I’m not precisely sure what you mean by “absolutist” here, but I would certainly agree that for every culture there is some (P1,P2) for which that culture accepts a P1 chance of punishing an innocent person over a P2 chance of letting a guilty person go free.
Basically, every culture ever is such a culture to an extent, so the only sense in which it could be a discovery would be if a culture had (P1,P2)=(epsilon,1-epsilon) or (P1,P2)=(0,1). Which I would consider highly surprising.
Yes, which is why I said I would agree this is true for every culture.
if a culture had (P1,P2)=(epsilon,1-epsilon) or (P1,P2)=(0,1). Which I would consider highly surprising.
Yes, I would consider that surprising as well. If that’s what you mean by an absolutist stance, I agree with you that no culture took an absolutist stance on this issue, and that doing so is incredibly impractical.
But… consider two hypothetical criminal justice systems, J1 and J2, for which generally-accepted statistical studies demonstrate that J1 acquits 30% of guilty defendants and convicts 1% of innocent ones, and J2 acquits 1% of guilty defendants and convicts 30% of innocent ones.
Given a randomly selected culture, I cannot confidently predict whether that culture prefers J1 or J2. (Can you?)
Given a culture that prefers J1 to J2, all else being (implausibly) equal, I would comfortably describe that culture as viewing the punishing of an innocent person as worse than letting a guilty person go free. (Would you?)
I would not consider discovering C1 particularly surprising. (Would you?)
I’m not precisely sure what you mean by “absolutist” here, but I would certainly agree that for every culture there is some (P1,P2) for which that culture accepts a P1 chance of punishing an innocent person over a P2 chance of letting a guilty person go free.
Basically, every culture ever is such a culture to an extent, so the only sense in which it could be a discovery would be if a culture had (P1,P2)=(epsilon,1-epsilon) or (P1,P2)=(0,1). Which I would consider highly surprising.
Yes, which is why I said I would agree this is true for every culture.
Yes, I would consider that surprising as well. If that’s what you mean by an absolutist stance, I agree with you that no culture took an absolutist stance on this issue, and that doing so is incredibly impractical.
But… consider two hypothetical criminal justice systems, J1 and J2, for which generally-accepted statistical studies demonstrate that J1 acquits 30% of guilty defendants and convicts 1% of innocent ones, and J2 acquits 1% of guilty defendants and convicts 30% of innocent ones.
Given a randomly selected culture, I cannot confidently predict whether that culture prefers J1 or J2. (Can you?)
Given a culture that prefers J1 to J2, all else being (implausibly) equal, I would comfortably describe that culture as viewing the punishing of an innocent person as worse than letting a guilty person go free. (Would you?)
I would not consider discovering C1 particularly surprising. (Would you?)