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You kid, but moral philosophy is full of examples like that.
If I leave a rake on the ground and it rusts over 5 years and then someone contracts tetanus is it my fault? If it is my fault is it just counter-factually? If it’s my fault because counterfactually I could have put the rake away and prevented the death, am I blameworthy? If I’m not blameworthy do I have any obligation to right the wrong?
Except
If I leave a rake on the ground and it rusts over 5 years
Is categorically incomparable with "I implemented a robot specifically designed to withhold healthcare from as many people as possible to save my company money and gain me a big fat bonus"
I should probably have added that there’s not a lot of consensus in answering any of the questions! Just thought some people might not be aware that the rube goldberg thing is a serious consideration in moral philosophy.
I think in the CEO case it would be quite easy to build a compelling case that he was knowingly hurting others for his own gain on a scale that most people would agree is totally acceptable for one person.
Fair enough, I get your point that there is a philosophical question with no consensus on an answer in the kind of example you gave (potentially, unknowingly, unintentionally causing harm to a single individual at some hypothetical point in the future), and that there are interesting discussions to be had about those kinds of situations, but I still maintain that the example bares no relevance to the situation we're discussing here (deliberately, certainly, directly and immediately causing the deaths and suffering of countless people), because as you say yourself, it's quite easy to make the direct link from CEO to deaths.
Yeah there’s really no rube goldberg going on with ceos or politicians enacting inhumane policies
Yup, it's more of a thing those in power like to tell themselves to maintain their cognitive dissonance and keep them as far removed as they can from the direct consequences of their actions.
I know this isn't critical to your point (which is a good one), but since tetanus is deadly, I feel obligated to mention that tetanus and rust are unrelated: https://www.discovery.com/science/Tetanus-From-Rust. Make sure your vaccination is up to date even if you aren't dealing with rusty metal.
honestly.... you probably shouldn't leave rakes on the ground where people can step on them. you may not be culpable of murder for it, but it's still a shitty thing to do.
if you leave a rake on the ground and someone steps on it and trips and dies would you be guilty of murder? no it's a freak accident that you couldn't have possibly predicted. the difference is when you can see it happening and don't pick the rake back up after it happens 3 times. what we're talking about here aren't freak accidents where someone dies once. were talking about systemic problems that are easily identified and proven but aren't fixed because it's more profitable not to. that's where you become culpable.
so i guess you become a murderer after you refuse to pick up the rake that has killed 1000 people because of where you intentionally left it. especially when you're the only one that is allowed to pick up the rake.
What if you leave the rake there for five years intentionally to rust it up and then invite your enemies over for barefoot tag?
i've had better luck illustrating the point with a less abstract case: the 2000's called and it's your turn for jury dury. the case for today is that of a single mother who downloaded some Disney movies off Limewire for her kids to watch so she could get some time to herself to take care of chores.
should the jury find her guilty, you suspect that the judge will fine her $250,000 and cancel her home internet connection. you think such a punishment would do more net harm than good. but you don't get to decide the punishment (that's for the judge to announce after the jury deliberates), you just decide the guilty/not-guilty verdict.
you look at the evidence: the mother definitely downloaded those files. what verdict do you deliver the judge?
in my head, there's a direct causal chain:
- the court presents me with the accusation and the evidence.
- i declare if the evidence supports the accusation.
- the judge declares a punishment in response to that verdict.
- law enforcement delivers the punishment.
if i believe (3) and (4) will function as stated, then it's equally accurate to say that in step 2 i am deciding whether or not to confiscate $250,000 from this mother and cancel her home internet connection.
but a huge number of people i present this to refuse to admit that equivalence. there is some question about whether weakening the norm might cause more damage than mistreating the mother, but does that even weaken the point? the common answer from those who bring it up is "there's too much uncertainty to say": build a complex enough machine, and people are eager to deny the downstream effects of their actions.
(you can overcome most of the degradation-of-norms issue by making this a secret hearing, and still a lot of people will hesitate to admit the equivalence between their verdict in step 2 and the effects of step 3/4)
It depends, did you purposely leave the rake out knowing full well that it could result in someone's death down the road?
I personally resolve the problem by throwing out the concept of fault and blame. The cause of the bad incident is not being conscientious enough, so we ought to be conscientious and learn what to be conscientious about. It doesn't matter who's fault it is, only that we work to minimize such risk.
As we learn of the dangers in life, we should take them into consideration as best we can. We should set aside time and plan for mitigation measures like putting tools away.
Unfortunately for us, efficiency incentivizes us to not do this. If you aren't immoral and reckless, you get supplanted by people that are. We need then need to set aside more of our time to work against those who endanger lives. If this isn't done, the world reverts to a state of nature with no social contract, formal or otherwise.