Responsibility

[andrewducker]

This is inspired by the comment here, where ladysysiphus says "If you have consumed enough alcohol to impair your judgement, I believe you then have to take at least some responsibility for putting yourself in a position where something like this might happen."

[Poll #619684]

Comments

[andrewducker]

And my answers: In all cases, Not at all responsible.

However, in all cases, _totally_ responsible for making the decision to place themselves there.

I don't like the fact that I might get mugged for my various bits of tech - it's a horrible thing to happen to anyone, and it shouldn't be allowed. In addition, I'm not responsible for the choice of the muggers to mug me - they're responsible for their own actions.

Sadly, lacking complete ignorance of the fact that muggers _do_ exist in the backstreets of Glasgow, I'm totally responsible for any decision I make to walk down those alleys at 2am, waving an MP3 player about.

Those two responsibilities do not cancel each other out.

Everyone is responsible for the choices they make, and while the actions of others do affect what choices we can, and do make, we are still ultimately responsible for our own actions.

On the other hand, chiding me for walking down a back alley when I'm nursing a broken nose and a missing MP3 player is lacking in tact and understanding, if nothing else.

Overall Responsibility

[andrewducker]

Ahem. _Anyway_, the reason for all of this, is that I realised that the confusion over "responsibility for the situation" was that there were two totally separate responsibilities going on, and when someone said that person A was responsible for being in the backstreets in the first place (which they clearly are), people who were sensitive about mugging felt that they were saying that person A was responsible for the actions of the muggers (which they clearly aren't).

This aint maths, people - the Total Responsibility isn't "99% the muggers responsibilities + 1% the responsibility of the person walking down the backstreet" - there _is no_ total responsibility - there's two separate responsibilities that can't be added, subtracted or otherwise merged into one.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Interesting...

I've answered on the grounds that I think responsibility for violence lies with the perpetrator where they are conscious and decision-making. Tigers and bricks aren't so. But it does make me think... I would say all of these cases are about risk assessment and bad luck rather but have trouble matching this with "to blame" or "responsible" in a consistent way.

[andrewducker]

I'd argue that while tigers aren't conscious at the same level that people are, they still have consciousness. We could argue "The Free Will Of The Tiger", but then we'd have to follow up with "The Free Will Of The Human."

Which is why I deliberately put it in, as a mid point between human attackers and bricks randomly falling on my head.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Rubbish.

In the first two cases: you/she may be in an area with a poor reputation, but any assault occurs because of the evil intent of the mugger/rapist. It's their responsibility. Just because an area has a dodgy reputation it does not follow that entering it implies one is courting assault, any more than it follows that you are immune from assault or robbery in areas with a reputation for safety. The law doesn't take account of "no-go zones" -- if it did, then the law could not be applied consistently.

In the third case, you not only go into a bar you consider to be dodgy but you deliberately say something you understand to be inflammatory. Any assault is still the fault of the attacker -- but they might argue that you deliberately provoked them. If they can plausibly claim that they wouldn't have attacked you without such provocation, then the blame is shared to some extent.

In the case of the tiger, that's of necessity your responsibility. The tiger is a wild beast and is simply being true to its nature. No human being is exercising control over it. It exists outside the rule of law. When going outside the law, in the absence of any other authority it's your responsibility to look to your own safety.

On the building site ... it's a mixture. On the one hand, walking across a clearly marked building site is reckless: you've been warned by the signs, you shouldn't have done it. On the other hand, the builders have a responsibility -- under health and safety regulations -- not to drop loose objects like bricks.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Andy walks, MP3 player in one hand, mobile phone in the other, down backstreets in an area known to be unpleasant. How responsible is he for being mugged?

And if you're so drunk you can't remember, but the mugger claims you enthusiastically pressed your MP3 player and mobile phone on him, should the mugger be done for theft or allowed to go free on the grounds that your default position is consent?

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Consciousness, in the case of the tiger, is only partly the point - the rest is morality. Why should the tiger care about you as anything other than food?

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

In an ideal world, we could all take whatever actions we wanted without fear of repercussions from people who take advantage of them. However, this ain't an ideal world. While we cannot change the clearly wrong actions of criminals who rape, steal, and murder, we do have complete responsibility for keeping ourselves safe. Therefore I picked "partially responsible" for each case, although I'm leaning more towards "fully responsible" for the brick and the tiger.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I think the wording of the questions was wrong to end up with the answer "not at all responsible". I think the question should have said something like "how responsible was he for the tiger eating him" and not "for being eaten" to follow your logic.

