inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable

I'd first like to start out by defining inaction as the lack or absence of action; injustice as Violation of another's rights or of what is right; lack of justice, and culpable as Deserving of blame or censure as being wrong, evil, improper, or injurious. Inaction in the face of injustice makes an indivudal morally culpable. An example I would like to use to illustrate this is: you come out of your house and you see a couple that lives across the street from you - a man and a woman - fighting, the man then strikes the woman andshe falls. He then proceeds to get on top of her and keeps punching her in the face. You have both a moral and a legal obligation to do something.

Disagree.

It depends solely on the situation, and what the injustice is.

Example:

You look across the street and see some guy beating a bunny. You realize that this is a grave injustice to the bunny. Unfortunately the mans friend is holding an AK-47 to your entire family. He states,

"IF YOU TRY TO HELP THAT BUNNY I WILL SHOOT YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY."

Thus at this point you should not act in the face of injustice, and inaction does not make you morally culpable.

Although depending on where you live, killing the bunny can be animal abuse, which is injustice, or it can be considered hunting, in which it is not. For the sake of the debate let's say it is injustice
It depends solely on the situation, and what the injustice is. Just because at that exact moment you cannot do something, doesn't mean that you can't report this injustice to the authorities, later. Inaction is defined as the lack or absence of action. Reporting this incident at a later time when your familie's live aren't at stake, is not inaction.

Cool I will be spending my round offering one more example and also refuting the example my opponent has attempted to contradict.

First off let us examine my opponents argument. He states,

"Just because at that exact moment you cannot do something, doesn't mean that you can't report this injustice to the authorities, later."

Which makes sense to me and I totally agree. However the resolution states,

"Inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable."

Thus acting after the injustice has occurred is not actually acting in the face of the injustice. It is rather acting after the face of injustice has passed. Thus we can see that not acting in the face of injustice does not make an individual morally culpable because the better situation, like this one, may be to act after the face of injustice has passed. For example in this scenario it is better to report it to the authorities later after the bunny has died and your family is safe. This reporting occurs after the injustice to the bunny has already occurred, thus it is no longer in the face.

Scenario 2: Many people are about to unjustly die but a trained assassin kills you. Thus not acting in the face of the injustice is impossible and does not make you morally culpable because you are dead.

My opponent said that acting after the injustice has occurred is not actually acting in the face of justice. The definition of inaction is absence of action. Calling the authorities moments after you witness something, is not inaction, it's an act. People do it everyday and are held to it by law in such places as Wisconsin, where they have the Good Samaritan law which states that if you witness a crime, you have a legal obligation to do something, or report it to the authorities. You witness a guy beating a bunny, and his friend has an Ak-47 to your family's head, and says he will kill them if you help, so you hop in your car and drive away while calling the police... This is not inaction, it's action in a way that is going to yield the best results. Your second scenario was confusing, can you please restate it?

Let me begin with an examination of the first scenario. My opponent states that if you hop in your car and drive away to warn the police it is action. While this is true it will also result in the death of your family as you are attempting to help them. Thus the best course of action in this scenario is actually to not act. Inaction in this scenario avoids a greater injustice and thereby does not make the individual morally culpable.

It is a good idea after the danger has passed to notify the authorities but one must remember that after the danger has passed is no longer "in the face" thus does not apply to this resolution.

On to my second example. I stated that if you were to be assassinated while witnessing an injustice then your inaction would not make your morally culpable.

The scenario would be something like this, you witness many people die, or for the sake of time I'm just going to say you witness your friend die. He is killed by a mad-man who plans to kill more. In fact, he was more than killed, he was sodomized++ and other horrible things. Sadly you didn't know about any of that so you couldn't actually help your friend then. You walk around the corner at the very moment your friend is murdered. You feel bad and you know that not acting at this point would make your morally culpable so you reach for your phone to call the police.

YOU__!!!!!!____________________llllll__Friend__
_____(O.O)___________________(X.X)_______
____o-@@-o_________________o-@@-o______
______/_\_____________________/_\_________

Sadly what you didn't realize was that the mad-mans friend was standing behind you. The mad-mans friend happens to carry a rather lethal sword and is a trained assassin. You don't notice him because you are still rather mortified by the fact that your friend is dead, so freshly dead that he is still standing. He hasn't actually fallen over yet.

_____!!!!!_______________!!!!!!__YOU________llllll____
_____(^.^)______________(O.O)____________(X.X)____
____o-@@-o--->_________o-@@-o__________o-@@-o____
______/_\________________/_\______________/_\____

Then it happens the mad-man's friend, the trained assassin sticks his sword into your appendix killing you instantly.

_____!!!!!____!!!!!!_______YOU____
_____(^.^)___(X.X)_______BEING_______
____o-@@-o--->@@-o_____STABBED____
______/_\_____/_\______BY ASSASSIN_______

Sadly you are now dead. This is my point, considering you are dead you can no longer act. The fact that you are dead means that you cannot be culpable for the inaction because it was out of your power to act.

Thus there are scenarios, sometimes drastic, where inaction is not only acceptable but unavoidable.