Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance

Evidence

Being inextricably tied to human proximity, morality seems to conform to the law of optical perspective. It looms large and thick close to the eye. With the growth of distance, responsibility for the other shrivels, moral dimensions of the object blur, till both reach the vanishing point and disppear from view. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 547

Categorization

• DEFINE: The optical-perspective metaphor is a memorable conceptual frame for morality’s proximity-dependence.
• XREF: connects to: Moral suspension, not mobilization, enables ordinary people’s participation — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 707; Distance between act and consequence erases the act’s moral significance entirely — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 102; Functional task separation replaces moral responsibility with technical responsibility — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 293 (+15 more)

Related

• Proximity grounds moral responsibility while abstract categories remain morally neutral. (similarity 0.87)
• Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity (similarity 0.86)
• Morality dies when social distance replaces proximity, enabling mass murder (similarity 0.86)
• Distance between act and consequence erases the act’s moral significance entirely (similarity 0.83)
• Modern society weakens morality through distance, technical responsibility, and segregation (similarity 0.82)
• Morality operates only on known persons and fails on abstract categories (similarity 0.82)
• Face-to-face animosity rarely extends into mass murder. (similarity 0.78)
• Levinasian responsibility precedes knowledge and intention unconditionally. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Modern society weakens morality through distance, technical responsibility, and segregation #corroborates (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 567
• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible #corroborates (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 550
• Morality extends beyond fairness among strangers to relational obligations #qualifies (0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 333