A Legal Look at Prosocial Behavior: What Can Happen for Failing to Help or Trying to Help Someone

The law has in general been extremely loath to attempt to enforce prosocial behavior. Partly this stems from a view that the law is having enough trouble controlling overtly antisocial conduct and until this is done better, the refinements must wait. In addition, two problems confront the law in this instance. First, there is the “Why me?” question, the difficulty of selecting among a large number of people who did not behave in a prosocial way which one or few should be prosecuted. Secondly, there is reluctance to interfere with human freedom any more than absolutely necessary. Prosocial behavior is, however, enforced in a number of specific situations where, for one cause or another, our reasons for generally not compelling prosocial behavior do not apply.