this dilemma reminded me of a high school friend who found himself in a similar situation back when we were still students. he was involved in a car accident where he killed two cyclists. the thing is the external factors were so many that it was almost unavoidable. the accident happened a 5 am when he was coming home from a night out. if he was intoxicated within the legal limit isn't clear, as the police failed to give him a alcohol test on site and that only occurred in the hospital hours later. the location where it happened was also very prone to accidents. just a few days before there had been another accident there and the road had been covered in oil. city hall instead of cleaning it up, decided to cover it up with sand for the time being. so there was sand and oil on the road. it was also a curved tunnel with no light what so ever. and the cyclists seemed to have decided to stop right on top of the curve at five am, in a dark tunnel. so when my friend came around the curve, he only saw the cyclists right when he was on top of them. having hit the breaks, the floor was covered in sand and oil, car lost control and ran over the cyclists. this of course went to court, but he was found not guilty because of all those external factors. i think his license was revoked but he got some serious emotional trauma because of what happened.
This is my favourite episode so far. I saw the title and thought, 'oh, moral luck - the two drunk drivers...' but it was well expanded into other ideas. I'm no expert on philosophy, so it was nice to see a concept that I have some understanding of stretched out beyond what I have read before. THX.
+ Because of RL incident - when I was in 7th grade, two children were killed by a man who said he was reaching for a beer in the passenger floor well (his first). He ended up not contesting involuntary manslaughter charges because of personal guilt (he felt horrible), but he was not charged with vehicular homicide because the children were crossing the road in dark clothes on a dark winding road at night. There was alot of talk about charging the parents with negligence, but I don't think that happened. Whenever you saw the driver on TV, he was either sobbing or looking like he hadn't slept in a year.
The only reason you blame the lucky one less is because you cannot prove he would have killed a child had he encountered one. Otherwise, of course they are equally immoral.
Arthur O'Brien I agree, but I think the point is most people don't think this way. Most people will think differently about a person who got away with drunk driving vs another person who killed a child drunk driving.
Andrew Stuhr I don't think they do but google closed my window. My point was essentially: It's theoretical philosophy/ethics that makes people being concerned about stuff like this, but it even seldom does. I have *one* friend who agonizes over free will, because it's not an ethics problem real people have. Morality existed before philosophy and it is meaningful regardless of theoretical problems, as the video concedes. Good night.
Blame only matters as a mean to influence the future(immediate and far). The cause and effect blame assignment/qualification should be prescribed in such a way that the future creates less bad sentient experiences. The only Value that lies in the past, is in that we can Learn from it.
@@manaulhoque6507 um no i think you turning cause and effect on its head with that. being responsibility for something doesn't necessarily mean you have any power over set ting. tho that can be called unfair to be responsibil for someting you cant control. But stil, "With power comes responsibility" not “with responsibility comes power”. Same way as "a hand has fingers" not "a finger has hands"
Both are equally blameworthy! If two persons want to murder someone and one succeeds while the other fails, both should be punished equally because they both had the same intention. That's how I always thought.
Except that neither of the drivers intended to kill the child, not only that, but if you punish/blame them both equally, you're implying that: _a)_ drunk-driving is just as bad as accidentally killing someone while drunk-driving even if no accidents occurred. And _b)_ killing someone while drunk-driving isn't any worse than just driving under the influence, which means that the death of the person didn't really matter.
Adrian Fahrenheit, First: I was doing an exemple; second: no, both posed the same action, the difference was that B was causally ( not morally ) responsible for the death of a child; the result isn't the same, but the crime is.
The only thing we can really control are our actions. The ability to know whether they are harmful or not, for us or for others is true wisdom. Thank you for the knowledge and wisdom Hank. Not only do you educate us, you provide us with the tools to develop a well formed mind. Much love and gratitude. Happy New year :)
For those who don't like religious discussions in the comment section, I apologize in advance. This video also provides one of the strongest argument against the concept of original sin that we find in the Abrahamic religions. According to the story of genesis, Adam and Eve were supposedly made perfect yet without knowledge of good and evil. Only after they ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:17) did they gain knowledge of what is good and evil. This is further emphasized by Genesis 3:5, where the talking snake (who is not Satan btw) tells Eve that _your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil._ Btw, god was taking a casual stroll around the garden of Eden for some reason (Genesis 3:8). In other words, Adam and Eve had the moral reasoning of an infant and yet they were expected to make a moral conclusion regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge. If *ought* implies that you *can*, then you can apply this same reasoning to the concept of original sin. Adam and Eve were incapable of making moral evaluations and thus shouldn't have been expected to do so.
The deck was also stacked against them. God knew all this, and STILL placed the tree and the snake in their vicinity, and didn't even make the tree repulsive in any way. It's almost as if God wanted it to happen...
God didn't tell Adam and Eve to do what's right (because they weren't able to tell what's right and wrong, as you point out) - he just gives a command. They weren't expected to evaluate it morally, the were expect to obey it. Afterwards, God doesn't say it was wrong what they did, he's just saying it's going to have consequences. I'd like to notice that in Christianity wrongdoing always causes harm, not only to someone else, but to one's soul and one's connection to God as well. And vice versa, doing things that harm the soul or its connection to God is always wrong. In A&E case, they can be seen as this cocunut that was unknowingly used to cause harm, and the only one morally responsible would be the Serpent - still, the harm was done, their connection to God was damaged, and their life was affected.
If God knew that Adam and Eve were going to disobey the command, and he placed them in that situation anyways, doesn't that mean that that future had already been determined, and Adam and Eve had no choice in the matter?
Another way to view your analogy of *Luck due to Antecedent Circumstances*; a Privileged Life might lead to Apathetic Reactions toward Injustices or circumstances which require selfless action. Contrarily, a person raised without privilege might be better able to empathize with people who are suffering or in need.
There are two problems with saying that both are _equally_ blame worthy: a) It implies that drunk-driving is just as bad as accidentally killing someone while drunk-driving even if no accidents occurred. And b) killing someone while drunk-driving isn't any worse than just driving under the influence, which means that the death of the person didn't really matter.
But that would make sense in this context. While it's awful to kill someone, if it was truly out of the person's control, it would be consistent with this lens to assign equal blame.
They are equally worthy of being shunned, but here's the catch; Because A's abilities in drunk driving weren't tested, you can't say that A would have been equally inept in avoiding the child, thus you can't put equal blame on them.
I'm writing a literary essay on Les Miserables and the role of conscience in the actions of Valjean throughout the novel. This video helps me a lot in considering other factors to determine if Valjean should be held morally responsible in stealing a loaf of bread
poketopa1234 Drunk driving = taking the concious decision to utilize a machine of immense power, that requires high levels of concentration to operate, in an area that might have bystanders while under the effects of substances that impair judgement and concentration. Or, in simpler terms, you conciously increase the risk of a machine beast causing great harm. PS - No military organization that has a single braincell amongst it's management would transport a thermonuclear device assembled and ready to go critical. It just doesn't happen.
i dont beleve that such a thing of "right and wrong" actually exists outside of our thoughts nor that a scociety needs them, we all have natural desires to be helpfull and nice to others, thats just how we evolved, whoever its being extreemly moral that makes you what most would call verry immoral. like some of the most moral people in the word, isis verry strong religious groupes who shun cirtain people because they deem them immoral? morality only leads you to judge others, and yourself, and a hell of alot of other dammage too. we can lock someone up if there running a muck, we can fight groupes like isis, without the need to deamonise them, withought getting all upset and declaring them unworthy of life because then how are we any diffarent? besides, there not bad people, in there eyes there doing the world a great good, and do you think its nice to be filled with hatred do you think it feels good to live judging the rest of the world to be evil no of corse not, so why not give so called "bad people" some sympathy, otherwise your a horrible disgusting humanoid slug!!!
Been watching/following crash course for the past two years and crash course philosophy is my favourite topic so far. I love the conversations i have with family and friends afterwards. Thank you. Crash course adds value to the lives of many.
Perhaps we can blame the grandparents for teaching the child's parents that it is fine for kids to wander around at night. Or the rapists for chasing the kid in the night and eventually on to the road
People have been known to get drunk during the day. What then? Anyway, what has the time of day to do with it? Laws against drunk driving apply 24 hours a day, not "except between midnight and 4 a.m. And hitting lone kids is always free!" Officially, anyway.
I've been pretty anti-blame for quite awhile. Also, I do use praise and try to be specific on praising behavior rather than consequence. This is all for the very things mentioned in this video. It's been interesting arguing my perspective as rational when it comes to personal experiences involving others in a group. Though, my fellow behaviorist therapists totally get it. Our perspective leans easily to this view as well.
this is the exact thought that will lead to a dystopian society, where every action that have a potential to cause harm is punished as if they have already caused harm
Drawing on the determinism episode, no element of a person's life was ever really in their control. Every circumstance a person finds themself in is due to luck. Therefore, assigning responsibility to a person's actions is as meaningless as assigning responsibility to a planet for its orbit.
If you're going to say there's no free will, I'm going to say there's no reason NOT TO assign blame. Ultimately, we assign blame and praise to discourage bad behavior and encourage good behavior. Even if someone has no control over themselves we can influence them into doing the right thing.
