Risk of having bad consequences (or imoral actions) is moral justification for using force?

[luizpauloalbers]

I've been stuck the last days with some questions, maybe you guys can help me out!I found really hard to understand if the risk of something morally wrong to happen does influence the morality of an action to prevent it, and if it does, how to defined what are their limits.For example... It is almost proved that alcohol creates a problem when it comes to driven something. So, should we enforce a law (even in a private case, after all something funded privately can be morally wrong as well) which prevent pilots from drinking?Of course we can claim that the pilot would suffer the consequences if he crashes by paying restitution (probably not him because he wouldn't likely survive an accident, but let's say the insurance that he had payed). But what about if the society (the market in a free world), wouldn't want to be expose to such a high risk?On the other hand, to enforce that we are kind of interfering with violence a pacific person that hasn't done any harm to others (yet haha).Please don't get attach to the example. Let's think about a situation that we know that we have a 90% of risk to people if a certain action is taken (which is not a act of violence by itself). Should we use violence to prevent that?

[Pepin]

If you commit risky behavior which endangers others, or their property, it is not moral. For instance, if I am to wave a loaded hand gun around carelessly with the line of sight passing over a person, yet this is simply carelessness and not any attempt to shoot, I can take action against this person as my safety is jeopardized.

 

To be blunt, what is more dangerous? A man holding a loaded gun to my head who will leave me alone if I give him money? Or a man who holds a loaded a gun to my head due to his incompetence and lack of knowledge of firearm safety? Perhaps the first, but the second also sounds rather dangerous.

 

It is common to think about these matters in terms of intention, but there needs to be no ill intent on behalf of a party in order to justify the use of force in particular instances. If the insides of a large machine are being cleaned by a woman inside, and if a man is about the press a button which would start up the machine and kill the woman, you would be completely justified in pushing her out of the way as yelling "don't press that" isn't likely to bypass his reaction time.

 

If a person has a sudden stroke while driving a vehicle and becomes very reckless, using force would be permissible in stopping the person. The person could not be treated as if it was a choice to have a stroke, as they had no choice in the matter, though they would still be liable for the damages.

 

In the case of someone who chooses to drive under the influence, the ability to use force would be permissible, as it the same as the scenario with the person with the stroke. The difference is in responsibility in the endangerment, as unlike the person who had a stroke, this person chose to drive under the influence and took no step to stop themselves from driving. Someone who drives drunk is like someone pointing a gun at you with no intention of shooting.

 

As your post suggests, the primary issue is in a person taking such a risk and either dying as a result, or being unable to provide any restitution. If a drunk driver kills your child in an accident, what can they do?

 

To cut to the meat of the matter, the primary issue with enforcement is that of needing to catch someone in the act. A law does nothing to stop someone from driving drunk, it only provides an ability to stop someone who is driving drunk. A law against risky behavior does not stop risky behavior, rather it only reduces risky behavior when such risky behavior is being committed.

 

There is a deterrent effect in regard to the consequences of breaking a law, but for many, part of the risk in risky behavior is getting caught. It may be implied that someone who acts against a law against drunk driving either believes: they are competent to drive and aren't at risk of harming others or themselves; they are not competent to drive and accept the risk of harming others or themselves; or that the law is invalid and they are not at risk of harming others or themselves; or that there is no thought as they are beyond the stage of drunk. If a solution exists to the problem of drunk driving, it is not catching drunk drivers in the act, as the solution entails the existence of the problem.

 

This really gets to the heart of ethics, as a moral commandment can only effect those who want be moral. A law against drunk driving is like a diet book for skinny people, those who would follow it don't need it, and those who won't aren't going to read it.

 

To attempt to end this wall of text, the solution to this problem is in creating complex systems of prevention. The risk to address would not be that of those that drive drunk, yet rather that of those who are at risk of driving drunk. It is like how in health insurance the risk doesn't deal with whether the person has a disease, yet rather the risk of the person acquiring such a disease. If a person is at risk of a particular disease, the insurance company will take action to minimize this risk. If a person is at risk of driving drunk, the insurance company will take action to eliminate this risk. To be clear, this sort of risk assessment is long term.

 

There would be many interdependencies which would all have their own reason to reduce the risk of drunk driving. The car insurance company would want to reduce the risk for their customer so they wouldn't have to pay out money. The customer would want to reduce their risk to get cheaper rates. Other drivers would want to reduce the risk to ensure their own safety. Road owners would want to reduce the risk so they could: advertise safer roads, so their roads did not become backed up due to an accident, and because allowing drunk driving on their roads would be seen as not being concerned with the consumer. Family and friends would want to reduce the risk because of their emotional attachment. Schools would want to lower the risk as it would look pretty bad if one of their star students killed themselves in an accident driving drunk. How good could they been educating the kids, and how good of a grasp do they have on their students when they didn't notice any signs before this happened? I can go on an on.

 

What actual preventative measures would be put into place is impossible to guess. As far as travel, automation sounds like a good guess. For guns, why not cameras which will automatically trigger the safety lock when it identifies a human?

