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 -- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10162