I agree that assigning blame and praise are used to control peoples' behavior. However, if we took the stance that people are just the result of the factors that preceded them, then policies could be enacted to ensure that when a child is born that child would be born with the most fortitous circumstances and the fewest unforturate cicumstances.
This is a foundational tenet of Utilitarianism. Focus on what people need and let "what people deserve" be damned. That being said, We MUST assume that responsibility is meaningful or else morality can't be meaningfully discussed. To believe in hard determinism without being some sort of anti-realist or non-cognitivist requires that you treat responsibility as a useful fiction - that is, you must assume it to be true when making decisions about how to act (regardless of its actual truth value).
Well, drinking and driving CAN be stopped. If you are drunk, you have the ability not to drive and if you are so drunk, you can't think, then you are still to blame because you had the knowledge that alcohol causes such things and the ability to not drink it. Other people told me to do it is no excuse, otherwise I can just kill x if y told me so and get scot-free. WHat you are saying is that there is no free will, and if that's the case, you should NEVER EVER BE ANGRY TOWARDS ANYONE EVER AGAIN, simply because they couldn't control themselves. You probably won't like that now would ya?
The hard determinist views us as victims of ourselves. All of the things that make us uniquely us, like our beliefs and values, our genetic dispositions and environmental experiences, even our own brains and neurology are said to rob us of any control. Question: What is the "us" that remains after you remove all that stuff? Answer: Nothing remains. All that stuff is "us". And if all that stuff is actually in control of what we do, then it logically follows that "us" is actually in control of what we do. Welcome to the resolution of the determinism "versus" free will paradox.
I think we are all capable of doing something that is morally. The key is whether or not that right variables will line up allowing us to do something unjust. That's why empathy should always take the lead on moral issues.
public health strives to save lives all the time, and regularly fails. I'm sure the majority of us praise them for the intention to good, irrelevant of their failures
Should we though? I'm sure hardly anyone has a problem with the individuals in the situation, but assume that public health is a very inefficient government bureaucracy. Should we keep sending money their way because they try to do good, or should we cut waste and tighten control to make sure that their job actually gets something done?
bureaucracy is a government overreaction to the people's demand to see the effects of policy. If both sides were willing to lower the demand for immediate evaluations then government would make less bureaucracy. They're well aware it limits effectiveness, but they need to show results to petty naysayers. That said, yes of course praise public health. You can complain about government in/action to the government, rather than nurses and doctors working 80 hour weeks to do the best they can to prevent the deaths and improve the lives of patients who will only complain about the forms healthcare workers don't want to have to give them.
I love how your subjects invoke thoughts and discussions in our minds which are ignored in this shallow life. Observing 99.99% of the humans, I feel they are still basically primitive animals looking for food, reproduction, shelter and power status. Only philosophers are actually aware of the their existence and looking for a meaning in this life. I don't think any philosophy reaches the real truth and give the absolute right answer. But the search itself is what makes humans special. Thank you for this beautiful series 💕
I've realized the problem with all these positions. They assume that you can have these nice and neat situations, where you can compare two options and know that there is only one factor between them. But this *never* happens in real life, so coming up with a moral framework that fits into the messy and full of limited information real world won't look like the kind of thing you derive from these kind of thought experiments.
They both deserve blame, but different levels. That's why the law dictates one punishment for drunk driving, a discouragement-based punishment for the harm they could have caused, and another punishment for killing the child as a harm you have caused. What the second part gets messier is should it be murder or manslaughter; a normal accident would imply manslaughter, but if you drive impaired the argument can be made that you knew beforehand it was wrong, so murder charges apply.
The reason there is a separate charge for killing the child is not based on moral grounds. The state sees loss of life as loss of potential human resource, hence you would be charged. The question of whether it is manslaughter or murder must be brought into by a understanding of murder and manslaughter. Both refer to the harm of a person leading to loss of human life, however, using the crash course terms murder is the harm of a person leading to loss of human life as a result of wrongdoing by the perpetrator of the action. Therefore as the wrongdoing of drunk driving makes it murder. Personally I view both as equally wrong from a moral standpoint however I hold the separate view that compounds on a negative view on B due to the loss of a potential human resource.
Moral agency. Harm and wrong doing. Moral Luck. 5:12 Different kinds of luck. Constitutive luck, Circumstantial luck, SS antecedent luck, Consequent circumstances. If out of our control does it make ant sense to praise or blame. Is our Nature and Nurture under our control. 7:14 Praise and Blame? 8:16 Praise heroes to encourage hereoism. Villify cowardice to discourage cowardice. Punish people for bad behavior or try Rehabilitate them. What punishment is best to use?
" If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless. " "Bestow rewards without regard to rule, issue orders without regard to previous arrangements; and you will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to do with but a single man. " - Sun Tzu's Art of War
The way I tend to judge both the photograph situation and the drunk driving situation is by taking into account potential harm as well as actual harm. In both cases, the blameworthy person have intentionally engineered a situation in which harm is likely to occur. I think this allows for some moral liability based on the actual likelihood of an actual harm being done. This kind of moral potential works just as well for praiseworthy actions as it does for blameworthy ones.
Excellent video, Hank and the Crash Course crew! ...Had Hank more time in this vid, it would have been interesting to hear him consider what happens to the social worth of praise or blame with the second option (beginning @ 7:38). If their function is merely to serve as a deterrent or reward, rather than serve as part of a moral judgment itself, getting praised or blamed for something starts to look like more like sheep herding than genuine responsibility. If praise or blame are more about promoting social harmony rather than receiving one's just desserts for specific actions, doesn't this diminish the meaning of these concepts for either proponents or recipients of them? (Imagine discovering that the praise or blame you received for your actions is really more about proper herd functioning than forming your character. How does that make you feel about the praise and blame you receive henceforth? I suspect it damages one's motivation either way.)
The point of holding responsible is to correct the causes of harm. Ideally, we would seek out all the relevant contributing causes, and correct them all, to minimize the risk of future harm. The drunk driver is only one cause. Not only is the "unlucky" driver punished, but we also set up random police checkpoints to find drunk drivers who have not had the bad luck of an accident yet. Another point of responsibility is the child who ran into the street and even the parents who allowed the child to get into that danger. Even if the driver was sober he could have hit the child. The punishment of the injury is probably sufficient, but if the community takes responsibility it will also educate parents and children about the dangers, and provide traffic signs warning of children at play etc.
What? No. Not at all. This is right out of utilitarian text books in risk management. Kant would say stuff like: "if you lie to the murderer and you like causes the improbable event of facilitating the crime you're responsible. Consequentialism says: When you make a decision, measure the expected / possible outcomes of different courses of action, and adjust for risk of success / failure, then pick the one that creates the most utility.
Nonsense. You just said Kant would blame someone for causing something. Kant would NEVER blame someone for causing something. Actions, my friend, not results. Drunk driving is either a hypothetical imperative, or it is a question of moral duty. Given that it is a question of moral duty, the imperative would instantly invalidate drunk driving, first, because it is untenable to universalize the action of drunk driving, and second, because it is using all the other possible drivers on the road as a mere means, ignoring their want to be safe. Apart from other various flaws in utilitarianism (the utility monster, the difficulty in quantifying utility, if you kill someone do they even lose utility if they are already dead? etc.), let's go back to a modified version of the drunk driving case. Both drunk drivers have identical goals. They want to get home quickly, because they want to see their wives for you-know-what. There is only one person that goes out on the road at night that they could run over due to increased reaction time. The probability of hitting this person is given as .0000000000001, given that they are drunk. The net change in utility from sobering out is a loss for the driver AND his wife, and for driving drunk, it's a near certain gain of a lot of utility for both the driver and his wife, and only a small chance for one person to lose out on a lot of utility. If we're talking probability, you would be not only recommended to, but morally obliged to drive drunk under utilitarianism.
Graybat12 that is why I like watching people discus utilitarianism. It is so intuitive and yet at the same time, results in so many ridiculous conclusions. Though we can say that the death of someone causes so much utility lost it can still outweights the utility of going home earlier even when multiplied with .0000000000001
Graybat12 This is a classic issue in computation: Garbage in, Garbage out. If you ascribe ridiculous utility values to things, then it is not surprising that reasonable utilitarian calculus produces unsettling results. This is the same issue underlying the utility monster criticism. In the abstract people view the utility monster scenario as a scathing indictment of utilitarianism. In concrete examples they are very accepting of the possibility that the utility of one billion bacteria could be offset by the utility of a single human.
Taken to the extreme, you can conclude that no one is responsible for anything they do, or everyone is responsible for everything they do. There is no moral gray area in a purely logical sense. Because if everything you are is shaped by things out fo your control, free will is non-existent. However, we are not purely logical creatures. We feel as if we are in control, so it stands to reason that we act like we are as well. Just something to add onto the video.
