Well this is why I asked you to define “unsound mind”. Also, what do you mean by “unsound body”? Why is it that someone faced with the unfortunate choice of working in a sweatshop or starvation is unable to understand the choice that he faces?
Again, what does “unsound mind” have to do with this? Why doesn’t the victim understand the choice in front of him? Actually, I think it’s clear that anyone who does give up his wallet has demonstrated that he does, in fact, have a “sound mind” by virtue of the fact that he chose to live. Of course, it may be the case that someone who chose to die might still have understood his choice. I don’t see why it’s relevant.
Your environment doesn’t make you choose anything. Only actors choose.
I understand what the intended purpose of a date-rape drug is. However, your example made it sound like George explicitly propositioned Lorraine and she explicitly agreed to it. That to me implies that Lorraine knew what she’d be getting into with George in spite of being drugged against her consent. If George simply invited her to spend the night at his place, and he proceeded to have sex with her after she passed out, then that clearly qualifies as rape in my opinion.
You still haven’t provided your definition for “of sound body and mind”.
I am arguing the principle. If the doctor interacted with Bill in a way that Bill, after having his ability to think restored, found to be acceptable (i.e. something he would have consented to, just as Lorraine could find the next day that she would have consented to sleeping with George), then whatever the doctor did would have been consentual.
How would you suggest I “argue the principle” for the scenario with Lorraine and George? My argument is identical. It’s not that any interaction anyone has with Lorraine is against Lorraine’s will, it’s that if Lorraine finds out the next day what happened and concludes that, say, George did not have her consent (because he would not have if she was not drugged) for sex, then it was rape. If George only asked Lorraine for half of a PB+J and she gave him half of it while intoxicated, it’s not automatically theft. It’s theft if she reaches that conclusion once she’s sober.
Further, if one argues “George can ask her for half a sandwich but not for sex,” then it is they not arguing the principle. I should have added to the original scenario what Lorraine and Bill concluded the next day when the validity of their contracts were being questioned.
I don’t find the “norms” thing very convincing. It doesn’t seem very libertarian to me. Just because something is a norm doesn’t mean you consent to it. What if I think the “norm” is unfair, and would refuse to follow it if I was of sound body and mind? Too bad, I guess.
I don’t have one. Ability to understand the consequences of your actions?
Even if she explicitly “agreed” to it, it doesn’t matter because she’s been roofied!
What if government A force fed the population of Ruritania with mind-altering drugs and glued their eyes open to watch pro-state propoganda, and after government A packed up and moved to an island in the middle of the Pacific, every citizen signed a contract to establish the new government B? Everyone would have “agreed” to this state, and so long as the effects of the drugs from government A stayed in their systems, government B would be a completely voluntary state – IF Lorraine’s explicit “yes” means she wasn’t raped.
This is why you need to be really clear about why you think Bill is not of sound mind. When you say to Autolykos that you think it means “the ability to understand the consequences of your actions”, this is a huge range, and there is no reason why you can expect anyone else to accept it as a useful legal principle.
The reason I said that you have not been arguing the principle is because you have consistently made the problem about the $500,000 or whatever absurdly high price (in your opinion) the doctor charges Bill for the knee surgery. The principle is about whether the doctor does anything at all. If Bill is unable to legally consent in your opinion, then the doctor cannot make any legal agreements with Bill. You seem to be uncomfortable with this, and rightly so. That’s the main problem with what you are arguing. You want to say that Bill cannot legally consent, yet you also want the doctor to perform a surgery with someone who cannot consent. If this were sex, we would call that rape. To put it crudely, you are basically saying it’s okay if it’s just the tip.
If Lorraine is unable to consent, then she is unable to form any contracts with anyone. She cannot buy anything from the store, she cannot pay for a taxi, she cannot have consensual sex, because, you see, she cannot consent. What you are saying is that she may consent after the fact to anything that has gone on. Basically, if she had a record of all exchanges during her period of intoxication or whatever, the next day she could go around filing suits against the bartender for selling her drinks, the cab driver for driving her home, and for George for having sex with her. You are saying that she may consent the next day. She may forgive all these people for these transactions they made with her.
I can assure you that this is not a principle that would arise in a free market in law. This is not something that both parties to a dispute could ever agree to.
Norms are very libertarian. You don’t have to follow norms, but you do that at your own peril. This is true of any system of law. I don’t know what you find to be unconvincing about norms. Have you read any of the links that I provided earlier?
If you don’t have a definition for it, then that means it’s a meaningless phrase to you. So then why are you using it at all?
Are you expecting me to agree with that just because you said it? Or what? To me, this is the whole point of contention. I don’t see how you’ve offered any refutation of my position. You’ve just been dismissing it out of hand.
Why do you see those two scenarios as necessarily equivalent? I think you’re deliberately glossing over essential differences. Indeed, I see your entire behavior in this thread (as well as others) as simply attempts to lead people to a predetermined conclusion under the guise of “open-minded investigation”.
If my purpose in starting the thread was to convince everybody to accept a conclusion I already had, I wouldn’t have stopped debating you and gotlucky when I found a solution to my question.
My point is that you didn’t stop posting in the middle of the thread, as was implied by these two statements of yours:
and
So you claimed that you stopped debating us when you found a solution to your question, but you also claimed to have found that solution in the middle of the thread. That means you effectively claimed that you stopped debating us in the middle of the thread, which is patently false. You seem to be an intelligent person, so I find it very hard to believe that you’d trip yourself up so easily.
Furthermore, I still don’t believe that you reached a conclusion in the middle of the thread. As I see it, your (predetermined) conclusion was presented in the OP. As evidence, I present the way in which you worded your concluding questions in the OP, i.e. “Is this not theft?” and “Is this not rape?” Questions of the form “Is this not X?” are typically meant to imply that whatever’s being referred to by “this” is indeed X. In other words, I consider your concluding questions in the OP to be decidedly non-neutral in form.
Right. I kept testing my answer vis-a-vis yours. It depends on how you understand “debate”. As in, try to convince you I’m right and only that, then no. If as in deliberative discourse, then yes, it kept going.
The other thing I could refer you to is this other post that was set up as a question. I obviously leaned a certain way when posting this. However, in the thread I was pulled away from my position. The only difference is that in the thread we’re commenting on now, I ended up going even more in the direction of where I was leaning, and now I’ve reached a convinction that differs from yours.
I’m sorry but I’m not going to deterred by any red herring you throw my way. I maintain that the conclusion that you claim to have reached in the middle of this thread was actually one you had reached before you even started this thread.