Imagine witnessing a car accident. Although you are just a bystander, you will be compelled to take action to help in the situation. You may not understand why, but some force within you tells you that you need to extend some form of assistance even if you know for a fact that you have nothing to do with the accident. The force that you feel can be explained using the concept of moral responsibility.

Moral responsibility explores the idea that any individual, regardless of the degree in participation in any event, has some form of moral obligation in any situation. Failure to adhere to such responsibility would mean receiving punishment equal to the obligation imposed. It is said that the people who are morally responsible to take action are called moral agents. One requirement to become a moral agent is to have the capacity to reflect on a given situation and be able to form intentions allowing them to carry out actions needed to help alleviate a certain problem. However, there are questions for those individuals who, even with the capacity to become moral agents, failed to enact actions accordingly. Is it justified to give them punishment? If so, when would these punishments become applicable and why? These very questions are very intriguing and are very much debated even in the circle of great philosophers.

One social phenomenon that prevents moral responsibility to be enacted is the bystander effect. It has been observed that there are instances when a group of people fail to offer assistance to an individual in need of help even if these individuals are already in the immediate environment while the victim is experiencing difficulties. This kind of phenomenon is termed as the bystander effect as everybody wait for other bystanders to do the first-move before doing some course of action. Regardless of the moral obligation at hand, these individuals reason that if others do not do anything to help, then what reason is there for them to offer assistance.