Subject:
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Re: personal responsibility (was:Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 26 May 2000 17:54:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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1239 times
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Dave Schuler wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > > So if I stomp on an infant or kill a sleeping person, they're still somehow
> > > responsible? Your assertion, after a fashion, amounts to "victims make
> > > themselves victims."
> >
> > Also, just so that I'm sure, are you purposely being obtuse to tie up the
> > loose ends in my argument, while actually agreeing with the main thrust? I'm
> > OK with that, actually I appreciate it, but it is different from just
> > disagreeing completely.
>
> Heh. Not being *purposely* obtuse, though I was trying to extend your
> argument to (one of) its extreme conclusions. As I mentioned in a response to
> one of Frank's posts, I'm not comfortable with the latitude such words as
> "victim" and "responsibility" afford themselves, and I was hoping to
> illustrate this with my absurd example above (and with the choose-your-parents
> example below). Also, the whole scenario gets messed up with inscrutable
> minutiae almost from the get-go: If I take an elevator to the ground level,
> step to the curb outside, and am struck by an out-of-control car (or falling
> piano, or whatever), am I more at fault than if I'd taken a different elevator
> and reached the curb a few seconds after the accident? Where is a line to be
> drawn regarding one's "choices" in a situation?
This is an interesting point to consider. What one needs to consider is
that being involved in an incident is not what creates your
responsibility for avoiding the risk. It just actuallizes the risk. The
responsibility for avoiding the risk is still there whether or not you
get struck on a given day. Therefore, the person who looks both ways
before stepping out of the building is taking more action to guard
against the risk than the person who doesn't, even if neither gets hit.
Also, as you asked us to be carefull about the word "victim," I also ask
you to be carefull about the word "fault." Fault in this sort of
discussion is generally accepted to be where the "blame" is laid, who
was MOST culpable for the incident (not necessarily, but usually, the
one MOST responsible for the incident [one example of where greatest
culpability and greatest responsiblity don't always point to the same
individual is the time my friend pulled out of his driveway and was hit
by a speeding car which came over a rise, chances are, it would have
been impossible for him to avoid the accident by any reasonable manner
if the other car was travelling so fast that it would have hit my friend
before he got out of the way even though the coast was clear when he
pulled out, the law put culpability on my friend, but I would argue that
the speeding car was most responsible, of course if my friend wanted, he
might very well have been able to win in court, at some point, the
speeder's innability to respond to things should make him culpable even
though the right of way test normally makes the car pulling out
culpable]).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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