Intent is very important when it comes to prosecuting someone, but should that be enough to overcome giving advice that costs someone their lives? Day after day I see people posting articles against vaccination, or promoting cures for cancer that either do nothing or makes things worse. For this I’m going to assume these individuals believe they are giving good advice, and their intent is to help the individual they are giving the advice too.
For years, I’ve used this example. If I have a fly on my chest and your intent is to help me and kill the fly, but instead you kill me. This is an exaggeration, but the concept is still the same. Should good intent supersede harmful advice/action.
Just this year Michelle Carter was sentenced to two and half years for encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself. The law seems to finally be moving in the direction of the results rather than the intent.
So at what line do you believe anti-science need to cross before the intent can be ignored, and the individual is punished for the results?
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@Mark: "Should convincing someone of a bad idea lead to prosecution?"
I think adults have to take their own responsibility for taking advice from crooks and idiots. But when parents fail to vaccinate their children because they listened to an anti-vaxxer moron, I think those parents should be held accountable, however well-intentioned, if their children or other children get sick as a result.
If people went to jail for giving bad advice with good intentions, the jails would be full of priests, evangelists, vicars and pastors....Wait a minute, maybe you're onto something.
Quote Mark: "If I have a fly on my chest and your intent is to help me and kill the fly, but instead you kill me. This is an exaggeration, but the concept is still the same." I don't agree it is the same, but ask that the analogy be avoided anyway please. Better to take one case at a time than discuss analogy.
I understand and strongly support vaccination (and scientific approaches to treating cancer), but I defend people's right to say whatever they genuinely think about vaccinations (or unorthodox, homeopathic or "natural" treatments for cancer) and put the responsibility on those who take bad advice. Children cannot protect themselves from their parents and so may have to be protected by society in certain cases, perhaps even taken into care for some period.
Mark: "Just this year Michelle Carter was sentenced to two and half years for encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself. The law seems to finally be moving in the direction of the results rather than the intent." I certainly hope it isn't. As you wrote, intent is very important. From what I read of the case his girlfriend can be perceived as having caused his death from the point of view that people close to the individuals suspect he might not have done so without her encouragement.
From:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/03/us/michelle-carter-texting-suicide-sen...
"She admits in ... texts that she did nothing: She did not call the police or Mr. Roy's family" after hearing his last breaths during a phone call, Moniz said as Carter cried silently.
"And, finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck."
The state argued that the evidence was damning. Carter sent Roy numerous text messages urging him to commit suicide, listened over the phone as he suffocated -- and failed to alert authorities or his family that he'd died.
"This court has found that Carter's actions and failure to act where it was her self-created duty to Roy since she put him in that toxic environment constituted reckless conduct," the judge said. "The court finds that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy."
Unquote.
I think it would be very difficult to gauge the woman's intent outside the courtroom and without personal knowledge of all involved. The courts are always right to consider both intent and result appropriately and not prejudge the importance or relevance of either. I see it as questions of balance and case law.
While this debate could cover areas that don’t lead to deaths, for now I’m just trying to discuss where death occurred. On the point of Michelle Carter what if her intention to end his suffering? There are numerous cases where assisted suicide and mercy killings were prosecuted. Also with Michelle there is the aspect of free speech. How many times have you heard someone say something like “you should kill yourself” or wishing some form of death on another person. So, was the amount or persuasiveness of those statements that caused her to go to jail? Is it ok to say “The world would be a better place without you” once or twice… but at three times … that’s just too much? Or maybe it’s too much when you start listing their failures or maybe even how the world would be a better place without them, or that pain would end. And what about the type of pain as well? Pain from a breakup vs pain from a terminal illness are different situations.
Also, when there are accepted best practices and they aren’t followed we have no problem prosecuting people like Medical Malpractice. I think everyone agrees Doctors intentions is good but the results were bad and cost someone their life. Generally, though it’s only a loss of money, and takes repeated offenses before the doctor loses their license and no they are no longer able to practice medicine. There are rarely criminal charges brought against them, and they don’t serve any time in jail even if they are the cause of multiple people’s deaths. So, there is some precedence that recklessness and stupidity led to people going to jail regardless of intent.
But how incompetent, misguided, stupid, or reckless do you need to be? Does anyone have suggestions or ideas on where those lines should be drawn?
If someone's advise causes harm or death, they need to be punished for it.
Who decides this is good or this one bad?
In hung parliament the formed government must agree to the balancing (coalition) smaller party. The future laws will be based on those numbers.
In the old time it was the size of your muscle or the size of your thug army that decide.
In the American congress it is the size of your money (Lobbyist) that can steer their decision.
So - who decide?
I agree if it is very basic, like vaccines.
If a preacher or say someone with know knowledge of that they are talking about, inadvertently causes the deaths of children then they are to blame as equal as the parents who knowingly followed the advice of a loon rather then looking at the actual evidence of experts.
anti vax doctors should go to jail
I think the pope is culpable for aids deaths.
These are what I'm talking about. Also if there is responsibility for spreading false information people would be a LOT more likely to double check that information, or spread it. (yes I understand that it could be abused and used to shut down free speech and alternative/new ideas)
I think the culpability would be limited to people in authority over a certain field like the example given about doctors who are anti-vaccine. But this can actually be very tricky as increasing the culpability of people giving (possibly detrimental) advice may reduce the accountability of the person making the decision. A doctor can always recommend against vaccines but the fact checking should lie with the parents if they should look for another doctor.
I absolutely agree with you, Mark. People can say that people need to take responsibility for themselves all they want but they are ignoring a real factor.
When someone prescribes prayer instead of medical care they are in my mind committing a crime. It's just like someone claiming that their product will do when they know that it won't. That is false advertising and depending on the effect it can be a capital crime.
Actually, when you put it that way, I can see the very real and dangerous effect when people spread harmful information including the ones you mentioned. There should be some kind of punishment for that. The problem lies in how you define certain things as harmful.
@mykcob4 yup yup. The problem I see is how tricky it is to implement it in such a way as for it not to get corrupted and used as a hammer against free speech and progress. I could see how easily something like this could have been used by theists (majority) to suppress valid alternative ideas/facts.