X-Message-Number: 10162
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 15:58:49 -0700
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #10148 - Responsibility
References: <>

> Message #10148
> Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 09:56:00 -0400
> From: Thomas Donaldson <>
> Subject: CryoNet #10140 - #10147
 
> To Paul, I believe there is now a serious problem with "happiness"
> as an aim.

By happiness, I mean something much different than any kind of simple
euphoria. I think it could be better described as the continual
achievement of ones highest values and most important desires. For many,
it may be simply the freedom to do what they desire absent pain,
suffering, coercion, and, in the future, all other limitations which the
laws of reality allow to be removed. For most it requires some minimal
and increasingly technological environment and/or the cooperation of
other humans in the achievement of their values and desires. 

> Moreover, your analysis gets convoluted if you think
> about real cases. Just what responsibility would someone have if
> every known indication of someone's mental and emotional condition
> suggested that they suffered from depression, they cure this person
> of depression using known drugs, and THEN the person sues them for
> acting against what they wanted? I know that the universe punishes
> honest careful mistakes just as much as it punishes dishonest or
> careless mistakes, but do we want a morality which does that.

I sure do! Not necessarily punishes, but certainly one that awards
restitution.
If a car driving down the street strikes and breaks the leg of someone
who was walking completely on the sidewalk, to the person with the
broken leg, there is no different in the existential result of the event
whether it happened because the driver was drunk, because he
intentionally aimed to harm the pedestrian, because his steering failed,
or because the driver swerved to avoid a meteor which suddenly landed in
front of his car (ie to save his own life), the objective restitution
from the driver (perpetrator) to the pedestrian (victim) should be the
same. In each case the subjective restitution (based on the victims
happiness state, may be quite different). 
 
> As for using the causes of someone's action to judge it rather than
> its results (which can in real personal affairs very rarely be
> worked out in advance) this would have several consequences. There
> would be no notion of blame.

But there *should* be! You are attempting to distort reality and erase
or ignore some of the most importance factors of what it means to be
human.

> It does NOT mean that we would not
> (sometimes) act rationally: that too can be a cause of our actions.
> It would "medicalize" all of criminal law (which someday may even
> happen, since people do commit crimes due to some kinds of derangement.
> Since the judges themselves also have causes for their decisions,
> a consistent system of this kind would also make sure THOSE causes
> were appropriate (rational?) rather than (say) the desire to get
> someone out of the way so the judge can appropriate their wealth.
> There would be treatment rather than punishment.

I am much more concerned about restitution (restoring the
happiness/value state of the victim) than I am about treatment or
punishment. We should always do everything we can to set up the best
system for the victim before we give any consideration to the factual
perpetrator no matter how "innocence" s/he is. In my system there would
be no criminal law at all, only tort law governing relationships between
perpetrators and victims. In this regard, it would be just as important
to have a "human happiness state measurement machine" than it would to
have a "truth machine".

> One major problem with your idea of responsibility is simply that
> responsibility, first, is often hard to assign,

I disagree. When limited to the realm of physically coercive actions
resulting in human victims it is not. I conceived and fully worked out
this system in conjunction with several other thinkers 20 years ago (as
much as is ever possible to do until something is practically
implemented).

> and second, we both
> know that in real life lots of people escape without responsibility
> for their actions.

But that is the whole point, to prevent this as much as is possible
where those actions are physically coercive, and provable human victims
are involved.

-- Paul --

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