Aliens and Proper Government

[Easy Truth]

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

As for responsibility with respect to the car, the question is whether you were negligent in how you parked it, or whether the manufacturer was negligent in how they made the car...

Could be, I am not sure but my understanding is that you are responsible for what "your" (the one that belongs to you) child. If they break your neighbor's window, you have to fix it. Even if you told your child not to do it a 100 times.

The other one is if you damage someone's property when you are sleepwalking. Wouldn't you have to compensate for that?

But from an ethics perspective, should you be held responsible?

Isn't it reasonable that "even if you don't know that you harmed someone", that you should "make them whole" if you damaged them? Meaning responsible even when you don't know that you are responsible.

[StrictlyLogical]

16 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

But from an ethics perspective, should you be held responsible?

This is a complex question.  Case law over hundreds of years has dealt with the question of criminal and civil liability, negligence, duty of care etc.  These issues have been adjudicated upon.. in some cases there is responsibility and in others there is not.

Consider the difference between

A ) a doctor who knows that some crazy drug has a 10% chance of making him a temporarily murderous psychotic... suppose he took the drug and ten minutes later killed someone... his choice, while he was still sane, to take the drug without any precautions, likely constitutes the commission of the crime of negligence. and

B ) a person who is genetically predisposed to have psychotic episodes, has no family history or any evidence or knowledge of this fact and has his first episode... and kills someone.  He may be innocent by virtue of temporary insanity if proven with expert testimony in a court of law.  Of course he will need to take medication or commit himself etc. to ensure it does not happen again.

 

The simple fact that a person did something, owns something, is not enough for moral, criminal, or civil culpability... it is of part of the analysis.

 

Certainly, being causally linked and reasonable knowledge of the risk of harm are huge factors.

[Easy Truth]

3 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Certainly, being causally linked and reasonable knowledge of the risk of harm are huge factors.

Yes and if it is overridden completely, it means X was the cause yet not responsible. That seems wrong.

The implication is that your right can be violated, someone unknowingly did it, and that "should" be okay. That may be reality. Maybe as a citizen we should be okay with that. Rather than the unchangeable expectation of being made right. Or a right of retaliation. Not sure.

[Eiuol]

On 3/31/2020 at 7:37 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

I wonder if Rand ever implied that only sentient beings can violate rights and hence implied that whether an invasion of aliens is the government’s responsibility or not is based, not on the level of the threat to life and liberty, but based on whether or not that threat is sentient...

That's what's entailed by what she wrote about rights. Rights are about living in the social world, and the various social interactions required, and the expectations we can have of others with regard to how they treat us, and so on. Plants can't initiate force; cows can't initiate force; viruses can't initiate force; tornadoes can't initiate force. If something lacks any conceptual capacity whatsoever, it can't initiate force, nor can it have rights. Sure, you might want some kind of defense or insurance against things that go wrong, but things that are not sentient don't require government intervention for you to fight, because one doesn't need to relegate the use of force against those without rights (viruses).

Edited April 2, 2020 by Eiuol

[EC]

On 4/1/2020 at 5:09 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

Exposing others to dangers of an alien when there is grounds to suspect you are a host, likely would already fall under criminal negligence under existing legal principles.

 

 

I thought about this exception to what I said a little later and completely agree with it. A reasonable suspicion without absolute knowledge of infection would/could lead to culpability.

[StrictlyLogical]

6 hours ago, Eiuol said:

That's what's entailed by what she wrote about rights. Rights are about living in the social world, and the various social interactions required, and the expectations we can have of others with regard to how they treat us, and so on. Plants can't initiate force; cows can't initiate force; viruses can't initiate force; tornadoes can't initiate force. If something lacks any conceptual capacity whatsoever, it can't initiate force, nor can it have rights. Sure, you might want some kind of defense or insurance against things that go wrong, but things that are not sentient don't require government intervention for you to fight, because one doesn't need to relegate the use of force against those without rights (viruses).

So no role for government i. e. the military against an invasion of non-sentient aliens.  

Edited April 3, 2020 by StrictlyLogical

[Eiuol]

18 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

So no role for government i. e. the military against an invasion of non-sentient aliens.  

Yeah (besides criminal negligence anyway). Besides, I don't think non-sentient aliens would have the capacity of invading anything, let alone inventing rockets.  

It would just be a "space virus".

Edited April 3, 2020 by Eiuol

[Easy Truth]

7 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Plants can't initiate force; cows can't initiate force; viruses can't initiate force; tornadoes can't initiate force. If something lacks any conceptual capacity whatsoever, it can't initiate force, nor can it have rights. Sure, you might want some kind of defense or insurance against things that go wrong, but things that are not sentient don't require government intervention for you to fight, because one doesn't need to relegate the use of force against those without rights (viruses).

But the battle is not against the virus, the plants or the cows. It is against the infected humans. The sentient infected.

I realized it has some element of the argument that guns don't kill, people do.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Easy Truth

[Eiuol]

10 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

It is against the infected humans...

...who initiate force.

So things like mass surveillance are inappropriate. 

[Easy Truth]

3 hours ago, Eiuol said:

So things like mass surveillance are inappropriate. 

True. Indiscriminate surveillance, where as we have now, everyone is quarantined is wrong. As I said: "But, there is one element that is an attack on individual rights. The indiscriminate lock down of EVERYONE, infected and noninfected, (in a sense, criminal and innocent). "

Edited April 3, 2020 by Easy Truth
spelling

[Easy Truth]

On 4/1/2020 at 2:09 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

As for responsibility with respect to the car, the question is whether you were negligent in how you parked it, or whether the manufacturer was negligent in how they made the car...

Here is Onkar Gate using a "car" example. This is set up to start at that point.