Not equivalent. Your gang was already killing people, your hit man was not going to kill Bob McName before you paid him.
Thats nonsense. Either the person who was damaged pays for it or the person who caused the damage pays for it. Its an easy choice.
What the heck do you define as freak then? Spontaneous combustion? But even then the combuster’s conscious choices determined where he combusted.
…but the gang would not have killed x number of people without the funding and weaponry.
In a true freak accident, it will probably be the owner of whatever was damaged who ends up paying.
Let’s see here… you are in a store with an opaque door that swings outward. The very moment you open the door, a man outside is reaching for the doorknob. The door hits his watch and it breaks. Neither of you did anything stupid, mean, or wrong, it was just a freak accident..
edit: clarity
Neither person is liable and not because it was a “freak accident”, its because neither caused it. It was the result of a joint action so neither is less responsible than the other.
And the murderer would not have killed X number of people if I had not sold him the bullets.
No, neither person is “responsible”, you’re using Boortz’s pet definition of “responsibility”.
If I am outside and a bird flies from behind me and smacks me in the back of my neck, or I walk beneath a tree and a branch falls on my head, I’m not “responsible”. Yes, my own choices caused me to be in that specific place at that specific time, but using the word “responsible” causes the word to lose all meaning! If I walk past a bank just as it’s being robbed, and a bullet flies out building and hits me in the chest, I am not “responsible” for getting shot. Neither the bird, the branch, nor the bullet are my fault.
I agree, as I’ve already acknowledged. The owner of the store had no reason to assume I was going to murder anyone. Giving something to a guilty person does not necessarily mean you’re committing a crime. That doesn’t mean that providing funding and weaponry to the Nazi regime is acceptable, it doesn’t mean that volunteering a cigarette lighter to a man who is beating a woman drenched in gasoline and tied to a tree is acceptable, and it doesn’t mean that giving money to a hitman and hinting that you want him to kill someone is acceptable; you have to use common sense.
Responsibility in regard to natural rights and their deductive subsets, namely property rights and self-ownership means you were the definite causal actor that initiated the aggression. In the case of Person 1 coercing Person 2 to murdering another, Person 2 was the causal actor that initiated aggression against Person 2. Natural rights makes no distinction as to why the person initiated the aggression since it implies free will. On practical levels, courts would solve such issues in a more “utilitarian” fashion by the party at a loss (the relatives of the victim you murdered) and the judge taking the coercion you faced into account by lessening the restitution for the action.
I hope you will take into account my view on causal initiation as the determinant for aggression under the NAP and finally end this topic, or at least refute me, rather than taking a naive view as you did earlier that coercion negates free will. Free will implies physical events do not determine, only influence mental events; your aggression against Person 2 in the aforesaid dilemma. Thus with my view on causal initiation, Person 1 was not the definite causal actor in the murder of Person 2.
With respect to the hitman scenario, I’m not sure Jon’s position is totally consistent.
The hitman is a moral agent, and is the one commiting the ‘physical’ crime.
The guy hiring the hitman apparently has the intent of killing somebody, but intent was not to be taken into account, right? What the guy paying for the murder did is just to speak some words and to give money to the hitman - actions wich are not criminal.
Also, from a more practical point of view, how are you going to prove that Smith actually hired Jones as hitman ?
I was wondering if anyone would call me out on that.
That people are responsible for the actions of their agents is a separate assumption, based mostly on utility. I probably should have put some effort into justifying it from a natural rights perspective. Lets try:
Unless you consider buying murder an illegal act. Picking up an apple is not illegal, unless it belongs to someone else. I don’t see why circumstance can not be taken into account for our hitman scenario.
I should add that the person who hires the hitman is only liable so long as the murder actually happens, as thats the only way he has actually “bought” the murder and not just solicited for it.
Hm. Or what about this ? :
We are not concerned with intent, although the person hiring the hitman intends to do damage. What makes him guilty is that the damage is caused by his actions(paying) as well as those of the hitman. So I fail at playing devil’s advocate ? haha.
