A situation arose that I find myself alone in my stand point on. Which isn't extremely rare but I thought most people shared this belief with me. I won't say what my position is until after the weekend. To allow people time to formulate their own opinions.
The question is - Where does the burden of responsibility lay?
Side A - The Individual
Side B - The Scenario and Setting
For those on Side A think about Arms dealer and the leaders of armies should they be held accountable.
For those on SIde B think about the Video game and Media Violence debate.
I knw there are alot of others that you can use as examples please bring them. These were just ways to get the ball rolling.
KickAss and Chew Bubble Gum
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I forgot to put on the Side C which is a combination of both.
which is the side I fall on. Depending on the situation more or less responsiblity may fall on either side, the individual or the scenario and setting. I think it is more of a sliding scale than an absolute. The scenario does contribute, but how much it contributes depends on the individual. I don't think you can easily separte the two and say definatively where the blame lies. I just finished a great book on animal learning called Becoming a Tiger. What I got out of it (amoung other insights) was that you can't separate nature from nurture in the same way I think you can't separate the individual from the scenario in terms of responsiblity and laying blame. Cricumstances contribute to a lot, but the individual is responsible for their actions within the circumstances they are placed.
Basically, if we're allowed to choose side C, I'm choosing it. See, here's the problem: You choose side A, and you have evil people doing evil acts knowingly, and it's there fault. But then you have people who are confused committing acts that may have seemed reasonable at the time. This is rare, but it's the exception that breaks the rule, and doesn't make it.
As for taking only Side B, then people can still pull off horrible acts, then say "Oh, I was dehydrated", when they were perfectly hydrated! So you have to really see the reason they did it, the situation and then decided upon the who the burden of responsibility lays with.
Unfortunately I would have to say 'C' as well. There are going to be exceptions to every rule so to say difinatively one side or the other....just not going to work.
However, I do think that although the situation often does have some say, most of the responsibility should be laid on the individual. There are too many times where ppl are getting away with saying "while he played video games so its their fault" or "movies are to blame!". I will admit that outside forces can affect the way a person thinks, but ultimately it is still thier actions and they should be held accountable for them.
Too much finger pointing is going on - making ppl resonsible for their actions may force them to consider who/what is going to be affected by those actions.
Pffft, Side C is the side for people unwilling to lay blame. While an arms dealer may be selling weapons to a dictator, he's not responsible for the actions that dictator took in using those weapons. He's responsible for knowingly selling weapons to a dictator. The dictator is the on that ultimately ordered the deaths. Enabling someone to perform an evil or wrong act doesnt make you inherently responsible for that act. The person who committed the crime is the one who is responsible. By saying Side C is the proper options is giving responsibility to convenience store clerks for getting robbed or something equally ridiculous. You simply cant blame other people's mistakes on everyone who may have been effected. If I decide to shoot someone, does that mean the man who sold me the gun is also responsible, even if he had no prior knowledge of what I was going to do with it? My actions are mine and mine alone. While people may make mistakes, they also have to take responsibility for their actions. Responsibility is a trick thing, because it allows you to spread around stupidity, which is wrong. Bartenders are liable if they let someone drive drunk, not because the driver might kill someone, but because the bartender knowlingly let them violate the law, which is dangerous. If they kill someone, the bartender is not to blame for their death, but allowing the circumstances for their death to be possible. The responsibility for the victims death lies clearly with the driver, regardless of his state of intoxication.
In conclusion, people need to take responsibility for their own actions. Saying it is spread between multiple people is only dodging the issue and just plain wrong. People need to own up and accept when they make mistakes. Side A for the win.
I agree with Captin Sock puppet. Your actions are your responsibility. There is no the video game made me do it. Or the violent movie. Or any of that. Or your parents. That excuse should be reason to be jailed any way. So you grew up poor so you grew up underprivlidge or worse your a spoiled rich kid. So what? You still make choices and that makes you responsable.
There is One exception. And only one. If some one actually honnestly held a gun to your head and made you shoot you grandmother's dog's cat's first owners second wifes neices husband. That may absolve you of some of the responsibilty, but you better have the bruise to prouve it.
As long as you are mentally capable of makeing a concious choice you are responsible for your choice and your actions.
But if you stand just on Side A, is there a difference between knowing something bad is going to happen and letting and not knowing something bad is going to happen.
What if I ask you for a gun.
1) I tell you I'm going to kill Dave with it.
2) I don't tell you but it is what I'm going to do.
You shouldn't have any responibility in either case? That to me just sounds like your trying to get off scott free without feeling bad about your obvious role in the situation.
No, thats not at all what I was saying. Selling someone a gun without prior knowledge of their actions doesn't make you responsible for their actions. Selling someone a gun knowing their intention to shoot someone makes you responsible for enabling that person to willfully harm another, which is different. Which is exactly what I said in my previous post, albeit in a little more long winded fashion.
People have to take responsibility for their OWN actions, not everyone else's. Side C allows Drunk Drivers who kill people to put some of the blame on the victim, despite their legal right to be driving on the road at the time. Thats wrong. The victim had no part in their death assuming they werent doing something to put themselves at risk.
