a lot of status in local communities)

So, since we are clearly in case number 2, the church should pay.
If they want to crowdfund for it, well, it is legal. It is not really ethical to call upon other people to pay for your sins. Heck, it is not even in accordance to the religion itself, but, it is legal and there are people that actually believe that the church cannot afford it, so 
 :thinking:

Just my two cents. I really enjoyed reading this discussion :slight_smile:

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This whole debate is ethical rather than legal, however, so I’m not sure the notion of what is legal or who should be to blame is that relevant to this discussion.

Also, those notions are not so simple. For example a company can certainly be found liable for the damages caused by an employee in the course of its work, even if the company was not aware of it and such employee acted directly against instructions received.

Anyway, to come back to the matter at hand, the Church (which, as explained, is not a legal entity) has voluntarily decided to pay some amounts, but this is all voluntary so they can indeed fund it however they want.

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