Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Santa Clara Law Review

Abstract

My intention in this essay is to consider anew the relevance of the original Good Samaritan story. There are a couple of aspects I want to consider. First, in Part II of the essay, I shall consider the significance of the fact that the parable of the Good Samaritan is told to a lawyer and presented as a story about legal obligation. Given that fact, is there any reason for us to regard it as relevant only to moral duty, as opposed to state-enforced law? I shall argue that the answer is "No" and that the response of the Good Samaritan is presented as exactly the sort of response that law is capable of securing in a circumstance of immediate danger or need. Secondly, in Part III of the essay, I shall consider the importance for us of an aspect of the parable that is least studied by modern lawyers and moral philosophers, though it is perfectly familiar to theologians and biblical historians. There was an important ethnic and religious divide between Jews and Samaritans in first-century Palestine. That it was a Samaritan, rather than either of the temple officials from Jerusalem, who proved neighbor to the man who fell among thieves is-I shall argue-a challenge to all who would pursue a communitarian account of the obligation of mutual assistance. The point of the parable is to reprove not only the inauthentic self-interest of a David Cash, but also the conviction of many self-confident theorists that the category "human" is too abstract to serve as a focus for what we owe to one another. They think that duties owed to humanity must be "thickened" with a generous roux of convention and shared understanding. But the parable does not suppose that. Rather, it supposes that people can see right through the layers of convention, commonality, and difference, and respond directly-as the Good Samaritan responded-to the immediate presence of the person underlying the layers of community.

First Page

1053

Volume

40

Publication Date

2000

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