Today I was put into a sticky moral situation. A man offered to take something huge out to my car for me, then told me he shouldn't have done it because he'd just beaten cancer and his doctor ordered him not to lift things, then he asked me for a light. My car has a lighter -- I don't know what to do with the thing so I said, "Sure, if you know how to use it."
So I was partially responsible for 2 health-endangering actions of this man. Was I an accessory to an illicit moral action?
Allow me an erudite excuse for my first faux pas: Because of the sequence of events, invincible ignorance of his health status eradicated my culpability for allowing him to lift the heavy item... that's not what I'm worried about [i.e. I didn't and couldn't know he had just beaten cancer when I allowed him to lift the thing, so I'm morally excused for that].
What I'm concerned about is, was giving him a light akin to giving an alcoholic a drink? This is different than asking the straightforward question, "is smoking a sin?" The circumstances are changed by his bout with cancer, making it more likely that this is even more harmful to him.
Here I thought I was doing a kind deed, and I may have contributed to sending a man to his early death.