 

To clarify once more, the problem not to solve is how to make good people be good. Rather it is how to prevent people from becoming bad, and how to reduce the risk of risky behavior. 

 

I hope this post was not too long or confusing, and I hope it helped.

[june]

I found really hard to understand if the risk of something morally wrong to happen does influence the morality of an action to prevent it, and if it does, how to defined what are their limits.

you cannot answer this question without first defining "force". once you define "force" (and thus define an immoral act, because force is immoral), then you will know what constitutes just prevention. 

[luizpauloalbers]

Nice replay, thank you! I totally agree that the market would work in a very different way that it is today (and of course much more effective). So I will try to focus more on the arguments of ethics that you gave on the beginning of your text.Your examples connected with your arguments actually show, that on the same way that NAP works only when you are not suffering an attack, it also does not work when you have a high risk of having an attack, meaning that risk is already accounted in the NAP. Which does make a lot of sense.

 

Now, my issue is the interpretation of the individual of the real risk. What happen when you decide to use violence against someone because you believe that his action might imply you some risk, but they actually aren't (there are some cases which are really hard to have certain about the size of the risks you have). I understand that it is a grey area and that is not a big deal... but what about the people who has a really bad ability of recognizing risks? Which I would say the majority of the world have this problem in some areas.Now considering risks on the NAP, some actions (usually not defended by libertarians included me) start to be valid. For example if the majority believes that using drugs can lead them to addiction and collapse society, and after that inflecting their properties. Or what about if the majority believes that without a state, the society would also collapse, therefore they need a central authority with the monopoly of the use of force? And a group of an specif religion which believes that God will punish them if someone who doesn't believe in they God remains alive (and they are from the demons of course), are they been moral by killing people from other religions? and the others? Is someone not moral responsible for his action when he doesn't have the ability to recognize the true risks? Doesn't this argument gives more responsibility to the knowledge of the risks rather the NAP itself in some areas? Even better...doesn't this argument gives more responsibility to the knowledge of economics and logic of convincing someone to become anarchist? How can we claim about NAP, if they believe that the risks of having a failure are too high. Shouldn't then we work harder on the economic arguments rather then philosophy alone?

[luizpauloalbers]

No one wants to join this dilemma?

[Pepin]

Now considering risks on the NAP, some actions (usually not defended by libertarians included me) start to be valid. For example if the majority believes that using drugs can lead them to addiction and collapse society, and after that inflecting their properties. Or what about if the majority believes that without a state, the society would also collapse, therefore they need a central authority with the monopoly of the use of force? And a group of an specif religion which believes that God will punish them if someone who doesn't believe in they God remains alive (and they are from the demons of course), are they been moral by killing people from other religions? and the others? 

Is someone not moral responsible for his action when he doesn't have the ability to recognize the true risks? Doesn't this argument gives more responsibility to the knowledge of the risks rather the NAP itself in some areas? Even better...doesn't this argument gives more responsibility to the knowledge of economics and logic of convincing someone to become anarchist? How can we claim about NAP, if they believe that the risks of having a failure are too high. Shouldn't then we work harder on the economic arguments rather then philosophy alone?

 

This is a pretty good topic to bring up, as it important, and difficult to think about. As we both seem to agree, the applicability of any conclusion we or any other's come to is likely to be little. A major reason for this is that a free society has a large incentive to eliminate grey areas.

 

To expand upon this, as I believe it is important, gray areas are a plague upon society. Though the black and whites are clear, the gray is impossible to see through. Because of this, systems and social customs will be devised to avoid running into gray.

 

To provide an example, abortion is a matter where very early on is completely acceptable, while the day before is the equivalent to murdering a baby. Somewhere in the middle is difficult to discern as though the fetus is not quite a baby, it is not quite a collection of a few cells. So, instead of attempting to answer the question of if it is ethical to abort a baby a week before it is due, we instead avoid it altogether by always aborting very early on.

 

Social forces would encourage avoiding the grayness, as well as encouraging safe sex. Insurance companies would make early abortion cheap and affordable, while putting high costs on later term abortions. Friends and family would display strong support in getting rid of the embryo as fast as possible, as having a close relationship with someone who may have "murdered" a baby is likely to bring much turmoil. Education would seek to avoid the issue of unwanted pregnancy altogether. Better and better safe sex devices would be created to eliminate unwanted pregnancy, while decreasing any side effects. And so on.

 

Of course this does not eliminate all grayness as it is possible that a device failed, or that health complications make late term abortion necessary to preserve the mother's life. But I would not suggest that such grayness is a cause for alarm, as it prevalent enough, it is subject to the same market forces which aid in eliminating grayness. Better devices would be manufactured, more comprehensive tests would be performed to ensure a mother could give birth.

 

I spent about twenty minutes writing up a response to the primary question of risk assessment, but I was not happy with it. It is not so much the ideas, but more the conveyance of them. I will attempt another response at a later time. Likely too tired.