If I drink myself raw milk or serve the milk. IF the person or I gets sick. Who is to blame? The seller? Me? or does the person I serve it to accept the risks?
Why is it relevant? Whether there is someone to blame or not is besides the point. If there is a source of milk that is causing sickness to consumers that source will likely go out of business. Finger pointing, which to me sounds like a desire for legal action, is unecessary. If your food makes people sick you’ll go out of business. There exists market incentives for milk producers to produce clean milk. Legal incentives are unecessary as is the finger pointing.
If you buy and drink paint, and get sick, who is responsible?
Only if a responsibility is agreed to, does it stand.
Seriously? Milton Friedman?
Well, I’ve learned something. If the power company turns off my electricity it is not their fault at all. Even though there is some person downtown that flips a switch, pulls a lever, hits a few keys, whatever that turns off my power it is not their resposibility or action whatsoever.
JJ, I’m curious, are you an existentialist?
Your missing the point. Your so caught up on finding out whos fault it is that you stopped working on getting your lights back on. How is that rational? Unless your self interests are to verbally abuse the person at fault(Which serves no one).
If your concern here is getting your lights back on than finding the person at fault is pointless. Take your money and your time to a business you can trust. Put your money where your mouth simply put.
What about him?
-
The question was about the man living or dying, not about whether his lights were on.
-
You pay for someone else to provide you electricity. You could generate it yourself. Or live without it. Like half the population does today. Or like 100% of the population from the history of the world until only about 100 years ago. But instead you choose to purchase it from someone else. You refusing to pay for it any more is just the same as you refusing ride your bicycle generator any more. You’re going to say that just because you happen to outsource your electricy generation, that when you stop providing the resources necessary to maintain that flow, the electricity shouldn’t stop just the same as if you never rode your cycle again?
-
I’m curious as to what exactly you’re suggesting should be done in the case of someone not paying for goods and services. It sounds like you’re suggesting people should just get goods and services regardless of whether they create them or trade for them themselves…that others are just obligated to provide them.
BP, I’m curious, are you a socialist?
a) That has to be one of the most nebulous terms in the English language. You’ll need to define it.
b) What makes you ask that?
IF the person or I gets sick. Who is to blame? The seller? Me? or does the person I serve it to accept the risks?
Contract or it didn’t happen. 
When you buy things, caveat emptor on you unless there is a contract. When you serve things, caveat emptor on the drinker unless there is a contract.
“The question was about the man living or dying, not about whether his lights were on.”
Yes, but if we are considering the case as it was laid out in the video, basically if his power is shut off then he dies, and the answer Friedman gave then we are talking about actions on the part of the power company.
“a) That has to be one of the most nebulous terms in the English language. You’ll need to define it.”
Do you, like existentialist philosophers, believe that humans have free will or agency?
“b) What makes you ask that?”
Assuming you more or less agree with the answer given by Friedman, which you may not, then saying the blame does not rest on the power company or an individual in the power company brings up a dilemma if you believe humans have agency.
If we examine the situation as it’s laid out in the video (if the power goes out this man dies, if it stays on he lives), then there is most certainly responsibility on the side of the person operating that switch. At the moment they are ordered to turn off his power, they have a choice to make. They can choose whether or not to turn the power off.
Even if the man does not die and it’s just a matter of providing electricity, at every instant, despite whatever contract was signed, the person has a choice about whether or not they will honor their contract, turn the power off or not. Even if the old man’s power being shut off is just a factor in his death, to claim that the power company is just an inhuman entity that has no other option than to operate on numbers is simply a way of deflecting responsibility for the actions of those involved in the company to those who contract with it. That is not to say that those who contract with them have no choice either. However, the responsibility does not lie on one side or the other. Provided the scenario in the video, this old man will die without power, it seems as though an operator somewhere in the power comapny’s building has some responsibility in the matter.
I am not trying to provide an alternative. Just bringing up my problems with claiming that responsibility does not lie with those involved at the company.
Does the contract say that they will always provide power or just 99% of the time?
It says they’ll provide power if you pay. However, contracts do not negate one’s agency.
Someone said they would prosecute the parents if raw milk was fed to a child and something happened to the child. I pretty much facepalmed. But it did get me thinking on what constitutes agression.
There was a case in China where they literally made edible plastic eggs. You break it and the egg looks exactly like a real egg. It even cooks like one.
The way I reason it, the approach would be false advertising. If the person claims salmonella free, and gets sick from that disease. THen there is fault.
I am look for blame because my property rights were allegedly violated. Trying to deterime under what conditions given the situation where my rights were violated.
I do not agree with lumping the notion of “free will” in with being an “existentialist”, as well as “existentialist philosophers”…however I believe people have the ability to freely choose their actions.
I find it very interesting that you can write all of that and yet completely ignore the most important points of my post…namely #2, #3, and the final question.
-
Are you going to say that just because you happen to outsource your electricy generation, that when you stop providing the resources necessary to maintain that flow, the electricity shouldn’t stop just the same as if you never rode your bicycle generator again?
-
Are you a socialist?
“1) Are you going to say that just because you happen to outsource your electricy generation, that when you stop providing the resources necessary to maintain that flow, the electricity shouldn’t stop just the same as if you never rode your bicycle generator again?”
That is completely irrelevant to the point I am discussing, and no, I am not. What I am picking at is Friedman’s assertion that the power company or someone there is void of responsibility.
“2) Are you a socialist?”
Sure am.
“I believe people have the ability to freely choose their actions.”
Then there’s a problem if you agree with Friedman’s assertion that the power company has no responsibility in the matter. Self-ownership, to use terms more widely accepted here, is not a one time deal. It is not just in effect at the moment of contract, but at every point before and thereafter. It is inalienable. If its in alienable, then all actions, no matter their relationship to any contract, are wholly those of the actor, and no one but the actor can be held reponsible for them. At the moment the power was shut off there was an action on the side of the power company. That is not to say it was not a predictable action or one that lay outside of the contract, but that someone made a decision when they could have just as freely not.
Notice how you had to acknowledge (multiple times in fact) that the only way you have a single thing to say about any of this is if you assume the (as you admitted) false notion that “no electricity = death”.
“Notice how you had to acknowledge (multiple times in fact) that the only way you have a single thing to say about any of this is if you assume the (as you admitted) false notion that ‘no electricity = death’.”
No, I didn’t notice that.
Meanwhile, a few posts up: “Even if the man does not die and it’s just a matter of providing electricity, at every instant, despite whatever contract was signed, the person has a choice about whether or not they will honor their contract, turn the power off or not.”
No matter what the result, even if the man’s power is shut off providing him with a greater insight into his being and the nature of modern civilization causing him to move to Tibet and live a long, simple, and happy life as a monk, there is action and therefore responsibility on the side of the power company.
Ignoring that I acknowledged that the scenario need not be that the man died*…
Are you able to reconcile your belief that people both have agency and that the power company was not in some capacity responsible?
*my second post, 12th line: “Even if the man does not die and it’s just a matter of providing electricity, at every instant, despite whatever contract was signed, the person has a choice about whether or not they will honor their contract, turn the power off or not.”
Only by veering the course the point you were implying, which is why I didn’t find it necessary to address that part. And again, it’s all irrelevant if you aren’t suggesting anything be done differently, which you directly confirmed you weren’t doing. So, here again, in another thread, you have no real point, it just appears you’re looking to argue.