In the territory, bad event happens [husband hits wife, missile hits child, car hits pedestrian]. There is no confusion about the territory: everyone understands the trajectories of particles that led to the catastrophe. But somehow there is a long and tortuous debate about who is responsible/to blame [“She was wearing a dark hoodie that night,” “He should have come to a complete stop at the stop sign”, “Why did she jaywalk when the crosswalk was just 10 feet away!”].
The problem is that we mean a bunch of different things simultaneously by blame/responsibility:
Causality. The actual causal structure of the event. [“If she’d worn a reflective vest this wouldn’t have happened,” “If your left headlight wasn’t broken you’d have seen her.”]
Blame. Who should be punished/shamed in this situation. This question already branches into a bunch of cruxes about the purpose and effectiveness of punishment.
Responsibility. What is the most effective way of preventing such events in the future? [“If we passed a law that all pedestrians wear reflective vests it would halve incidents like this”, “How about we institute mandatory pedestrian-sighting courses for drivers, and not blame the victim?”]
People argue about the same event with different causal models, different definitions of blame, and different notions of responsibility, and the conversation collapses. Fill in your own politically-charged example.
Setting the zero point seems to be one “move” in this blame game [if the default is that all drivers take pedestrian-sighting courses, then you’re to blame if you skipped it. if the default is that all pedestrians must wear reflective vests, then you’re to blame if you didn’t wear one.]
I’m interested in hearing more about what you meant here, if you’re up for digging into it.
In the territory, bad event happens [husband hits wife, missile hits child, car hits pedestrian]. There is no confusion about the territory: everyone understands the trajectories of particles that led to the catastrophe. But somehow there is a long and tortuous debate about who is responsible/to blame [“She was wearing a dark hoodie that night,” “He should have come to a complete stop at the stop sign”, “Why did she jaywalk when the crosswalk was just 10 feet away!”].
The problem is that we mean a bunch of different things simultaneously by blame/responsibility:
Causality. The actual causal structure of the event. [“If she’d worn a reflective vest this wouldn’t have happened,” “If your left headlight wasn’t broken you’d have seen her.”]
Blame. Who should be punished/shamed in this situation. This question already branches into a bunch of cruxes about the purpose and effectiveness of punishment.
Responsibility. What is the most effective way of preventing such events in the future? [“If we passed a law that all pedestrians wear reflective vests it would halve incidents like this”, “How about we institute mandatory pedestrian-sighting courses for drivers, and not blame the victim?”]
People argue about the same event with different causal models, different definitions of blame, and different notions of responsibility, and the conversation collapses. Fill in your own politically-charged example.
Setting the zero point seems to be one “move” in this blame game [if the default is that all drivers take pedestrian-sighting courses, then you’re to blame if you skipped it. if the default is that all pedestrians must wear reflective vests, then you’re to blame if you didn’t wear one.]