A Call to Action in a Morally Relativistic Society

In Weymouth MA, a purse snatcher found out that it was not going to be business as usual, as a group of about 20 patrons of a restaurant chased him down and held him for the police after he had snatched a purse from a lady in the restaurant. Purse snatcher article Interestingly enough this is an unusual outcome for most for an almost ordinary event. For the most part people who see a crime showing signs of the bystander effect. Practically speaking they do nothing but watch. There are three stages of the bystander effect.
1. Realizing that there is an emergency.
2. Confusion of responsibility.
3. Finally the bystander needs to feel competent to help the situation. Bystander Syndrome Video
This group, instead of of freezing up like the majority of Americans may do , they took the initiative and righted a wrong by chasing down the thief! The patrons had a split second decision and they made it. I am curious if too many people get a pass because of different psychological terms and excuses like bystander effect, that lets them mitigate responsibility for their actions. I worry that the reason many people are not reacting quickly and decisively is that their morality is tied in a knot because of situational ethics. If values and morality are based on the situation, how could someone act decisively? Instead, I am afraid that this country is going down a road where we look with apathy at crimes that are perpetuated around us and think, "This is not my business." As an exception to this mindset these 20 individuals core values were strong enough that when they saw an obvious wrong being done they became the hero of the moment and stood up for justice. One congressional hopeful Keating was among the 20 decisive heroes. We can only hope that more Americans will act decisively when we perceive obvious wrongs around us. Through our example maybe politicians will start standing up for what is right and making the tough decisions that we desperately need them to make.