[diotina.livejournal.com]

You know, I never thought I would say this - but I think I'm entirely too cynical about humanity to assume that when a mugger/rapist is commiting a crime, it's a choice they're making vs my choice - I'm afraid there will *always* be people in the world who will make that more evil choice, and it's a reality that we sadly have to adapt to, to some extent.
I think, to an extent, the tiger analogy probably works quite well in this context, in that for a large swathe of humanity (including most politicians in power) the capacity to make moral choices is seriously impaired.
I would not, however much I believe that people should make the right moral choice send out my little girl of eight (for example) on dark streets because I *know* there are people who would take advantage of that, and I would take full responsibility for putting her in that position, should anything happen.

[andrewducker]

Very tricky one. I'm stuck in exactly the same situation where one person claims I gave it to him, and I claim I didn't. It's down to a jury to examine circumstance and decide who is more believable.

Oh, you may be interested to know that the CPS is demanding a report into the case that was dropped.

[andrewducker]

All of the other ones were "for...", so I followed the pattern.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between being unwise (doing things with known risks) and being responsible for the consequences, in the sense of to blame for them.

If the bad consequences require another human being to do something bad (ie to attack you in a bad area of town) then you may be deeply stupid to have put yourself in that position, but you are not to blame for their evil actions.

Tigers, as have been mentioned already, do not have a moral responsibility not to eat people, so in that case any responsibility is yours.
(Though this does not apply to any natives of the area whose choices may be limited to either going to gather firewood in the tiger-infested woods or not being able to cook and heat their house...)

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

Well, that was just an example. For the mugger robbing you, or "for the brick not being well mortared" or whatever would show the distinction between the actions of the other, and the responsibility for willfully putting oneself in danger.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Who's letting people go free because the default position is consent? If the hypothetical alleged mugger goes free, it's because there's room for reasonable doubt, i.e. a distinct possibility that they did in fact consent (although they may not have consented sensibly, the receiver might not have been able to tell) - not a default position to fall back on.

There is of course less room for reasonable doubt here than there would have been if Andy (or that drunk, scantily clad girl) had sex with him, because it's well-known that people often decide that they really want to have sex with people they don't really know, especially while drunk... whereas I've never heard of anyone suddenly deciding to give away their tech toys. Still, if the person who lost their gadgets is really so drunk they can't remember a thing about the encounter, I'd say there's room for reasonable doubt - you could at least argue the toss in court.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Very tricky one. I'm stuck in exactly the same situation where one person claims I gave it to him, and I claim I didn't. It's down to a jury to examine circumstance and decide who is more believable.

Ah. Double standard, then. You're arguing that the rapist should be presumed innocent, but that the mugger shouldn't. Otherwise you would have to argue that the mugger should be let go free - just as you argued that the rapist should be let go free. In both cases, the victim is drunk and the "alleged criminal" is claiming the victim consented.

Oh, you may be interested to know that the CPS is demanding a report into the case that was dropped.

Someone else already said that, on the Thread That Is Eating My Journal.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Who's letting people go free because the default position is consent?

Andy was arguing that Ruari Dougal had to be let go free because (Dougal claims) the woman who was too drunk to go home safely came on to him, and (Dougal claims) the woman was conscious when they had sex. By parallel, if a mugger claimed that Andy pressed his tech toys on him, and Andy is too drunk to remember if he did or he didn't, Andy should be arguing that the mugger must be presumed innocent.

Only, he isn't.

[drplokta]

It's the same as with the rape case; if Andy wakes up without his MP3 player but he was too drunk to remember how he lost it, you can't prosecute anyone who turns up with it for theft. There could be all sorts of innocent reasons why they have it.

[andrewducker]

Not a double standard. In the example I gave above, I'm claiming that I _didn't_ give consent. In the rape case, she said she didn't know if she gave consent or not.

If I have no memory of consent, and he says that I did consent, then I can't see any answer than to say that he's innocent of mugging me (lacking bruises, witnesses, etc).

[andrewducker]

I don't equate responsibility with blame.

[andrewducker]

And my apologies, you clearly said "so drunk you can't remember", and I missed it while reading. My stupid fault.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

In this respect, I believe you are at odds with the way the law works and most of the rest of the population think.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Pretty much what I was going to say.

[andrewducker]

I'm not talking about the way the law works, and mostly I consider the law to be very odd and to contain a large number of ideas which are clearly nonsense.

[andrewducker]

And I don't really care what most of the population think. As far as I can tell, most of the population doesn't.