Side C is a tad more different though. See, in the drunk driving, someone says "Well, Side C means that the bartender got me drunk, and this guy shouldn't have been out driving, and the police should have stopped me before", which in fact, is true. Does it mean they are all responsible for the death? Not at all. But they contributed to it.
Side A allows for victims of assault to be charged with murder if they fight back and kill the person who was assaulting the. The situation, one of long term spousal abuse, causes them to fight back, perhaps causing assualt or murder on the original assualter, who can then report them to the police (unless he or she was murdered, of course, at which point they need some help). Since it is only based on the actions of the person, and not any outside problems, they are convicted for attempting to save or enhance their own life from punching bag to human being.
In Ontario, if you serve alcohol to someone past their limit, you are responsible for serving a drunk past their limit. What they do after contributes to why this is bad, and what fault you get nailed with. You aren't at fault for the death, you are at fault for causing circumstances that could end badly. I voted (and still vote for) Side C it allows for wrongs caused in this way. While Side A still allows you to go to individuals and state the wrongs they have done, in the case of someone letting someone drink too much, they merely have to stop before alcohol poisoning, and not after "rediculously over the limit". Thus, they can say "Well, it was up to him not to drive. I just made sure I didn't kill him with the alcohol", since Side A ignores situations that go beyond the individual hurt.
As for the victim, they do have some blame put upon them, but it's blame that holds little weight. Like, I got hit by a drunk driver. I'm at blame for driving out in the road where a drunk driver was. Does this mean it's my fault? Nope. Side C only allows for this flimsy blame to be put on them. Side A releases this flimsy blame.
Side B places it on them, but anyone arguing this point really can't say "Well, we shouldn't drive, because it causes drunk driving". Well, they can, but it's overexagerated. That's why no one likes Side B, and Side C gets some of that flack because it still looks at the situation. Like I said originally: Side A has enough exceptions to break itself, and Side B is a mess of blame placement. Side C allows for blame weights to be placed on each separate person.
The bartender should have cut him off earlier, the driver shouldn't have driven, his friends should have stopped him, a DD should have been there, and the victim was unfortunite in that they choose to drive outside. In the end, the driver is convicted of drunk driving, the bartender is fined (or perhaps more if this is has happened before), the victim is morned and people will always wonder "Why did he have to work late?", and the friends and the usual DD blame themselves for something that was, in the end, was 95% the fault fo the stupid drunk. The fact that 5% lays on the others sucks, but it's needed for the times when 95% lays on the other people, such as the beaten wife above.
I didn't intend for the debate to solely focused on the legality of responsibility. What about moral and intellectual responsibility?
We all effect everyone we come into contact with every day. Whether that contact is positive or negative depends on the people.
Should people feel guilty over there part in another's actions?
To some extent yes. The way in which we treat the people around us will in some way effect the way in which they treat others. However, you still must take responsability for your own actions and not blame it on "well this person was mean to me."
Feel guilty for treating that person without respect; do not feel guilty for the actions that they do. Learn from it and move forward.
Mostly, the fact is that this whole debate, while interesting, falls into the nulmenclature debate and falls aways from the whole "What we were asking". The reason I brought up legality is because that's the basis for law: Where does the responsibility lay.
Paul (Capt) and I discussed it, and basically, he took the debate to be black and white: When someone takes an action, are they responsible for it?
Myself (Dave) took it to mean that you had a real life situation that you wanted commented on. I also took it to mean that Side A could NOT look at the situation, look at the setting, whatsoever. I then applied it to grey, and found that any situation, given that risk of all sitations, even minute risk, should be weighed or shouldn't be. The final outcome was basically this:
Someone takes an action, and therefore takes responsibility. That's it. End of debate, it's done as far as the wording of the debate go. Until someone says "Well, I want to incorporate moral, legal, grey, black, white, and chipmunks", then we really can't debate properly. I know this sounds like a cop out, and people who study proper debating skills state I'm wrong since I'm basically attacking the debate, and that makes for bad debating, but that's the way I feel, and fuck proper debating rules if "Chicken or Russia, based on your dorsal fin" is a proper debate.
Chicken or Russia?! Yikes! lol
Totally chicken. There's no question in my mind that russia stands a chance agianst Chicken.
Seriously though Thank you all for the debate. It was a good time and I haven't gotten this many comments on a debate in awhile SO ROCK ON.
Oh the actual situation that seems so long ago. A rather intelligent and wise person (GUY1) I work with told an intelligent but unwise person (GUY2) I work with to go to our boss and ask to extend his leaving date until after the long weekend. Decent request except for the fact that he is leaving because he was FIRED! and this peron was already given his severance pay ($2000) and his flight home ($1300). Which he was not intitled to because of him being fired.
So I was the only person blaming all three people in the situation. I blamed GUY2 for asking for it. I blamed GUY1 for suggesting such a stupid maneuver. Finally I blamed myself for not commenting when I heard this stupid plan.
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