I feel like we should make a distinction between blackmail about crimes and blackmail about non-crimes.
I don’t think we should make blackmail-for-crimes legal. I think that, if someone has evidence of a crime, their incentive should be to report the crime to the police so the crime can be punished. Perhaps the police should be offering them money as a reward for reporting the crime (although we’d have to think carefully about how to do that without creating an incentive to make false reports). But I don’t think we should let anyone have a monetary incentive to cover up a crime.
Would this then disallow out-of-court settlements? e.g. Uber settling a wrongful death case with cash.
Edit: Upon further reflection, it would only apply to the criminal case, not the civil case.
It seems like you’re describing banning trade of knowledge of crimes. This is distinct from blackmail, which has to do with an asymmetry between offer direction (by Hansons definition).
I feel like we should make a distinction between blackmail about crimes and blackmail about non-crimes.
I don’t think we should make blackmail-for-crimes legal. I think that, if someone has evidence of a crime, their incentive should be to report the crime to the police so the crime can be punished. Perhaps the police should be offering them money as a reward for reporting the crime (although we’d have to think carefully about how to do that without creating an incentive to make false reports). But I don’t think we should let anyone have a monetary incentive to cover up a crime.
Would this then disallow out-of-court settlements? e.g. Uber settling a wrongful death case with cash.
Edit: Upon further reflection, it would only apply to the criminal case, not the civil case.
It seems like you’re describing banning trade of knowledge of crimes. This is distinct from blackmail, which has to do with an asymmetry between offer direction (by Hansons definition).