I think that you are misunderstanding. Under nearly any conception A is still blameworthy for the act of drunk-driving. The question is whether or not A is as blameworthy as a person who kills a child while drunk-driving. The puzzle here is that our normal moral instinct is to believe that a person who kills somebody while drinking and driving is morally WORSE than somebody who gets home safely, but, the person who gets home safely got home safely by moral luck. Here is perhaps a more clear case. Two people each attempt to murder somebody by entering that person's home and shooting at him. The gun person A just bought has sights that are slightly off and only grazes the person's shoulder. Person B aim is true and kills his victim. Our instinct is typically to think that person B is worse than person A. Certainly our judicial system punishes person B more harshly. Yet it seems as if person A was just lucky--he bought a gun with bad sights. He MEANT to kill his victim. His intent was just as foul. He just missed. I hope that this helps explain the puzzle, if not the solution.
If we had to put everyone who drunks drive in jail for 4 years (same as the drunk driver who killed someone), then we'd have major societal problems. Moreover, it wouldn't really do anything. It wouldn't teach a better lesson than just jailing those that end up causing an accident. So, while both people are blame worthy, the question is: should the one that killed a child get away with a slap on the hand just like driver who was just drunk driving?
GregTom2 I suppose the logistics that you mention are a good point. But what if you knew that in this hypothetical society drunk driving carries a 4 year sentence, wouldn't you be less likely to do it?
that bit about making heroes of people reminded me of the BBC Sherlock quote, "Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them." I guess this means Sherlock subscribes to the idea of neither blaming or praising people for their moral decisions.
Virtue theory seems to be wholly grounded in wrong doing vs doing good, because what you do exposes and affects who you are as a person, no matter the results. Bad people sometimes exist harmlessly. However when harm is done, society is obligated to deliver justice to the wronged party, which is where blame comes into play.
Drinking alcohol impairs judgement, so were you really in "control" when you decided to drive? I think substance abuse, that introduces us to situations we would not agree to be in if we were sober, are definitely one of the dodgier areas in determining agency.
Stevil Cee yet you are responsible for consuming said substance which impaired your judgment, therefore you are still responsible for your actions even after your judgment is impaired. If you unknowingly consumed alcohol or were forced to, then your actions could be considered beyond your control (depending on the circumstance), but otherwise, people should be held accountable for their behavior while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
@@spencergsmith Do you think they could be at least partially excused from blame if, say, they were raised by a drug-abusing family in a drug-abusing community, which contributed to them becoming a drug addict?
@@alfiewright1396 no. I understand what you're arguing, and our environment certainly plays a role in our development, but ultimately the choice is the individual's responsibility. Exactly how much environmental influence must exist for a person to not be responsible for their decisions? Who gets to decide where to draw that line? For that matter, can ANYONE be responsible for ANY of their behavior - good or bad - since we are all products of our environment? Every successful person owes their success to their environment, so no one should earn any praise or reward either. When you take away the concept of responsibility, society devolves into chaos. Extreme ownership is the first step to success, both on an individual and societal level.
@@spencergsmith interesting! I am currently writing an undergraduate dissertation on the very topic. In it I argue for the very position you call absurd. I agree that either we all are morally responsible, or none of us are. My argument is that none of us are truly responsible. But I also argue that this doesnt mean we need to abandon any notion of moral responsibility in society: these practices are useful for consequentialist reasons in that they help society function better even if they may not be entirely rational. Look up Derk Pereboom and Neil Levy for views like these. It's an interesting debate and I think your position you have argued for there is also pretty valid
@@alfiewright1396 fair enough. I would argue that we are all morally responsible. If we don't behave this way then society devolves into chaos, but beyond that, I am a Christian and believe there is an external objective standard of morality put in place by our creator, and we are all responsible for our actions, even if they may have been influenced by our environment.
The hard determinists claim that no one is ever responsible because, if every act is causally determined, then there is no "can" to go with any "ought". What they fail to recognize is the distinction between normal influences and undue influences.
Is wrongdoing necessarily connected to a perpetrator? For example, could it be that the coconut falling on your head is morally bad, even if nobody caused it. Similarly, perhaps a man who's circumstances influence him towards participating in the holocaust is not himself bad, only his actions. Food for thought. Also, if someone can be blamed for the possible consequences of their actions (such as drunk driving), how improbable does a consequence need to be for the person to still be blamed for it? After all, there is a tiny % chance that a driver kills not one but ten children because he was drunk that night. Should all drunk drivers be blamed for the potential deaths of ten children?
It is not the deaths of the children all drunk drivers would be blamed for. They would be (actually are) blamed for putting it on the table as a potential risk of their driving.
A coconut, based on our understanding, isn't sentient. Therefore, making choices is impossible, and it's not a moral agent. Whether someone is bad or just their actions, well, once a choice has been made and action has been taken, we can only look at the result. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. No matter how noble your intent, if the actions result in suffering, you are responsible. But the concentration camp guard is a bit different than the drunk driver, because the guard has more control over his response, but that's where it gets pretty murky. He could refuse to carry out an order to harm someone. Even if that meant he'd be shot for insubordination, he could make that choice. But what if that person was so overtaken by fear that it was impossible for him to take that choice? Would he be more or less responsible if the punishment was something we'd see as less severe? What if he loves singing, but he'd lose his tongue? For him, losing his tongue would be a much harsher punishment for someone who was born mute, for example. In the end, we'll probably end up saying that he should've taken the bullet (or other punishment) because we value a society where people don't do harm others, even under duress. At least that's what I'd like to think, because I'd feel that fear is the fuel of tyranny. A society governed by fear will stand silent while others commit atrocities. Well, that was a digression and a half. I guess the point stands that "moral responsibility" is just shorthand for desirable and undesirable choices and action.
I have a friend who chooses to drive drunk. She goes out on non-residential country roads and drinks a few beers, sobers up, then comes home. I have friends who do the same with pot. I assign them far less moral blame than someone who does these things in a more dangerous setting: places with more cars and more people. Not to be a utilitarian, but I think the _exact_ amount of risk you take does make a difference. If one of a hundred people doing what you do kill someone, that's a big deal. If one of ten thousand people doing what you do kill someone, it's less of a big deal? But this might have some weird consequences. Because the one in ten thousand, "safe" drunk driver who _does_ kill someone also should get equally less blame as the drivers who didn't. Hey, they tried, right? Even if society rightly punishes them like they killed a whole person, we as moral agents should know that they _really_ only killed a much smaller portion of a person than even your average drunk driver. And the person whose brakelines were cut, even more bizarrely, should pick up a little bit of blame and so should_every person who doesn't check their brakelines before every car ride just to be sure_. They're taking people's lives in their hands. Even if less than one in a billion people accidentally kill someone because their brakelines were unknowingly cut, you still bear that one in a billion culpability every time you drive for not taking the precaution.
that's how you end up blaming god or the universe or existence. if we don't blame, we also negate our agency. circumstances can lead anyone to anything bad, but they could also lead them to something good. even if you chose a bad outcome and then cite your bad circumstances, it doesn't mean you didn't choose the bad outcome. on the blamer's end, you can always blame anyone for the maximum consequence. the fact that you're alive in this society means you can be blamed for anything that society does. you can also not blame anyone. blame is an afterthought and a guilt trip which does nothing to right the initial error; it's just a response to help the hurt cope. there is no right or wrong amount to blame, only the blamer's agency and choice.
I strongly disagree. 1) Both agents made the same choice. A = A. If both choices are the same, then the moral responsibility of either choice cannot be different. 2) Penalty is a foolish concept, more so when the penalty does not correlate with the moral responsibility of the offense.
Penalty also acts as a deterrent. If there were no additional penalty for killing someone while driving drunk, there wouldn't be as much legal incentive for a drunk driver to avoid hitting people.
Penalty acts as a deterrent to unwanted decisions. We should penalize the decision that they decided to drive drunk. You can not deter hitting a child while driving drunk because once the act of drunk driving starts, hitting the child is no longer a decision of the driver. You can not deter being unlucky.
Hitting another person while drunk isn't always unlucky. The scenario of hitting a child might not be some split second decision but due to a drunk driver swerving onto the sidewalk, driving too fast or going the wrong way or something. I think punishment for drunk driving is right but there should also be additional punishments for additional harms.
ok, let's simplify it. Lets ASSUME that we can objectively prove that they were driving the exact same way. Would you agree that they should be considered equally guilty?
The alternative answer is this is why our legal system does not consider all actions as collectively being punished but breaks them down into the individual actions which each are punished semi-independently. For example, both A and B are guilty of driving while under the influence and as such both are equally to blame for it. But B would also be charged with manslaughter (or a lower degree of murder) because of what also took place while they were driving. Now, had B been sober at the time they might not have been charged with anything as it might have been deemed to be entirely out of their control. They were being responsible and events beyond their control lead to an accident they couldn't stop. No charge. But B wasn't sober and wasn't doing what society agrees is a responsible act and as such to say they are without blame is incorrect. And it's all down to that part you said "because of their impairment their reaction time was slowed". It's arguable that a sober individual could have taken action to avoid hitting the child and therefore their earlier decision to drink and drive assigns them blame, at least in part. That's also why I said actions, in a legal context, are only partially viewed independently as they can be causally linked. And this is kind of the issue I have with a lot of thought experiment philosophy. The pretending that there aren't simple, logical solutions to the problem when, in this case for sure, there is.
