If person B or whoever is representing him were able to prove ( which he couldn’t in the real world ) that person A was responsible for his death person B could choose to treat the situation as a criminal matter. If this were to happen both parties and those who they choose to represent them would settle the matter under terms mutually agreed upon.
If I were person B I would except that person A’s intent probably wasn’t to infect me with H1N1 and drop the case but everyone is different and would be free to make up their own mind.
Is this true in every case of “infection,” in some cases, or just in my extreme example?
And is “responsible” the right word to use here? In general, when person A plays a passive role in violating person B’s property, is it proper to speak of person A as “responsible”?
A small meteorite drops from the sky and hurtles toward the trampoline in person A’s back yard, bounces off, and lands on person B’s car, damaging it. Is person A “responsible”?
Are you serious? I think the answer to this question is very obvious.
Is it right to use the word “responsible” when a factory unknowingly emits toxic fumes into the air that cause a series of medical conditions in the surrounding area?
No, It’s the meteors fault… Person A and B have nothing to do with it.
I don’t think person A is liable. The virus is a violent creature. Person A doesn’t own the virus. The virus is independent even though it currently resides in person A’s body. If the virus decides to attack another person, then person A should not be liable for not preventing death. He has no such obligation.
Well, I think, in socialdtk’s last post in this thread, he did not answer my first two questions.
Socialdtk thinks the answer to my first question is “very obvious,” but I do not think so.
I intended my first question to expose the assumptions socialdtk might be making about “pathogenic viruses,” which seem to be:
Pathogenic viruses exist;
We can objectively and irrefutably establish that they exist in some people;
We know that these viruses are contagious;
We can establish beyond doubt that a virus from person A infected person B;
The infection “caused” person B’s death.
Assuming all five of the assumptions listed above can be established as facts, then I think the case of the airplane can easily be dealt with using contracts. For example, every purchaser of a flight pass agrees, as a condition of being a passenger, to not knowingly board the plane while harboring a deadly and contagious virus.
However, I believe NONE of the five assumptions can currently be established to a degree even approaching factuality. None of them are currently “knowable,” in my opinion. The reality is that knowledge is scarce and life is inherently risky. We can not eliminate every risk, but we can choose our personally acceptable ratio of risk to cost. For example, if you want to eliminate the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, you can abstain from sex. You obtain complete safety at the cost of foregoing the pleasure of sex.
If A surreptitiously slips deadly poison into B’s drink and B dies, did A commit aggression?
If A, who knowingly harbors a deadly, saliva-communicable virus, asks for a sip of B’s drink, then after drinking from the contaminated cup B becomes sick and dies, did A commit aggression?
Your saliva poision example is actually an example of an implicit contract (for a lack of a better word). That is you assume by default that if someone offered you a drink he doesn’t know about a deadly disease that he may have. If he is sick and does offer you a drink, he breaks this contract. I don’t think this consitutes a muder, but it is a crime.
However there is no implicit or any contract between you and a person just walking next to you. At least I think so. So I don’t think you break any contract if you happen to be sick and someone catches it.
haha. Well, I’m not convinced; I think that’s taking the concept of “implicit contract” too far. Also, the “cause/effect” mechanism is less obvious in my second example than it is in my first. But this raises the questions: What constitutes “a contract?” and its corollary “What constitutes a breach of contract?”
That is not at all obvious. Substitute “flu” instead of AIDS. Both are viruses. Both can be deadly. Yet I doubt you would agree that people should be punished for infecting others with the flu.
@MMMark: But that is really beside the point of the question. Assuming AIDs is what it is said to be, is someone culpable for (knowingly) spreading it? I think the answer is pretty clearly no unless they restrained or otherwise coerced the victim into the circumstances in which he or she was infected.
@gotlucky: Yes, because how can you specify a “duty to tell”? It just doesn’t make any sense. If I have the flu, I have a duty to inform everyone that may come into contact with me? It’s just absurd. The fact is, by stepping out your front door, you take on the risk that you may be infected with the flu. Similarly, if you have sex, you are taking the risk that someone you have sex with may have an STD, perhaps a deadly one like HIV/AIDS. Because you acted, you cannot complain about the natural consequences that any acting being risks. And the social consequence of reversing this principle is redistribution - it is up to the infected to protect everyone who is not infected rather than everyone looking to their own protection.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I also see no reason why people couldn’t ostracize those who did withhold such information about particularly nasty diseases/viruses.
Clayton, you ignore implict contract here. When you go to the doctor you expect to get treatment. When you shake hands with a person you expect him not to have tuberculosis.
I don’t hold the Rothbardian view that contracts always imply exchange of property. I think when people interact with each other there are certain assumptions taken for granted. Contract is a bad word in this context. One such assumption for instance is that partners tell each other whether they have AIDS or other STD before they have sex. Another such assumption is that people don’t shake hands when they have TB or other deadly disease. Without some granted assumptions society can’t function well.
@Eugene: The problem is that you’re confusing decency with legal obligations. Legal obligations arise from actual settlements to real disputes. So, whether shaking someone’s hand when you have TB is a “crime” is dependent on the rules that arise based on how past such cases have been settled. That said, we can make educated guesses on the basis of the actual rules that have arisen within the current system and in historical, freer systems. On that basis (not on the basis of Rothbardian ethics), I think that the acting individual (the person choosing to have sex or choosing to go out in public and shake people’s hands) bears the resonsibility for the consequences of his own actions. It only makes sense.