On Neutrality in the Midst of Wrongdoing

Suppose you observe a person committing wrongdoing. You have the choice of informing this person of his wrongdoing, or remaining silent on the matter. If you remain silent on the matter, you may safely extricate yourself from the situation without further harm to yourself.

What happens?

Inputs:
1. Potential consequences to self.
2. Potential benefits that this person receives by being informed of his wrongdoing.

Possible outcomes:
a. You inform him of the wrongdoing. He agrees with your observation, and corrects his actions.
b. You inform him of the wrongdoing. He disagrees with your observation, and the relationship turns antagonistic.
c. You remain silent. He continues with his wrongdoing, and may or may not realize his error in due time.

In an ideal world, if you assess that the potential benefits to this person if you can successfully inform him outweigh the potential cost to you if you cannot, then you would feel comfortable take the risk and inform him of his wrongdoing. On average, you will create more benefit to other people than harm to yourself; Informing people of their wrongdoings gives you a better outcome than if you were merely to remain silent on every occasion.

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Let's complicate this. Suppose the two of you are in a relationship where the other person holds significantly more power and influence than you do. The potential benefits that this person could receive are high, but the potential costs to yourself are similarly amplified. There's a very high likelihood that you will not be able to recover from the losses you might incur. In this case, you can no longer afford the risks of informing the other person of his wrongdoing; a single loss will render you unable to continue producing wellbeing for others, changing the nature of this decision.

When the stakes are raised to this level, you will remain silent.

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Take this one step further. Suppose you know that you may safely extricate yourself from the matter, but your peers remain at risk. They may or may not be subject to the person's wrongdoing in the future.

Inputs:
1. Likelihood of harm coming to your peers in the midst of your continued silence
2. Potential risk to self if the other party learns about the issue and becomes antagonistic.
3. Likelihood that your peers will reveal your position to the other party, inciting the antagonistic relationship. Keep in mind that this is independent of whether your peers actually intend to reveal your position; they may do so accidentally.
4. Likelihood that your position will be distorted as it passes from person to person.

Potential Outcomes:
a. Peers are informed of the person's wrongdoing, and successfully extricate themselves from the matter.
b. Peers are informed of the person's wrongdoing, but the person also learns of this and turns antagonistic.
c. You remain silent. No harm actually comes to your peers.
d. You remain silent. Harm does come to your peers, and you may very well be held accountable due to your silence on the matter.

If the probability of b and c are higher than a and d, and the risk to self is still dangerously high, you must continue to remain silent, even though d remains a possible and costly outcome. This changes only if you perceive that the total harm to your peers will be greater than the harm that could have come to you.

If this is so, then you must make the additional decision of whether their continued wellbeing is worth more to you than your own wellbeing, which you may lose completely if you do decide to inform them.

If you conclude that peers will not incur unbearably greater consequences than would you, you will remain silent.

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These three scenarios can explain the following difficult questions...
i.) Why do we care so much about accountability for powerful people?
(Because so few can afford to hold such leaders accountable without incurring great personal risk)
ii.) Why do so many people remain neutral in the face of wrongdoing?
(Because to do otherwise requires disregard for one's own wellbeing, either out of sacrificial love for others, or out of ignorance to the actual risks of such action)
iii.) Why do we withhold information from people who might be at risk by not knowing it?
(Because we can't easily assess how much they are at risk, and likewise cannot assess the potential harm that could come to us if we were to disclose such information; once the words leave our mouths, other people's acts and failures will have bearing on our wellbeing.)

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This theme has run through different aspects of my life in recent days...