The problematic bit is that you assume what is right and wrong is define by someone who got harmed. We can't just keep punishing people after the facts. If we see someone about to do something really stupid, like driving drunk, we should convince them not to. If we spot them driving drunk, we should pull them over and fine them. (By "we" I mean society and in this specific case, the police) The behavior should be discouraged at every opportunity because it's a stupid and reckless act that should always be avoided. Pro tip, don't drink yourself drunk you dummies. That's causing harm to your brain cells and your liver, accident or not.
The point being made is that harm is not a necessary or sufficient condition for wrongdoing, it is not the definition. You can be harmed where nobody is morally responsible (if a coconut drops on your head from a tree) and people can be morally responsible for actions that cause no harm (spying on you.) The definition of wrongdoing that relies on harm seems to be the wrong definition.
The issue may come down to who we mean by "someone". In the hypothetical, the person who was photographed may not feel harmed since they were unaware and so the claim is made that no harm was done. However, what if the someone who is "harmed" by this scenario is society at large? We are all harmed when a societal norm like "not invading people's privacy" is broken. We are all made less safe and less secure. Now, whether something being a "societal norm" is grounds for declaring an act "objectively" wrong is a different discussion for a different video, but my point here is that "harm" need not be synonymous with "personal injury".
Josh Cottle I'm sorry the only objective measure for right and wrong actions is to ask whether someone was objectively harmed. Anything else is simply NOT objective and therefore NOT measurable.
Since it's our decisions/actions we are responsible for, I would argue that A and B, having made the same decisions, have made equal moral choices. Both risked something and have to live with the possible consequences of their risky actions (which only B incurred in this example). Since both risked the harming of other humans, both made equally immoral decisions. Morality and guilt are not the same thing in this case, since B has to face more of the latter (and deserves more punishment) but has made equally bad choices in the former.
The arguments or lecture presented has the underlying assumption of free will of choices, lest there wouldn't be a difference between causal and moral responsibility
I feel that the problem with a lot of people who are blameworthy for just being morally horrible is that they then assign just as much blame on somebody else who did a zillionth of a percentage of what the accuser did. And the person, with a zillionth of a percentage of responsibility, then goes on living their life with the knowledge of desperate equalising human nature. It’s not hard to shrug off a petty mistep in the face of brutalising adversity, if your morals are in the right place and you just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, without a devious or immoral fibre in your being, but it’s still a clawing factor of somebody, you realise as you get older, none the less.
If there is no damage, one should not be punished for it. A did not cause an injury/death, so his punishment should be limited to endangering others (basically a deterrence).
+Cortster Yes thats true but other real life factors play a part as well, you can imagine a straight forward scenario if you want. Drinking and driving is against the law even if their is no damage.
Right but what about that pervy chick who took pics of that guy changing? He was not harmed, it never came out, it never affected his life but still it feels wrong and I'd argue is objectively wrong.
Most people will think that person A is less immoral than person B, but my answer is that the moral responsibility is not whether person A or B killed the child, both of them have no control over this action therefore both of them cannot be held responsible for the killing action itself.Rather the moral responsibility is that both of them have chosen to drink drive which is what causes this inability to control their actions, no matter what moral luck is person A is having on that day, he should not risk to put himself in a position where he can be considered immoral.So it's not 'that' moral responsibility that made them immoral but rather this one.
1) I disappointed that Lorraine Code - a Canadian, Feminist and Epistemological Philosopher - was not brought up for her positions on Epistemic Responsibilism, which comes from her book Epistemic Responsibility; I believe the idea that we are morally responsible for what we know could be insightful for the topic of moral luck, or it could have been beneficial way back with your episode of Epistemic Responsibility. 2) To use an analogy in regards to the changing room and photos, even if we don't know that we were harmed, it doesn't mean that we weren't harmed. For example, a person who suffers from Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) would not know that they were harmed if it were discrete enough. A cut in their body; they would not know it until later, which could be analogous to the changing room situation because the person could find out later like the person suffering from CIP. So, yes, I would say a person is harmed even if they do not realize it.
If someone drives drunk they deserve the punishment they get .They knew the risk, and still took it. That is part of their decision. Not driving drunk is a small sacrifice to be made if it means at least even one child will live(if no one will drive drunk).
Yeah, I'm going to agree with a lot of the comments and say that both drivers are equally reprehensible in their actions, and both should be blamed terribly for their decision to endanger people.
No matter how deep you think, B is the only one to blame. His actions caused the result whereas A's actions did not. You can say had they been travelling at the same time and same speed and the same child jumped out. But, that's not what happened, and we can't tell the future.
So if I start shooting a gun at you there's no moral issue as long as I miss, right? I didn't cause harm, so therefore I'm not in the wrong even though I knowingly did something that could have? Or say I don't even aim for you, I just decide to try hitting something you're in front of. I didn't mean to cause harm, and if i'm lucky I won't, so therefore that's an okay thing to do.
"I didn't attack him, officer. He simply ran into my coconut."
"He ran into my coconut 10 times."
"he coco'd my nut."
Gregory Samuel Teo Phrasing
Multiple times. (He had it comiiiing)
He ran into my bullet
this dilemma reminded me of a high school friend who found himself in a similar situation back when we were still students. he was involved in a car accident where he killed two cyclists. the thing is the external factors were so many that it was almost unavoidable. the accident happened a 5 am when he was coming home from a night out. if he was intoxicated within the legal limit isn't clear, as the police failed to give him a alcohol test on site and that only occurred in the hospital hours later. the location where it happened was also very prone to accidents. just a few days before there had been another accident there and the road had been covered in oil. city hall instead of cleaning it up, decided to cover it up with sand for the time being. so there was sand and oil on the road. it was also a curved tunnel with no light what so ever. and the cyclists seemed to have decided to stop right on top of the curve at five am, in a dark tunnel. so when my friend came around the curve, he only saw the cyclists right when he was on top of them. having hit the breaks, the floor was covered in sand and oil, car lost control and ran over the cyclists. this of course went to court, but he was found not guilty because of all those external factors. i think his license was revoked but he got some serious emotional trauma because of what happened.
This is my favourite episode so far. I saw the title and thought, 'oh, moral luck - the two drunk drivers...' but it was well expanded into other ideas. I'm no expert on philosophy, so it was nice to see a concept that I have some understanding of stretched out beyond what I have read before. THX.
Do some stuff on nihilism, but I don't care if you don't.
The World Is Logic wouldnt really matter either way
Nothing really matters anyway. What does one do in a car park. Parking cars.
@@rawhamburgerjoe everyone dies sooner or later, in one way or another.
This is some next level stuff
Why tf am I even commenting?
You shouldn't throw coconuts, throw chop chom choms, it's safer
Just don't leave your chom chom peels on the ground where people can slip on them.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING
that i just found
the fact that they were inside a ChomChomRepublic store cracked me up
Oh really? watch?v=mzUAiTPnkng
I think that child's parents are a bit to blame, too. Running in the road in the middle of the night? Come on, parents.
Harambe seal of approval
+++ This deserves more +'s.
Damnit. You beat me to this comment.
Patrick Hogan +
+ Because of RL incident - when I was in 7th grade, two children were killed by a man who said he was reaching for a beer in the passenger floor well (his first). He ended up not contesting involuntary manslaughter charges because of personal guilt (he felt horrible), but he was not charged with vehicular homicide because the children were crossing the road in dark clothes on a dark winding road at night. There was alot of talk about charging the parents with negligence, but I don't think that happened. Whenever you saw the driver on TV, he was either sobbing or looking like he hadn't slept in a year.
This is why risk management exists. Multiply all potential consequences by their probability of it happening.
The only reason you blame the lucky one less is because you cannot prove he would have killed a child had he encountered one.
Otherwise, of course they are equally immoral.
Arthur O'Brien I agree, but I think the point is most people don't think this way. Most people will think differently about a person who got away with drunk driving vs another person who killed a child drunk driving.
Andrew Stuhr
I don't think they do but google closed my window.
My point was essentially: It's theoretical philosophy/ethics that makes people being concerned about stuff like this, but it even seldom does.
I have *one* friend who agonizes over free will, because it's not an ethics problem real people have. Morality existed before philosophy and it is meaningful regardless of theoretical problems, as the video concedes.
Good night.
Arthur O'Brien yes but does being able to stop even though he is drunk mean he is more moral than A?
My favorite crash course series! :D
Wow that was a very bad pun
Is a bad pun blameworthy if the punster had no choice?
+Satan
Yes she should, we should also put a Pun-eral for her
Don't you love that over 4,000 people saw this video, and decided that they wanted to use their time to learn about Philosophy?
Quite impressive, isn't it? Maybe there is hope for humanity afterall.
I love the fact that 589,000 people did now. :)
I'm just hear to read the out of context comments
Blame only matters as a mean to influence the future(immediate and far).
The cause and effect blame assignment/qualification should be prescribed in such a way that the future creates less bad sentient experiences.
The only Value that lies in the past, is in that we can Learn from it.
Hank Green is the best teacher ever, the way he teaches shows concern, and that makes me feel responsible.