In that case, why is voluntarily/knowingly funding a murder different involuntarily/knowingly funding a murder? It’s been established that you don’t make a distinction between voluntary and involuntary acts.
So you think intent does matter?
I said funding a murder was not a crime. I said employing a person to commit murder was.
Please start accurately quoting.
To Jon,
I guess the phrasing I used wasn’t that clear - my fault. - let me try again
I agree that intent doesn’t matter.
I was trying to argue that the person who hired the hitman wasn’t guilty because he didn’t do the material killing. But the person who hired the hitman is a necesary actor in the drama - his actions ‘trigger’ the actions of the hitman, so he’s just as responsible as the hitman is.
I know you said that; how is that consistent?
If voluntarily and involuntarily committing a crime is the same thing under your moral system, why is voluntarily/knowingly funding a crime different from involuntarily/knowingly funding a crime?
I think you’re right about there being an inconsistency in JonBostiwick’s and my position. Yesterday I read Hoppe’s and Kinsella’s positions on crime and causality (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_4_6.pdf, http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_4_7.pdf). I contradicted myself when I said that intent didn’t matter. Guilt was only dependent on the initiation of a causal chain of events which ends in an aggression against an innocent party. The problem with this is that causality and intent (means and ends) are both categories of action and inseperable. Every crime is an action.
There is only one problem I have with the Hoppe-Kinsella position. I think one can only be held responsible for another’s aggression if they have a (illigitimate) contract to commit the crime (at least an implicit contract).
The reason why the conscripted killer is a criminal is because he harms an innocent person. The reason why the taxpayer is not is because he is not employing government agents as aggressors. He has no contract with them agreeing to fund their aggression. He does not intend to harm the government’s victims.
Let me add one reservation.
Kinsella is using intent to mean the difference between unknowingly enabling and employing means to cause. He is asking if they knew they were doing something; not as Ego meant it, why they did it. His use of the word intent is in line with our view of causation.
Kinsella has also done a nice job of proving our hypothesis that employers of hit men are liable.
Reinach’s scenario (page 14) where A sends B into the forest hoping he will be struck by lighting justifies my position that voters can not be held responsible for their endorsements of state actions. As a voter has no more control over or ability to predict the state than A has over lighting. In reality many votes do intend to hurt others through the state, but they have no ability to actually cause it.
We have no greater ability to predict what our government does than we have to predict whether someone gets struck by lighting? Are you serious!? We all know about wars, social security, welfare etc. At the very least, when are forced to pay taxes, we know that we are funding an organization that collects taxes.
Why should dealing with criminals be considered a crime?
Well, keep in mind that I’m trying to point out the inconsistencies in your position; I’m not stating my own. Regardless, knowingly/voluntarily writing checks and sending weaponry to the Nazi regime should, without a doubt, be a crime. Why not?
How about this…
Let’s say that a gang of twenty people were operating a large weapon aimed at a school of innocent children. The weapon only fired if ten of the twenty people pulled their personal trigger. One person pulling his trigger does nothing; he still relies on the others’ actions. Would you prosecute any of them for murdering the children?
I think I’ve cleared those up mostly.
It shouldn’t unless there is some implicit agreement as to what the funds or weapons are used for. If the funds are to be used to build hospitals, it’s not criminal. If the person understands that the funds will be used to pay for an invasion of another country, it’s criminal. If the person doesn’t know, or there is no understanding between the doner and the nazis regarding what the funds are to be used for, it’s not. Same thing for weapons. If they are defensive weapons like Flak artillary, it’s not criminal. If it’s a nuclear weapon, it is criminal. If it’s small arms, it depends on the understanding between the doner and the nazis regarding their use.
I would say that the ten people all intend to kill. There is no other interpretation of their action. And they are all acting together cooperatively to commit this crime. They are all equally guilty.
What if they don’t want to kill but were coerced (via chainsaw at the genitals) into doing it?