Q&A: Passive omission is preferable — why
Passive omission is preferable — why
Question
Hello, and greetings.
I would appreciate it if you could explain the reasoning behind the Sages’ principle that “passive omission is preferable.”
It seems hard to say that the reasoning is self-interested — meaning, why should a person bother if it is not clear that acting is preferable? In that case, the “preferable” sounds more like advice than law, yet from the words of the Sages it seems more like an actual rule.
Also, it seems hard to say that a person is less responsible for his actions than for what he did not do even though he could have done it. That may be true in the legal world (apparently for technical reasons), but why should we think so outside the legal world?
Thank you in advance.
Answer
The explanation is very simple: in order to act, a reason is required. If there is no reason, one does not act. This is not a question of why bother. If there are reasons both not to act and to act, then the instruction is positive: do not act. If there are no reasons in either direction, then this is only a recommendation.
In Kovetz Shiurim, Part II (the pamphlet Divrei Sofrim), he discusses at length whether the stringency of positive action over passive omission (regarding human dignity, which overrides a prohibition through passive omission) is because it really is more severe, or because they are equal but passive omission is preferable (and therefore when human dignity stands against positive action, we say passive omission is preferable, and not because passive omission is less severe). See there.
Discussion on Answer
Could you please expand? Very interesting. The problem with this rule is that it is not consequentialist, and from the standpoint of the person’s decision, the decision to act or to refrain is the same decision. Are you suggesting that the practical assessment is that this rule, as a sweeping rule, is indeed meant to maximize the absence of negative phenomena?
By the same token, it minimizes positive outcomes. I do not see where the symmetry is broken. What is wrong with the explanation I gave above?
Take for example the rule, “the burden of proof rests on the one who seeks to extract money from another.” This is a kind of passive omission is preferable. If we were to adopt a different rule, would that create worse outcomes? I do not see why. So the consideration does not seem consequentialist.
True, specifically in this example there could be bad outcomes (because without this rule every liar would jump up and file a baseless claim), but that is a consideration specific to this case. It does not show that a policy of passive omission leads to worse outcomes.
I also wrestled with this for a long time, because the concept sounds completely illogical. Now it seems to me that the explanation is practical rather than logical — that without a positive action, there is a greater chance that something will happen or change and in the end the negative consequences will not occur, unlike an action done directly, where it seems certain that there will be negative consequences. This move also lets us understand similar and seemingly non-rational concepts in Talmudic topics such as someone acting under coercion, saving oneself, “hand over one of you,” and “two people were walking on the road and one of them had a flask of water.”