Wait, so is "ought Implies can" - With great power, comes great responsibility?
In a way, yes.
You got it spider-man.
loudrockacdc Not really. It's more like the inverse statement: "Without power comes no responsibility".
QED
ought implise can is more like “with responsibility comes power”
@@manaulhoque6507 um no i think you turning cause and effect on its head with that.
being responsibility for something doesn't necessarily mean you have any power over set ting.
tho that can be called unfair to be responsibil for someting you cant control.
But stil, "With power comes responsibility" not “with responsibility comes power”.
Same way as "a hand has fingers" not "a finger has hands"
I'm just here to say 82% on my Philosophy final, thank you Crash Course
I am so happy you guys keep making these. It's encouraging to see knowledge and curiosity being promoted in a meaningful way.
chomchom republic was a nice touch, thoughtbubble.
This video left me with a great sense of tragedy. Being human is hard, and it's just not fair.
Both are equally blameworthy! If two persons want to murder someone and one succeeds while the other fails, both should be punished equally because they both had the same intention. That's how I always thought.
Yaume Lepire I disagree. if intention was everything, then people wouldn't hate cops so much.
Except that neither of the drivers intended to kill the child, not only that, but if you punish/blame them both equally, you're implying that:
_a)_ drunk-driving is just as bad as accidentally killing someone while drunk-driving even if no accidents occurred.
And _b)_ killing someone while drunk-driving isn't any worse than just driving under the influence, which means that the death of the person didn't really matter.
Steelhunter777 Lastname, But people shouldn't hate cops.
Yaume Lepire They shouldn't, but the media hasn't been helpful lately. The drama has died down a bit though.
Adrian Fahrenheit, First: I was doing an exemple; second: no, both posed the same action, the difference was that B was causally ( not morally ) responsible for the death of a child; the result isn't the same, but the crime is.
As Maynard James Keenan said,
"Consequences dictate my course of action
and it doesn't matter what's right.
It's only wrong if you get caught."
The only thing we can really control are our actions. The ability to know whether they are harmful or not, for us or for others is true wisdom. Thank you for the knowledge and wisdom Hank. Not only do you educate us, you provide us with the tools to develop a well formed mind. Much love and gratitude. Happy New year :)
For those who don't like religious discussions in the comment section, I apologize in advance.
This video also provides one of the strongest argument against the concept of original sin that we find in the Abrahamic religions. According to the story of genesis, Adam and Eve were supposedly made perfect yet without knowledge of good and evil. Only after they ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:17) did they gain knowledge of what is good and evil. This is further emphasized by Genesis 3:5, where the talking snake (who is not Satan btw) tells Eve that _your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil._ Btw, god was taking a casual stroll around the garden of Eden for some reason (Genesis 3:8).
In other words, Adam and Eve had the moral reasoning of an infant and yet they were expected to make a moral conclusion regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge. If *ought* implies that you *can*, then you can apply this same reasoning to the concept of original sin. Adam and Eve were incapable of making moral evaluations and thus shouldn't have been expected to do so.
The deck was also stacked against them. God knew all this, and STILL placed the tree and the snake in their vicinity, and didn't even make the tree repulsive in any way. It's almost as if God wanted it to happen...
God didn't tell Adam and Eve to do what's right (because they weren't able to tell what's right and wrong, as you point out) - he just gives a command. They weren't expected to evaluate it morally, the were expect to obey it. Afterwards, God doesn't say it was wrong what they did, he's just saying it's going to have consequences.
I'd like to notice that in Christianity wrongdoing always causes harm, not only to someone else, but to one's soul and one's connection to God as well. And vice versa, doing things that harm the soul or its connection to God is always wrong. In A&E case, they can be seen as this cocunut that was unknowingly used to cause harm, and the only one morally responsible would be the Serpent - still, the harm was done, their connection to God was damaged, and their life was affected.
Did God know that they would eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, or did he not know that?
How does God's knowledge is relevant to what humans ought to do?
I am willing to discuss it, but first please show it's relevant to the case at hand.
If God knew that Adam and Eve were going to disobey the command, and he placed them in that situation anyways, doesn't that mean that that future had already been determined, and Adam and Eve had no choice in the matter?
Another way to view your analogy of *Luck due to Antecedent Circumstances*; a Privileged Life might lead to Apathetic Reactions toward Injustices or circumstances which require selfless action. Contrarily, a person raised without privilege might be better able to empathize with people who are suffering or in need.
I instantly said both of them were equally blame worthy
I see why you'd think that way, but for me it's just a bit harder idk
dσcтσя єиzумє αρσcαlуρѕє Constitutive luck.
There are two problems with saying that both are _equally_ blame worthy:
a) It implies that drunk-driving is just as bad as accidentally killing someone while drunk-driving even if no accidents occurred.
And b) killing someone while drunk-driving isn't any worse than just driving under the influence, which means that the death of the person didn't really matter.
But that would make sense in this context. While it's awful to kill someone, if it was truly out of the person's control, it would be consistent with this lens to assign equal blame.
They are equally worthy of being shunned, but here's the catch; Because A's abilities in drunk driving weren't tested, you can't say that A would have been equally inept in avoiding the child, thus you can't put equal blame on them.
The idea of "moral luck" reminds me of the movie "in Bruges"
good point.
I've never been more excited for a TH-cam video then the next upcoming crash course on Justice
with the exception of death battle Hulk vs Doomsday
Priorities: straight
Probably the best episode of CC Phi to date.
Hands down one of my favorite episodes of the philosophy series.
I'm writing a literary essay on Les Miserables and the role of conscience in the actions of Valjean throughout the novel. This video helps me a lot in considering other factors to determine if Valjean should be held morally responsible in stealing a loaf of bread
I think if a person does wrong they should be judged accordingly, no matter if they cause harm or not.
Then in comes the hard task of deciding what is wrong and what isn't.
so all drunk driving = murder? What if you accidentally run into a car carrying a nuclear bomb and it blows up? Does drunk driving = mass destruction?
poketopa1234 Drunk driving = taking the concious decision to utilize a machine of immense power, that requires high levels of concentration to operate, in an area that might have bystanders while under the effects of substances that impair judgement and concentration.
Or, in simpler terms, you conciously increase the risk of a machine beast causing great harm.
PS - No military organization that has a single braincell amongst it's management would transport a thermonuclear device assembled and ready to go critical. It just doesn't happen.
"No harm, no foul" man
i dont beleve that such a thing of "right and wrong" actually exists outside of our thoughts nor that a scociety needs them, we all have natural desires to be helpfull and nice to others, thats just how we evolved, whoever its being extreemly moral that makes you what most would call verry immoral.
like some of the most moral people in the word, isis verry strong religious groupes who shun cirtain people because they deem them immoral?
morality only leads you to judge others, and yourself, and a hell of alot of other dammage too.
we can lock someone up if there running a muck, we can fight groupes like isis, without the need to deamonise them, withought getting all upset and declaring them unworthy of life because then how are we any diffarent?
besides, there not bad people, in there eyes there doing the world a great good, and do you think its nice to be filled with hatred do you think it feels good to live judging the rest of the
world to be evil no of corse not, so why not give so called "bad people" some sympathy, otherwise your a horrible disgusting humanoid slug!!!
Been watching/following crash course for the past two years and crash course philosophy is my favourite topic so far. I love the conversations i have with family and friends afterwards. Thank you. Crash course adds value to the lives of many.
It was the parent's fault what was a child doing in the middle of the street at night?
Walter K ... touché
replace child with old lady using a walker at night
Perhaps we can blame the grandparents for teaching the child's parents that it is fine for kids to wander around at night. Or the rapists for chasing the kid in the night and eventually on to the road
Canadian Apistevist It was the old ladies caretakers' fault then.
People have been known to get drunk during the day. What then?
Anyway, what has the time of day to do with it? Laws against drunk driving apply 24 hours a day, not "except between midnight and 4 a.m. And hitting lone kids is always free!" Officially, anyway.
I've been pretty anti-blame for quite awhile. Also, I do use praise and try to be specific on praising behavior rather than consequence. This is all for the very things mentioned in this video. It's been interesting arguing my perspective as rational when it comes to personal experiences involving others in a group. Though, my fellow behaviorist therapists totally get it. Our perspective leans easily to this view as well.
Sometimes I cannot believe how much awesome this channel doesn't forget to be!
this series of crash course is especially poppin, im shook Hank! Good Job!
OMG, I just got a vision of Hank in grey hair, still doing these videos...
this is the exact thought that will lead to a dystopian society, where every action that have a potential to cause harm is punished as if they have already caused harm
holy f****** s*** I've never been more excited for TH-cam video then the upcoming Justice on Crash Course
I love this guy. He actually keeps me interested and engaged in the lesson. Thanks, @CrashCourse!
Drawing on the determinism episode, no element of a person's life was ever really in their control. Every circumstance a person finds themself in is due to luck. Therefore, assigning responsibility to a person's actions is as meaningless as assigning responsibility to a planet for its orbit.
If you're going to say there's no free will, I'm going to say there's no reason NOT TO assign blame. Ultimately, we assign blame and praise to discourage bad behavior and encourage good behavior. Even if someone has no control over themselves we can influence them into doing the right thing.
