Despite the proliferation of increasingly dangerous weapons and the very large increase
in rates of serious criminal assault, since 1960, the lethality of such assault in the United
States has dropped dramatically. This paradox has barely been studied and needs to be
examined using national time-series data. Starting from the basic view that homicides
are aggravated assaults with the outcome of the victim’s death, we assembled evidence
from national data sources to show that the principal explanation of the downward trend
in lethality involves parallel developments in medical technology and related medical
support services that have suppressed the homicide rate compared to what it would be had
such progress not been made.We argue that research into the causes and deterrability of
homicide would benefit from a “lethality perspective” that focuses on serious assaults,
only a small proportion of which end in death.
To be clear there are other possible explanations for why violent assault as recorded has become less lethal, I just think this one is by far the most plausible.
I always think it’s weird on cop shows and the like where an assaulter is in custody, the victim is in the hospital, and someone says “If he dies, you’re in big trouble!”. The criminal has already done whatever he did, and now somehow the severity of that doing rests with the competence of doctors.
I can see the logic of treating the severity of the crime as contingent on the actions (and perhaps intentions) of the criminal rather than the actual results, such that the fact that someone dies as a consequence of my battering them doesn’t make it an act of murder.
But that also applies to shorter-window consequences, like when I shoot someone and they dodge to the left and the bullet hits them in the shoulder vs. I shoot someone, they dodge to the right, and the bullet hits them in the throat.
Treating the severity of the crime as contingent on consequences in the firing-a-gun case and contingent on actions in the battering-someone case would seem equally weird to me.
It makes sense as an interrogation tactic, at any rate. If you’re going for a confession and the person is distraught (either by what they did or by getting caught doing what they did) then it’s a variation on “confess now or you’ll get a worse sentence” with the added bonus that the timeline on the “confess” is both out of the interrogator’s hands and it doesn’t seem artifiical to the suspect.
Um, I thought consequentialism was about evaluating the goodness of a course of action based on its probable consequences. If all it amounts to is hindsight then it’s not much use for making ethical decisions about future actions. But I think that would be a straw man.
If you apply that crazy approach to consequentialism then I should be allowed to stand on a roof heaving bricks out into the street, and I’m not doing anything wrong unless and until one of them actually hits somebody.
Consequentialism is about deriving the ethical value of actions from their consequences. If someone thinks that the badness of an action is not determined until the consequences are known (like the police in Alicorn’s example, or more to the pont the legal system they represent), then, necessarily, they are applying consequentialist moral intuitions, and not deontological moral intuitions.
No one said anything about “all it amounts to” being “hindsight”. Your second paragraph is a straw man. While it is true that if someone believes that, they must be a consequentialist, it does not follow that a consequentialist must necessarily believe that.
I did say that it would be a straw man version of consequentialism. But I think I misunderstood what you were saying, or at least where your emphasis was, so I was kind of talking past you there :(
Thankfully in other areas the law is not concerned only with the contingent consequences of actions in general. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime. Attempted murder is a crime. Blackmail is a crime even if the victim refuses to be bullied and the blackmailer doesn’t follow through on their threat. Kidnapping isn’t considered to be babysitting if the victim is released unharmed.
So yeah. I think anyone could find it a little weird with or without calling it consequentialist.
I think anyone could find it a little weird with or without calling it consequentialist
Perhaps, but my point was that, since it does presuppose consequentialism, non-consequentialists such as Alicorn would be particularly disposed to find it weird (whether or not some consequentialists would also have a similar reaction).
Well, I suppose it’s easier to prove that the victim could have died from the violence inflicted, if they do actually die.… but yeah, on the whole I agree.
If we’re relying on doctor competence anyway here, we could see about getting official professional opinions on to what extent the injuries could have been lethal. Like retroactive triage.
Murder and Medicine: The Lethality of Criminal Assault 1960-1999
To be clear there are other possible explanations for why violent assault as recorded has become less lethal, I just think this one is by far the most plausible.
I always think it’s weird on cop shows and the like where an assaulter is in custody, the victim is in the hospital, and someone says “If he dies, you’re in big trouble!”. The criminal has already done whatever he did, and now somehow the severity of that doing rests with the competence of doctors.
I can see the logic of treating the severity of the crime as contingent on the actions (and perhaps intentions) of the criminal rather than the actual results, such that the fact that someone dies as a consequence of my battering them doesn’t make it an act of murder.
But that also applies to shorter-window consequences, like when I shoot someone and they dodge to the left and the bullet hits them in the shoulder vs. I shoot someone, they dodge to the right, and the bullet hits them in the throat.
Treating the severity of the crime as contingent on consequences in the firing-a-gun case and contingent on actions in the battering-someone case would seem equally weird to me.
It makes sense as an interrogation tactic, at any rate. If you’re going for a confession and the person is distraught (either by what they did or by getting caught doing what they did) then it’s a variation on “confess now or you’ll get a worse sentence” with the added bonus that the timeline on the “confess” is both out of the interrogator’s hands and it doesn’t seem artifiical to the suspect.
Indeed, this seems to be an area where the legal system opts for a consequentialist approach; no surprise, then, that you would find it weird.
Um, I thought consequentialism was about evaluating the goodness of a course of action based on its probable consequences. If all it amounts to is hindsight then it’s not much use for making ethical decisions about future actions. But I think that would be a straw man.
If you apply that crazy approach to consequentialism then I should be allowed to stand on a roof heaving bricks out into the street, and I’m not doing anything wrong unless and until one of them actually hits somebody.
Consequentialism is about deriving the ethical value of actions from their consequences. If someone thinks that the badness of an action is not determined until the consequences are known (like the police in Alicorn’s example, or more to the pont the legal system they represent), then, necessarily, they are applying consequentialist moral intuitions, and not deontological moral intuitions.
No one said anything about “all it amounts to” being “hindsight”. Your second paragraph is a straw man. While it is true that if someone believes that, they must be a consequentialist, it does not follow that a consequentialist must necessarily believe that.
I did say that it would be a straw man version of consequentialism. But I think I misunderstood what you were saying, or at least where your emphasis was, so I was kind of talking past you there :(
Thankfully in other areas the law is not concerned only with the contingent consequences of actions in general. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime. Attempted murder is a crime. Blackmail is a crime even if the victim refuses to be bullied and the blackmailer doesn’t follow through on their threat. Kidnapping isn’t considered to be babysitting if the victim is released unharmed.
So yeah. I think anyone could find it a little weird with or without calling it consequentialist.
Perhaps, but my point was that, since it does presuppose consequentialism, non-consequentialists such as Alicorn would be particularly disposed to find it weird (whether or not some consequentialists would also have a similar reaction).
Well, I suppose it’s easier to prove that the victim could have died from the violence inflicted, if they do actually die.… but yeah, on the whole I agree.
If we’re relying on doctor competence anyway here, we could see about getting official professional opinions on to what extent the injuries could have been lethal. Like retroactive triage.