From that thread:
I only believe negligence should be a crime if there is a contract (Which can be implicit) requiring action. As I said, this can be implicit. If you are a parent who hasn't given up his child for adoption, this is an implicit acceptance of the duty to feed, clothe, and shelter that child, even if you didn't physically sign a contract. You are not, however, guilty of (At least not legal, the moral question is much more difficult and probably damns us all) negligence if a child starves in Africa, because you have no (Again, I'm restricting this to legal, not moral) responsibility for that child.
Yes, this even applies to the "Able to throw a lifeboat and don't" situation, unless you have a contractual obligation to do so (Such as being employed as a lifeguard, or some other similar situation) you shouldn't be able to legally prosecute someone for not throwing the lifeboat. I admit that this really sucks, and I don't really like it either, but a legal system has to be consistent.
That said, an ethical system does not necessarily need to be consistent like a legal system does, and in the kind of free society I would like to see, you don't have to associate with people that you don't want to. While sometimes this usage of freedom of association will be ethically wrong, and likely killed by the market (Such as a storeowner who doesn't sell to black people, gay people, exc.) I would consider a refusal to associate with the guy who refuses to throw the life preserver an ethical GOOD. And some people likely won't associate with such a despicable person.
I wouldn't.
So there is likely a pretty harsh backlash against the guy who refuses to provide this very minimal kind of aid, even if he doesn't go to jail for it. It would also be completely legal to print such a person's name in the newspapers and advise people not to associate with him/sell him anything/whatever.
With this I agree. But negligence is not aggression.
I've been definitely dabbling in theory here, trying to refine my consistency, exc. but when it comes to the real world, this is 95% of my problem with the legal status quo. That is, if "Victim" is correctly defined. I've seen people oppose the principle of victimless crime, and then go by a line of reasoning that makes something that definitely does not have a victim actually having a victim.
One poster (I'm attacking an idea here, not the poster, which is why I'm not naming him) even compared a refusal to give someone service on religious grounds to be comparable to swinging your fist and hitting someone in the face... Sorry but no.
One could also argue that drugs have "Negative social affects" but there's still no (Intrinsic) victim, so it shouldn't be a crime.
From what I've been taught of legal theory, criminal law is founded on the idea that certain acts harm society and are therefore criminal. Acts which are wrong, harm others, but do not harm society are called torts and are handled by the civil legal system. These tend to be disputes where wrongful harm was not intended, but nonetheless achieved, although criminal damages are handled by the system too. (Note that my claim that crime should coincide with ethics was not part of that teaching)
But we're not really in disagreement on the broad statements you make here. The devil is in the details.
I wouldn't volunteer to be on that jury (To prosecute such a person) and I think you are basically a jerk if you are anywhere near well to do and won't give a starving person that's right in front of you a bit of food. This probably goes back to my whole freedom to associate comments I made above. Still, the starving person did steal, and if someone wants to press charges for that, they have a (Legal, not moral) right to do so.
It is difficult to write law that would address this particular situation properly, while applying a fair prosecution of theft in general, but I think it is an ideal that a justice system should strive for, either by more detailed law, or by giving the judge and jury to the authority to apply their own sense of equity to the situation. If someone is starving and stealing food, I think ideally the state should ensure that person obtains the means to get food, and take no further punitive action. That's what should be done if there is no state, and that what should be done if there is a state that act in the name of it's people. So to reiterate the state's authority should coincide with the ethics of the situation.
Religious faith makes me a bit more confident of my ethics, although this doesn't really help me when trying to translate ethics to politics, such as with the NAP and defining terms like "Victim", so I have a similar skepticism of my own logic. That said, even if my ethical system could be demonstrated beyond an absolute doubt, I still believe it would be immoral to impose it at the point of a gun. Morality through immoral means is still immoral. Also known as "Part truth and part lie is all lie" or "A little bit of yeast spreads to the whole loaf" or whatever other analogy you find appropriate.
I've struggled with the question: When is it ethical to get people to do the right thing for the wrong reason? Maybe in cases like this it can be.
I did mention this before. I find it unlikely that ALL of the public would agree even that murder is wrong, let alone lesser evils like we're discussing in this thread. That said, the MAJORITY of people would find certain forms of "Criminal" neglect, such as refusing to throw a lifeboat, reprehensible. As far as I'm concerned, they have every right to "Discriminate" against such a person and refuse to associate or do business with him. (I also think you have a right to discriminate for less noble reasons, but I also think the market would be more likely to naturally weed these out in the long run.)
In other words you would not use the mechanism of the state to pursue this particular form of punishment. No argument, just making the observation.
I don't usually like prison as a punishment for anything, although I do make exceptions for a few things in the name of public safety. Even still, during your stay you should be made to do labor (I'm not talking about brutality or torture, but you should have to work) to pay back your victim for the wrong you did to him.
Wow, we actually disagree more than I thought on this. I agree that jail has it's problems, but the principal of having an institution responsible for deterrence of crime and rehabilitation is to me a sound one. But restoration is not part of that institution. Instead there is a separate civil justice system for determining reparations owed to the victim, and if the criminal is unable to pay, his future wages are garnished. This does mean that it may be impossible for the criminal to pay reparations, in which case the victim is on his own (though perhaps the state could provide insurance, if the idea was popular.) I think this is a sound system.
But basically you're saying that the state should not punish people based on the moral severity of their crime. Only the severity of public danger, as measured by damage caused by the crime to the immediate victims. Under this logic, and given the separateness of civil and criminal law in our society, no theft should be criminally prosecuted; theft amount to a tort against the victim, nothing more.
I heartly disagree. The system of criminal law should discourage all morally reprehensible acts. The severity of a crime is proportional to the harm to society and to the morally delinquency of the act. These two things coincide to a degree that makes the distinction moot in most cases, because moral delinquency coincides with doing harm. The punishment is not necessarily proportional to severity however, since retribution is really an important part of punishment. For other motivations of punishment, severity is not as strong an influence.
A note on terminology: I'm including rehabilitation in punishment, because it is forced on the individual. However it in part for the victims sake. There are cases where the only punishment should be rehabilitation.