I agree that assigning blame and praise are used to control peoples' behavior. However, if we took the stance that people are just the result of the factors that preceded them, then policies could be enacted to ensure that when a child is born that child would be born with the most fortitous circumstances and the fewest unforturate cicumstances.
This is a foundational tenet of Utilitarianism. Focus on what people
need and let "what people deserve" be damned. That being said, We MUST
assume that responsibility is meaningful or else morality can't be
meaningfully discussed. To believe in hard determinism without being
some sort of anti-realist or non-cognitivist requires that you treat
responsibility as a useful fiction - that is, you must assume it to be
true when making decisions about how to act (regardless of its actual
truth value).
Well, drinking and driving CAN be stopped. If you are drunk, you have the ability not to drive and if you are so drunk, you can't think, then you are still to blame because you had the knowledge that alcohol causes such things and the ability to not drink it. Other people told me to do it is no excuse, otherwise I can just kill x if y told me so and get scot-free. WHat you are saying is that there is no free will, and if that's the case, you should NEVER EVER BE ANGRY TOWARDS ANYONE EVER AGAIN, simply because they couldn't control themselves. You probably won't like that now would ya?
The hard determinist views us as victims of ourselves. All of the things that make us uniquely us, like our beliefs and values, our genetic dispositions and environmental experiences, even our own brains and neurology are said to rob us of any control. Question: What is the "us" that remains after you remove all that stuff? Answer: Nothing remains. All that stuff is "us". And if all that stuff is actually in control of what we do, then it logically follows that "us" is actually in control of what we do. Welcome to the resolution of the determinism "versus" free will paradox.
This made me think. It made my head spin in the best way. Love this channel and this course.
Your way of delivering such complicated thoughts is just awesome! I love it!
Big fan here :) :) :)
DFTBA
I think we are all capable of doing something that is morally. The key is whether or not that right variables will line up allowing us to do something unjust. That's why empathy should always take the lead on moral issues.
I think that the consequences for A and B should be the same. the child, really shouldn't change anything. Pick a standard, if you ask me
I agree.
B simply is not murder
It is impossible to pick a standard. Different people have different moral sentiments.
Not murder, manslaughter.
But that's the problem with moral luck.
In real life you wouldn't know who A was to punish them equally.
This lesson is incredibly relevant to my current life-situation.
public health strives to save lives all the time, and regularly fails.
I'm sure the majority of us praise them for the intention to good, irrelevant of their failures
Should we though? I'm sure hardly anyone has a problem with the individuals in the situation, but assume that public health is a very inefficient government bureaucracy. Should we keep sending money their way because they try to do good, or should we cut waste and tighten control to make sure that their job actually gets something done?
Utilitarians might go with the latter, whilst others would go with the former.
bureaucracy is a government overreaction to the people's demand to see the effects of policy. If both sides were willing to lower the demand for immediate evaluations then government would make less bureaucracy. They're well aware it limits effectiveness, but they need to show results to petty naysayers.
That said, yes of course praise public health. You can complain about government in/action to the government, rather than nurses and doctors working 80 hour weeks to do the best they can to prevent the deaths and improve the lives of patients who will only complain about the forms healthcare workers don't want to have to give them.
Watched this right after the social psychology episodes on social thinking and influence. Great cross course linking!
I love how your subjects invoke thoughts and discussions in our minds which are ignored in this shallow life.
Observing 99.99% of the humans, I feel they are still basically primitive animals looking for food, reproduction, shelter and power status. Only philosophers are actually aware of the their existence and looking for a meaning in this life.
I don't think any philosophy reaches the real truth and give the absolute right answer. But the search itself is what makes humans special.
Thank you for this beautiful series 💕
I've realized the problem with all these positions. They assume that you can have these nice and neat situations, where you can compare two options and know that there is only one factor between them. But this *never* happens in real life, so coming up with a moral framework that fits into the messy and full of limited information real world won't look like the kind of thing you derive from these kind of thought experiments.
Reputational harm doesn't require your knowledge of it happening.
yes but since these people don't know you or anyone you might know, it won't harm your reputation either.
There's the likely chance it would. Especially today, if they took a photo. It's only their moral luck that it didn't.
kdhlkjhdlk
Can't argue that....
Your intros keep getting more spot on
Whoever captioned the video, please, take the time to have a maximum of two lines at once on the screen x)
They both deserve blame, but different levels. That's why the law dictates one punishment for drunk driving, a discouragement-based punishment for the harm they could have caused, and another punishment for killing the child as a harm you have caused. What the second part gets messier is should it be murder or manslaughter; a normal accident would imply manslaughter, but if you drive impaired the argument can be made that you knew beforehand it was wrong, so murder charges apply.
The reason there is a separate charge for killing the child is not based on moral grounds. The state sees loss of life as loss of potential human resource, hence you would be charged. The question of whether it is manslaughter or murder must be brought into by a understanding of murder and manslaughter. Both refer to the harm of a person leading to loss of human life, however, using the crash course terms murder is the harm of a person leading to loss of human life as a result of wrongdoing by the perpetrator of the action. Therefore as the wrongdoing of drunk driving makes it murder.
Personally I view both as equally wrong from a moral standpoint however I hold the separate view that compounds on a negative view on B due to the loss of a potential human resource.
i blame the child for not looking both ways!
Moral agency. Harm and wrong doing. Moral Luck. 5:12 Different kinds of luck. Constitutive luck, Circumstantial luck, SS antecedent luck, Consequent circumstances. If out of our control does it make ant sense to praise or blame. Is our Nature and Nurture under our control. 7:14 Praise and Blame? 8:16 Praise heroes to encourage hereoism. Villify cowardice to discourage cowardice. Punish people for bad behavior or try Rehabilitate them. What punishment is best to use?
Then both are blamed because both did wrong of DUI but A got lucky for not harming
" If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless. "
"Bestow rewards without regard to rule, issue orders without regard to previous arrangements; and you will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to do with but a single man. "
- Sun Tzu's Art of War
Hello, blame the child. Duh.
I blame the dog that was chasing the child that forced the child to dart across the road.
Qaedtg H Touche'. Nice one.
Thanks bro ;P
Qaedtg H I like clever. That one was good.
***** There is no him. Him doesn't exist anymore.
The way I tend to judge both the photograph situation and the drunk driving situation is by taking into account potential harm as well as actual harm. In both cases, the blameworthy person have intentionally engineered a situation in which harm is likely to occur. I think this allows for some moral liability based on the actual likelihood of an actual harm being done. This kind of moral potential works just as well for praiseworthy actions as it does for blameworthy ones.
Excellent video, Hank and the Crash Course crew! ...Had Hank more time in this vid, it would have been interesting to hear him consider what happens to the social worth of praise or blame with the second option (beginning @ 7:38). If their function is merely to serve as a deterrent or reward, rather than serve as part of a moral judgment itself, getting praised or blamed for something starts to look like more like sheep herding than genuine responsibility. If praise or blame are more about promoting social harmony rather than receiving one's just desserts for specific actions, doesn't this diminish the meaning of these concepts for either proponents or recipients of them? (Imagine discovering that the praise or blame you received for your actions is really more about proper herd functioning than forming your character. How does that make you feel about the praise and blame you receive henceforth? I suspect it damages one's motivation either way.)
The point of holding responsible is to correct the causes of harm. Ideally, we would seek out all the relevant contributing causes, and correct them all, to minimize the risk of future harm. The drunk driver is only one cause. Not only is the "unlucky" driver punished, but we also set up random police checkpoints to find drunk drivers who have not had the bad luck of an accident yet. Another point of responsibility is the child who ran into the street and even the parents who allowed the child to get into that danger. Even if the driver was sober he could have hit the child. The punishment of the injury is probably sufficient, but if the community takes responsibility it will also educate parents and children about the dangers, and provide traffic signs warning of children at play etc.
I feel like this is such a harsh attack on utilitarianism. Kant's formulation stands up to this challenge much better.
What? No. Not at all. This is right out of utilitarian text books in risk management.
Kant would say stuff like: "if you lie to the murderer and you like causes the improbable event of facilitating the crime you're responsible.
Consequentialism says: When you make a decision, measure the expected / possible outcomes of different courses of action, and adjust for risk of success / failure, then pick the one that creates the most utility.
Nonsense. You just said Kant would blame someone for causing something. Kant would NEVER blame someone for causing something. Actions, my friend, not results. Drunk driving is either a hypothetical imperative, or it is a question of moral duty. Given that it is a question of moral duty, the imperative would instantly invalidate drunk driving, first, because it is untenable to universalize the action of drunk driving, and second, because it is using all the other possible drivers on the road as a mere means, ignoring their want to be safe.
Apart from other various flaws in utilitarianism (the utility monster, the difficulty in quantifying utility, if you kill someone do they even lose utility if they are already dead? etc.), let's go back to a modified version of the drunk driving case.
Both drunk drivers have identical goals. They want to get home quickly, because they want to see their wives for you-know-what. There is only one person that goes out on the road at night that they could run over due to increased reaction time. The probability of hitting this person is given as .0000000000001, given that they are drunk. The net change in utility from sobering out is a loss for the driver AND his wife, and for driving drunk, it's a near certain gain of a lot of utility for both the driver and his wife, and only a small chance for one person to lose out on a lot of utility.
