Butterfly Effect Responsibility

[Pod]

Here's a slightly out-there proposal.  Should people feel responsible for bad things that may have occurred due to a seemingly unrelated act? For example:

Bob is driving home one night.  Bob drives 10 miles over the limit and accidentally hits a deer and kills it.  Bob is responsible for killing the deer. 

Same situation, but Bob doesn't stop quick enough to not bump the deer's leg.  The deer limps off into the woods, bob is responsible for hitting the deer.  Now that deer 2 weeks later is crossing another road.  A car is going the speed limit but the deer bolts out, not fast enough to get away due to its hurt leg.  The car crashes into the deer, the deer goes through the windshield and kills the driver. 

Is Bob responsible for the death of the driver?  If Bob wouldn't have been going so fast he wouldn't have hit the deer's leg and so on.  Is this a legitimate way to assign responsibility, or are there degrees?  This argument is really interesting and I don't see a way to refute it because nowhere between Bob hitting the deer and the deer killing the driver is there another fork in the road of free will. 

[barn]

Hi thinkers and alike,

A similar thread has been created not long ago concerning luck, this one isn't too different in its perspective either.

Objectively looking, good/bad fortune is meaningless since it's possible to describe it with opposing values at once.

i.e. 'What one man's food is another one's poison.'

(btw: That’s why I see it pointless to look at waste being created as a (temporarily yes, but not more) negative, since at one point/for an appropriate 'user' it's a resource, a miss-allocated stockpile to be used for something positive.)

It's flawed logic to contribute more/less responsibility when consequences do/don't manifest basically, it's like, when say, abusing parents are diminishing their negative influence during childhood on the basis of their child(ren) having grown up to be successful. Not a true statement.

Risks accumulate/decrease, regardless of seeing them/accepting their existence. Just like 'Murphy's law,' it's a form of confirmation bias when opposing evidence is not being seeked out. Lying by omission for some is analogous.

9 hours ago, Pod said:

Should people feel responsible for bad things that may have occurred due to a seemingly unrelated act?

Firstly, good/bad is dependent on what values one holds.

Secondly, people hardly look any further for more information if their subjective thirst for justice has been satiated.

Thirdly, there's a plethora of situations where no new information can be gained, no matter how hard one tries. (I'm not saying there shouldn't be a try.)

If people feel responsible for "bad things that may have occurred due to a seemingly unrelated act" that'll breed paralysis. Not good.

9 hours ago, Pod said:

Is Bob responsible for the death of the driver?  If Bob wouldn't have been going so fast he wouldn't have hit the deer's leg and so on.  Is this a legitimate way to assign responsibility, or are there degrees?  This argument is really interesting and I don't see a way to refute it because nowhere between Bob hitting the deer and the deer killing the driver is there another fork in the road of free will. 

Is a worker at an arms factory responsible for the death of thousands due to having assembled a bomb?

Yes. Definitely, yes. However, degrees still apply and just like the last example, I've also largely exaggerated and selectively chosen to only focus on the last stage of the events. (There had been people involved in building the factory, state coercion, designing, lobbying... etc)

People respond to incentives, improving on them does net favourable actions, while accidents may still happen (but they're only really just unforeseen and high probabilities ready to unfold), it's still better than paralysis due to ascribing responsibility without sufficient information.

[gavstone21]

Amateur here; correct me where I'm wrong please. 

 

Barbra Bush met George at Greenwich Country Club's annual Christmas dance. Afterwards those two had a kid who murdered many innocents in the middle-east, and those murders by Bush could have been prevented if only the club did not have a christmas party. Wait, it could have been prevented if the founders did not open that club. Wait, that could have prevented if the founders parents didn't have kids; that could have been prevented if one of the founder's parents decided to move to another state; that could have been prevented if that one guy's aunt's dentist decided to....therefore Adam and Eve ( Or Lucy ) is responsible for the murders of helpless people in poor countries. 

 

Although it would make for an entertaining movie, I don't think morality works that way. The essential question for determine moral responsibility is "Did you violate someone's property rights"? If not, you are off the hook, because, well, there's no moral responsibility you nothing immoral was done. But, I do think there is another unanswered question you are poking at, "If you did violate property rights how responsible are you for the harm?". I first want to make a distinction between moral justice and aesthetic justice. Aesthetic justice is not set in stone and is more economically subjective. According to Stefan justice is paying a victim just enough to bring them back to the position they were at before the time of the violation ( Moral or economic in this case ) with a little extra for the inconvenience. I think this is a great way to organize where we lay forgiveness; however, I don't think that it's a universal way to view moral justice. For instance, touching someone's shoulder, an action we normally have implied consent for, is a violation of property rights if no explicit consent is given. Like @barn mentioned, harm is subjective to the individual. For one man, it may be nothing, for another who has a rash on their shoulder it could be quite painful, and for another to have a past molester touch them on their shoulder could be traumatizing. So the question is, in moral situations, is one responsible for subjective harm or just the violation? I think in Aesthetic justice, non-binding, you are to pay enough to neutralize harm, but in Moral justice the victim has only the right to self defense. 

Let me further explain:

Imagine we have the guy who has the 'sensitive' shoulders. If I violate his property by tapping on his shoulder and somehow cause him an immense amount of pain, does he get to extract every penny I own? If the pain is greater than a monetary amount, do I have to donate my shoulders, pay for therapy, sacrifice my life as a body guard, give him my wife? Doesn't seam rational to me. I don't think moral justice is revenge either. I mean, if a guy hits my only son and somehow that causes me to become morbidly depressed, do I get to hit him, for assault?? It would seam to me that moral justice has to do with self defense in the moment. If a guy puts his hand on your shoulder, you have a right to push him away, just enough to stop the violations of property. If a guy is raping your wife, you are aloud to beat him out of your house. I think that is moral justice. Of course I believe any economic or social consequence could be yielded to anyone, more specifically, and probably, a rapist or assaulter, and we can interpret that through the lens of aesthetic justice. We see examples of that in Practical Anarchy, like where the murderer is ostracized. ( Also I understand that my theory would be in opposition to the current civil court system ) 

 

Based on those principals let me address your specific scenario ( With humans if you don't mind ). A guy hits another guy and causes him to limp, and that guy, because of his slowness, gets hit by a train and dies. 

 

Aesthetically: Many things could happen, but I think the guy who hit the other guy would probably be pressured, not morally required, to make it up to the family or something. This is up to the economic conditions/various subjective feelings of the time, place, and people. 

 

Morally: The violator is morally responsible for causing a limp, not for the victims death. There's not much more the victim can do morally, or can do as far as violations of property are concerned. 

 

Please tell me if I answered the question accurately! 

[RichardY]

Sounds like masquerading determinism. In which case there is no ethical responsibility, fellow TV set. Solipsitic Universe "Do as thou wilt."

[Jsbrads]

I find your example of driving at “too fast” a speed confusing. What speed is moral?