In the field of road safety, the term “accident” is being depreciated. My understanding is that “It was an accident” suggests “It wasn’t done on purpose, I didn’t see it coming and I shouldn’t be blamed for it”, as a child would say to a parent after breaking a vase through negligence. In my mind, people get blamed for failures, not accidents, and your example sentences suggest someone attempting to dodge the responsibility for their actions.
With this framing, I can’t currently think of an event that I would label “an accident”, although “an accidental collision” would make sense to differentiate it from a collision that was done on purpose.
As a datapoint, I was listening to the radio during the 2-minute drive back from preschool drop-off this morning—a station with music & casual / humorous chat. They used the word “accidentally” once, to report a story where somebody’s 20yo kid accidentally locked themselves outside on the porch naked, and then a neighbor called the police. Despite using the word “accidentally”, the radio hosts were very much treating the kid as a blameworthy idiot and were laughing at his expense.
For your example: When the kid breaks the vase and says “but it was an accident!”, I interpret that as conveying the relevant information that it wasn’t intentional. That’s not a claim “I shouldn’t be blamed for it” as you say; rather it is a claim “I should be blamed for it much less than if it had been intentional, and plausibly not at all depending on the circumstances.”
Then if the parents responded to the kid: “No, you’re lying, that wasn’t an accident”, I think everyone would interpret that statement as the parents’ making a counter-claim that it was in fact intentional. Right?
More likely, after the kid says “but it was an accident!”, the parents would reply “Well you should have been more careful!”, thus tacitly conceding the claim that it was an accident. Right?
Another example on my side is the fact that wikipedia calls it the Three Mile Island Accident, and Jimmy Carter called it that too (cf. “President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island”), but I don’t think that anyone takes that name to be a bold and contentious claim that nobody should be blamed for it. The commission’s report definitely assigned lots of blame. If Jimmy Carter had called it the “President’s Commission on the Surprise Unforeseeable Failure at Three Mile Island”, people would have been up in arms about that, I think!
I concede that the forbes article you link supports your claim: they write “The word “accident” suggests no-one is to blame for a crash.” I feel like my life experience outweighs that one sentence though.
I feel like the adjective “accidentally” still makes sense to convey “not on purpose”, and the “naked on the porch” situation is a good example of that. This distinction can be made regardless of the level of blame (or here shame) that should be inflicted. I don’t feel like this applies to the noun “accident” and I doubt that the radio hosts would have called this “an accident where a man was locked outside naked”.
Regarding the kid, I agree with you that it suggests “I should be blamed less (or not at all)” and the level of blame should somewhat depend on whether the action was intentional or not.
The Three Mile Island accident is interesting. If I were to guess, the phrasing of the commission was chosen to emphasize that this was not believed to be intentional sabotage. I would have preferred to call it an “incident” (more technically a “partial meltdown”, but that’s pretty scary for a commission name).
From what I’m reading, my understanding is accident → not intentional → reduce blame whereas you disagree with that last arrow or at least the strength of the reduction. It is my opinion that this term should not be used when we do not want to reduce blame, e.g. for sloppy AI safety measures. I feel that our disagreement has been made clear and we are arguing about the meaning of a word, but you’re welcome to reply if you don’t believe we have reached the crux.
In the field of road safety, the term “accident” is being depreciated. My understanding is that “It was an accident” suggests “It wasn’t done on purpose, I didn’t see it coming and I shouldn’t be blamed for it”, as a child would say to a parent after breaking a vase through negligence. In my mind, people get blamed for failures, not accidents, and your example sentences suggest someone attempting to dodge the responsibility for their actions.
With this framing, I can’t currently think of an event that I would label “an accident”, although “an accidental collision” would make sense to differentiate it from a collision that was done on purpose.
As a datapoint, I was listening to the radio during the 2-minute drive back from preschool drop-off this morning—a station with music & casual / humorous chat. They used the word “accidentally” once, to report a story where somebody’s 20yo kid accidentally locked themselves outside on the porch naked, and then a neighbor called the police. Despite using the word “accidentally”, the radio hosts were very much treating the kid as a blameworthy idiot and were laughing at his expense.
For your example: When the kid breaks the vase and says “but it was an accident!”, I interpret that as conveying the relevant information that it wasn’t intentional. That’s not a claim “I shouldn’t be blamed for it” as you say; rather it is a claim “I should be blamed for it much less than if it had been intentional, and plausibly not at all depending on the circumstances.”
Then if the parents responded to the kid: “No, you’re lying, that wasn’t an accident”, I think everyone would interpret that statement as the parents’ making a counter-claim that it was in fact intentional. Right?
More likely, after the kid says “but it was an accident!”, the parents would reply “Well you should have been more careful!”, thus tacitly conceding the claim that it was an accident. Right?
Another example on my side is the fact that wikipedia calls it the Three Mile Island Accident, and Jimmy Carter called it that too (cf. “President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island”), but I don’t think that anyone takes that name to be a bold and contentious claim that nobody should be blamed for it. The commission’s report definitely assigned lots of blame. If Jimmy Carter had called it the “President’s Commission on the Surprise Unforeseeable Failure at Three Mile Island”, people would have been up in arms about that, I think!
I concede that the forbes article you link supports your claim: they write “The word “accident” suggests no-one is to blame for a crash.” I feel like my life experience outweighs that one sentence though.
I feel like the adjective “accidentally” still makes sense to convey “not on purpose”, and the “naked on the porch” situation is a good example of that. This distinction can be made regardless of the level of blame (or here shame) that should be inflicted. I don’t feel like this applies to the noun “accident” and I doubt that the radio hosts would have called this “an accident where a man was locked outside naked”.
Regarding the kid, I agree with you that it suggests “I should be blamed less (or not at all)” and the level of blame should somewhat depend on whether the action was intentional or not.
The Three Mile Island accident is interesting. If I were to guess, the phrasing of the commission was chosen to emphasize that this was not believed to be intentional sabotage. I would have preferred to call it an “incident” (more technically a “partial meltdown”, but that’s pretty scary for a commission name).
From what I’m reading, my understanding is accident → not intentional → reduce blame whereas you disagree with that last arrow or at least the strength of the reduction. It is my opinion that this term should not be used when we do not want to reduce blame, e.g. for sloppy AI safety measures. I feel that our disagreement has been made clear and we are arguing about the meaning of a word, but you’re welcome to reply if you don’t believe we have reached the crux.