If we're talking probability, you would be not only recommended to, but morally obliged to drive drunk under utilitarianism.
Graybat12 that is why I like watching people discus utilitarianism. It is so intuitive and yet at the same time, results in so many ridiculous conclusions.
Though we can say that the death of someone causes so much utility lost it can still outweights the utility of going home earlier even when multiplied with .0000000000001
Graybat12
This is a classic issue in computation: Garbage in, Garbage out.
If you ascribe ridiculous utility values to things, then it is not surprising that reasonable utilitarian calculus produces unsettling results.
This is the same issue underlying the utility monster criticism.
In the abstract people view the utility monster scenario as a scathing indictment of utilitarianism. In concrete examples they are very accepting of the possibility that the utility of one billion bacteria could be offset by the utility of a single human.
My brain never fails to explode when watching these episodes.
Freaking love this Channel.
fantastic episode, and wonderfully timed! I'm teaching about moral luck tomorrow!
Yay new episode!
Taken to the extreme, you can conclude that no one is responsible for anything they do, or everyone is responsible for everything they do. There is no moral gray area in a purely logical sense. Because if everything you are is shaped by things out fo your control, free will is non-existent. However, we are not purely logical creatures. We feel as if we are in control, so it stands to reason that we act like we are as well.
Just something to add onto the video.
I don't understand how anyone could that A should not be blamed for drunk driving.
I think that you are misunderstanding. Under nearly any conception A is still blameworthy for the act of drunk-driving. The question is whether or not A is as blameworthy as a person who kills a child while drunk-driving. The puzzle here is that our normal moral instinct is to believe that a person who kills somebody while drinking and driving is morally WORSE than somebody who gets home safely, but, the person who gets home safely got home safely by moral luck.
Here is perhaps a more clear case. Two people each attempt to murder somebody by entering that person's home and shooting at him. The gun person A just bought has sights that are slightly off and only grazes the person's shoulder. Person B aim is true and kills his victim. Our instinct is typically to think that person B is worse than person A. Certainly our judicial system punishes person B more harshly. Yet it seems as if person A was just lucky--he bought a gun with bad sights. He MEANT to kill his victim. His intent was just as foul. He just missed.
I hope that this helps explain the puzzle, if not the solution.
If we had to put everyone who drunks drive in jail for 4 years (same as the drunk driver who killed someone), then we'd have major societal problems. Moreover, it wouldn't really do anything. It wouldn't teach a better lesson than just jailing those that end up causing an accident. So, while both people are blame worthy, the question is: should the one that killed a child get away with a slap on the hand just like driver who was just drunk driving?
GregTom2 I suppose the logistics that you mention are a good point. But what if you knew that in this hypothetical society drunk driving carries a 4 year sentence, wouldn't you be less likely to do it?
My love of crash course grows more every day!
Both are guilty.... but what asstown parent lets their kid out at 11:13 pm?!?!?!?!?!
Brain.exe has stopped working
JK I love it as always, but I need to re-watch it twice ,so many information in so little time 😅
that bit about making heroes of people reminded me of the BBC Sherlock quote, "Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them." I guess this means Sherlock subscribes to the idea of neither blaming or praising people for their moral decisions.
When the "flash" from Flash Philosophy happens, Hank gets a Bunny Ears treatment. 3:41
Also, Pizza John 4:35
Virtue theory seems to be wholly grounded in wrong doing vs doing good, because what you do exposes and affects who you are as a person, no matter the results. Bad people sometimes exist harmlessly. However when harm is done, society is obligated to deliver justice to the wronged party, which is where blame comes into play.
Drinking alcohol impairs judgement, so were you really in "control" when you decided to drive? I think substance abuse, that introduces us to situations we would not agree to be in if we were sober, are definitely one of the dodgier areas in determining agency.
Stevil Cee yet you are responsible for consuming said substance which impaired your judgment, therefore you are still responsible for your actions even after your judgment is impaired. If you unknowingly consumed alcohol or were forced to, then your actions could be considered beyond your control (depending on the circumstance), but otherwise, people should be held accountable for their behavior while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
@@spencergsmith Do you think they could be at least partially excused from blame if, say, they were raised by a drug-abusing family in a drug-abusing community, which contributed to them becoming a drug addict?
@@alfiewright1396 no. I understand what you're arguing, and our environment certainly plays a role in our development, but ultimately the choice is the individual's responsibility. Exactly how much environmental influence must exist for a person to not be responsible for their decisions? Who gets to decide where to draw that line? For that matter, can ANYONE be responsible for ANY of their behavior - good or bad - since we are all products of our environment? Every successful person owes their success to their environment, so no one should earn any praise or reward either. When you take away the concept of responsibility, society devolves into chaos. Extreme ownership is the first step to success, both on an individual and societal level.
@@spencergsmith interesting! I am currently writing an undergraduate dissertation on the very topic. In it I argue for the very position you call absurd. I agree that either we all are morally responsible, or none of us are. My argument is that none of us are truly responsible. But I also argue that this doesnt mean we need to abandon any notion of moral responsibility in society: these practices are useful for consequentialist reasons in that they help society function better even if they may not be entirely rational. Look up Derk Pereboom and Neil Levy for views like these. It's an interesting debate and I think your position you have argued for there is also pretty valid
@@alfiewright1396 fair enough. I would argue that we are all morally responsible. If we don't behave this way then society devolves into chaos, but beyond that, I am a Christian and believe there is an external objective standard of morality put in place by our creator, and we are all responsible for our actions, even if they may have been influenced by our environment.
The hard determinists claim that no one is ever responsible because, if every act is causally determined, then there is no "can" to go with any "ought". What they fail to recognize is the distinction between normal influences and undue influences.
Is wrongdoing necessarily connected to a perpetrator? For example, could it be that the coconut falling on your head is morally bad, even if nobody caused it. Similarly, perhaps a man who's circumstances influence him towards participating in the holocaust is not himself bad, only his actions. Food for thought.
Also, if someone can be blamed for the possible consequences of their actions (such as drunk driving), how improbable does a consequence need to be for the person to still be blamed for it? After all, there is a tiny % chance that a driver kills not one but ten children because he was drunk that night. Should all drunk drivers be blamed for the potential deaths of ten children?
It is not the deaths of the children all drunk drivers would be blamed for.
They would be (actually are) blamed for putting it on the table as a potential risk of their driving.
A coconut, based on our understanding, isn't sentient. Therefore, making choices is impossible, and it's not a moral agent.
Whether someone is bad or just their actions, well, once a choice has been made and action has been taken, we can only look at the result. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. No matter how noble your intent, if the actions result in suffering, you are responsible. But the concentration camp guard is a bit different than the drunk driver, because the guard has more control over his response, but that's where it gets pretty murky. He could refuse to carry out an order to harm someone. Even if that meant he'd be shot for insubordination, he could make that choice. But what if that person was so overtaken by fear that it was impossible for him to take that choice? Would he be more or less responsible if the punishment was something we'd see as less severe? What if he loves singing, but he'd lose his tongue? For him, losing his tongue would be a much harsher punishment for someone who was born mute, for example.
In the end, we'll probably end up saying that he should've taken the bullet (or other punishment) because we value a society where people don't do harm others, even under duress. At least that's what I'd like to think, because I'd feel that fear is the fuel of tyranny. A society governed by fear will stand silent while others commit atrocities.
Well, that was a digression and a half. I guess the point stands that "moral responsibility" is just shorthand for desirable and undesirable choices and action.
I have a friend who chooses to drive drunk. She goes out on non-residential country roads and drinks a few beers, sobers up, then comes home. I have friends who do the same with pot.
I assign them far less moral blame than someone who does these things in a more dangerous setting: places with more cars and more people. Not to be a utilitarian, but I think the _exact_ amount of risk you take does make a difference. If one of a hundred people doing what you do kill someone, that's a big deal. If one of ten thousand people doing what you do kill someone, it's less of a big deal?
But this might have some weird consequences. Because the one in ten thousand, "safe" drunk driver who _does_ kill someone also should get equally less blame as the drivers who didn't. Hey, they tried, right? Even if society rightly punishes them like they killed a whole person, we as moral agents should know that they _really_ only killed a much smaller portion of a person than even your average drunk driver.
And the person whose brakelines were cut, even more bizarrely, should pick up a little bit of blame and so should_every person who doesn't check their brakelines before every car ride just to be sure_. They're taking people's lives in their hands. Even if less than one in a billion people accidentally kill someone because their brakelines were unknowingly cut, you still bear that one in a billion culpability every time you drive for not taking the precaution.
that's how you end up blaming god or the universe or existence. if we don't blame, we also negate our agency.
circumstances can lead anyone to anything bad, but they could also lead them to something good. even if you chose a bad outcome and then cite your bad circumstances, it doesn't mean you didn't choose the bad outcome.
on the blamer's end, you can always blame anyone for the maximum consequence. the fact that you're alive in this society means you can be blamed for anything that society does. you can also not blame anyone. blame is an afterthought and a guilt trip which does nothing to right the initial error; it's just a response to help the hurt cope. there is no right or wrong amount to blame, only the blamer's agency and choice.
It's been a full day since this was released, he's mentioned 9/11, and not even 10 dislikes. *claps for humanity's progress*
A should be in trouble for leaving his life and the life of others up to chance, but B killed someone, and should get a harsher penalty.
I strongly disagree.
1) Both agents made the same choice. A = A. If both choices are the same, then the moral responsibility of either choice cannot be different.
2) Penalty is a foolish concept, more so when the penalty does not correlate with the moral responsibility of the offense.
Penalty also acts as a deterrent. If there were no additional penalty for killing someone while driving drunk, there wouldn't be as much legal incentive for a drunk driver to avoid hitting people.
Penalty acts as a deterrent to unwanted decisions. We should penalize the decision that they decided to drive drunk. You can not deter hitting a child while driving drunk because once the act of drunk driving starts, hitting the child is no longer a decision of the driver. You can not deter being unlucky.
Hitting another person while drunk isn't always unlucky. The scenario of hitting a child might not be some split second decision but due to a drunk driver swerving onto the sidewalk, driving too fast or going the wrong way or something. I think punishment for drunk driving is right but there should also be additional punishments for additional harms.
ok, let's simplify it. Lets ASSUME that we can objectively prove that they were driving the exact same way. Would you agree that they should be considered equally guilty?
The alternative answer is this is why our legal system does not consider all actions as collectively being punished but breaks them down into the individual actions which each are punished semi-independently. For example, both A and B are guilty of driving while under the influence and as such both are equally to blame for it. But B would also be charged with manslaughter (or a lower degree of murder) because of what also took place while they were driving.
Now, had B been sober at the time they might not have been charged with anything as it might have been deemed to be entirely out of their control. They were being responsible and events beyond their control lead to an accident they couldn't stop. No charge.
But B wasn't sober and wasn't doing what society agrees is a responsible act and as such to say they are without blame is incorrect. And it's all down to that part you said "because of their impairment their reaction time was slowed". It's arguable that a sober individual could have taken action to avoid hitting the child and therefore their earlier decision to drink and drive assigns them blame, at least in part. That's also why I said actions, in a legal context, are only partially viewed independently as they can be causally linked.
And this is kind of the issue I have with a lot of thought experiment philosophy. The pretending that there aren't simple, logical solutions to the problem when, in this case for sure, there is.
I never thought that B was more blameworthy than A...
Am I a phsycopath?
0_o
No, you're logical.
Charlie Palmer
That's what I hoped xD
There is no one to be blamed. Things are pre-determined and there are no crimes or evils exist in this world. Only tragedies.
if no one is harmed, how can an action be objectively wrong, given that the definition for right or wrong is wether or not someone was harmed.
The problematic bit is that you assume what is right and wrong is define by someone who got harmed. We can't just keep punishing people after the facts. If we see someone about to do something really stupid, like driving drunk, we should convince them not to. If we spot them driving drunk, we should pull them over and fine them. (By "we" I mean society and in this specific case, the police) The behavior should be discouraged at every opportunity because it's a stupid and reckless act that should always be avoided.
Pro tip, don't drink yourself drunk you dummies. That's causing harm to your brain cells and your liver, accident or not.
The point being made is that harm is not a necessary or sufficient condition for wrongdoing, it is not the definition. You can be harmed where nobody is morally responsible (if a coconut drops on your head from a tree) and people can be morally responsible for actions that cause no harm (spying on you.) The definition of wrongdoing that relies on harm seems to be the wrong definition.
The issue may come down to who we mean by "someone". In the hypothetical, the person who was photographed may not feel harmed since they were unaware and so the claim is made that no harm was done. However, what if the someone who is "harmed" by this scenario is society at large? We are all harmed when a societal norm like "not invading people's privacy" is broken. We are all made less safe and less secure. Now, whether something being a "societal norm" is grounds for declaring an act "objectively" wrong is a different discussion for a different video, but my point here is that "harm" need not be synonymous with "personal injury".
you've just made that definition up. :D
Josh Cottle I'm sorry the only objective measure for right and wrong actions is to ask whether someone was objectively harmed. Anything else is simply NOT objective and therefore NOT measurable.
Since it's our decisions/actions we are responsible for, I would argue that A and B, having made the same decisions, have made equal moral choices. Both risked something and have to live with the possible consequences of their risky actions (which only B incurred in this example).
Since both risked the harming of other humans, both made equally immoral decisions.
Morality and guilt are not the same thing in this case, since B has to face more of the latter (and deserves more punishment) but has made equally bad choices in the former.
The arguments or lecture presented has the underlying assumption of free will of choices, lest there wouldn't be a difference between causal and moral responsibility
I feel that the problem with a lot of people who are blameworthy for just being morally horrible is that they then assign just as much blame on somebody else who did a zillionth of a percentage of what the accuser did. And the person, with a zillionth of a percentage of responsibility, then goes on living their life with the knowledge of desperate equalising human nature.
It’s not hard to shrug off a petty mistep in the face of brutalising adversity, if your morals are in the right place and you just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, without a devious or immoral fibre in your being, but it’s still a clawing factor of somebody, you realise as you get older, none the less.
Or just lucky and general
If there is no damage, one should not be punished for it. A did not cause an injury/death, so his punishment should be limited to endangering others (basically a deterrence).
This is about morality, not lawfulness.
Cortster
Well you can't be morally responsible for something that did not happen, can you?
U Wot M8 Exactly. But that isn't what you said. Punishment and responsibility are two different things.
+Cortster Yes thats true but other real life factors play a part as well, you can imagine a straight forward scenario if you want. Drinking and driving is against the law even if their is no damage.
Right but what about that pervy chick who took pics of that guy changing? He was not harmed, it never came out, it never affected his life but still it feels wrong and I'd argue is objectively wrong.
4:35 does this mean pizzajohn stuff is available in malls?
Memington At Chomchom Republic, at least.
***** well played
Most people will think that person A is less immoral than person B, but my answer is that the moral responsibility is not whether person A or B killed the child, both of them have no control over this action therefore both of them cannot be held responsible for the killing action itself.Rather the moral responsibility is that both of them have chosen to drink drive which is what causes this inability to control their actions, no matter what moral luck is person A is having on that day, he should not risk to put himself in a position where he can be considered immoral.So it's not 'that' moral responsibility that made them immoral but rather this one.
ChomchomRepublic!
1) I disappointed that Lorraine Code - a Canadian, Feminist and Epistemological Philosopher - was not brought up for her positions on Epistemic Responsibilism, which comes from her book Epistemic Responsibility; I believe the idea that we are morally responsible for what we know could be insightful for the topic of moral luck, or it could have been beneficial way back with your episode of Epistemic Responsibility.
2) To use an analogy in regards to the changing room and photos, even if we don't know that we were harmed, it doesn't mean that we weren't harmed. For example, a person who suffers from Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) would not know that they were harmed if it were discrete enough. A cut in their body; they would not know it until later, which could be analogous to the changing room situation because the person could find out later like the person suffering from CIP. So, yes, I would say a person is harmed even if they do not realize it.
anyone else catch the chomchom republic?
No I didn't, thanks for making me go back and catch that! :-)
Was scrolling looking for someone else who caught it. Thank you. I am not crazy :)
Yes, but it took me a whole year after you did!
spinningninja2 what’s the time stamp?
If someone drives drunk they deserve the punishment they get .They knew the risk, and still took it. That is part of their decision. Not driving drunk is a small sacrifice to be made if it means at least even one child will live(if no one will drive drunk).
You blame the kid for being stupid enough to run in the middle of a road with traffic on it.
Why is it this episode that stumped me more than any other
“HAHA! That guy got hit in the head with two coconuts!”
Yeah, I'm going to agree with a lot of the comments and say that both drivers are equally reprehensible in their actions, and both should be blamed terribly for their decision to endanger people.
"Next time we are going to talk about Justice!" THERE IS NO JUSTICE, ONLY ME.
(Please work that into the next video somehow ^)
No matter how deep you think, B is the only one to blame. His actions caused the result whereas A's actions did not. You can say had they been travelling at the same time and same speed and the same child jumped out. But, that's not what happened, and we can't tell the future.
But did they not have an equal chance to cause harm?
Did they cause it?
David McGregor Why is a child still outside without parents at 11pm?
-bait-
So if I start shooting a gun at you there's no moral issue as long as I miss, right? I didn't cause harm, so therefore I'm not in the wrong even though I knowingly did something that could have? Or say I don't even aim for you, I just decide to try hitting something you're in front of. I didn't mean to cause harm, and if i'm lucky I won't, so therefore that's an okay thing to do.
It was the child's fault for coming in front of a moving car. Kids be stupid these days.
what if instead of a child it was another drunk person? is it the drunk drivers or the drunk pedestrians fault?
catching pokemons
then it's nintendo's fault.
it was one of those deaf and blind feral kids you see around these days,
Chris Hoffman for argument's sake, at least the drunk pedestrian didn't make the mistake of drinking while driving