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lederhosenA hypothetical:
Arthur and Beatrice get married, and they have two kids. Unfortunately, the marriage turns sour; Arthur becomes violent and abusive to Beatrice and tells her that if she leaves him he'll track her down and kill their children.
Beatrice has no doubt that he means it, but decides enough is enough - she leaves anyway, taking the kids. She tells her friend Carla where she's going, tells her about Arthur's threats, and warns her not to let anybody else know.
Arthur is furious. He's thinking about making good on his threat, but he has some second thoughts - they are his kids, after all. He goes down to the bar and starts complaining about his "ungrateful bitch of a wife", without going into specifics. A guy named David hears his story, commiserates, and tells Arthur he shouldn't be afraid of a little payback - no man should take that sort of crap lying down, right?
David starts telling a story about the time he slashed his ex-wife's tires, but Arthur doesn't need to hear any more; he's been reassured that payback is how a man deals with this situation, and he starts making plans. He's not in a position to threaten Carla, but he knows she's in trouble at the moment - she's borrowed a lot of money and is being threatened with violence if she can't repay it. So he offers her $10,000 (telling her he just wants to see his children) and Carla tells him where to find his wife and kids.
With this information and David's unwitting encouragement, Arthur drives down to Beatrice's hiding place and makes good on his threats, killing his kids. Afterwards, he tells any who'll listen that it's Beatrice's fault; after all, he told her exactly what would happen if she left and she did it anyway.
Question: which of these four people are morally responsible for these murders, and to what degree? I have my own thoughts (below), but I'd like to hear your comments before you read mine.
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My thoughts:
First off, "X is guilty" doesn't preclude "Y is guilty". Moral responsibility is not a fixed-sum game; if two people collaborate to commit a murder, you don't divide the guilt by two.
My gut instinct says that Arthur is 100% culpable for his actions, but Carla and David also have some responsibility (maybe 70% for Carla and 40% for David) and Beatrice has zero responsibility. But putting that into a rational framework takes a bit more work...
Devil's advocate: If Carla is guilty, it's because she acted for her own sake while knowing her actions were likely to endanger the children via Arthur. But the same is true of Beatrice; there was no danger to them as long as she stayed with Arthur.
So why don't I accept that? It comes back to a discussion I had with Cerebrate a while back about irrationality as a tactic in game theory, which I'll illustrate with another hypothetical.
Consider a game with two players; one represents a bomber trying to get a ransom under threat of detonating a very large bomb (big enough to kill both of them), the other is a negotiator trying to prevent the bomb going off (preferably without paying a ransom). Each gets to choose between cooperation and non-cooperation, with the negotiator choosing first. There are four possible outcomes to this game:
A: Both cooperate: the negotiator pays a ransom, the bomber doesn't detonate the bomb. This is the best possible outcome for the bomber, and the second-best outcome for the negotiator.
B: Only the bomber cooperates: the negotiator doesn't pay, but they both get to live. This is the second-best outcome for the bomber, and the best outcome for the negotiator.
C: Only the negotiator cooperates: the money is paid, but the bomb goes off anyway and both die. This is the equal-worst outcome for both.
D: Neither cooperates: money isn't paid, both die. This is also the equal-worst outcome.
Clearly, both parties would prefer outcomes A or B over the other two possibilities. But how do they decide between those two?
Regardless of the negotiator's choice, the bomber is better off choosing cooperation - living, with or without a ransom, beats suicide. Knowing this, the negotiator can choose non-cooperation, knowing that a 'rational' bomber will still cooperate, leading to outcome B.
This is great for the negotiator, but not a good proposition for the bomber. Is there any way he can steer the outcome towards A?
As it happens, there is: if he can somehow eliminate B as an outcome in advance. Take option B off the table, and the best remaining outcome for both parties is A - mutual cooperation.
To achieve this, the bomber has to restrict the options in advance. If you're making a bad action movie, this can be done with gimmickry - "the bomb will detonate automatically unless the money is wired into my account, I couldn't disarm it even if I wanted to".
But the simpler approach is to commit yourself to an 'irrational' course of action, conditional on certain circumstances - "if you don't pay the ransom, I will blow us all up".
Does the negotiator believe the threat? If he doesn't, he'll call the bluff... at which point, a rational bomber will give up, and the negotiator wins. So the negotiator has to be convinced that the bomber will do it - that he's irrational enough to choose suicide if he can't get what he wants.
So "irrational anger" isn't necessary irrational at all; it's part of a longer game. If you can convince people in advance that you are an unreasonable cuss who won't settle for second place, you can eliminate those second-place options from play, steering things to victory. By limiting your options in advance (and letting others know you've done so), you might actually improve your outcomes.
The counter-tactic to this is to make the negotiator's choice before the bomber can commit to irrationality: make a philosophical commitment not to reward people for limiting their own choices (and advertise that you've done so).
In general, I believe we're responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our actions, even if mediated by others. If Carla knew that giving information to Arthur would result in death, then she bears guilt for those deaths, even though she didn't want them to happen. David had less reason to foresee the consequences of his words, so he shoulders less of the blame, but he isn't off the hook.
But in this case, 'irrationality' is an attempt at game-playing by twisting the consequences out of order. If Beatrice had left Arthur, and he'd then killed his kids with no prior warning, we would certainly (and rightly) place the blame entirely on Arthur; by making his threat before Beatrice makes her choice, he tries to reverse the order of choices and shift the blame to her. As far as I can tell, the only way to defeat that insidious tactic is to refuse to play along with it, and shift the blame back to the blackmailer. (I've spent half an hour trying to formulate this argument; I'm not happy with it, but I think the truth is somewhere in this direction.)
This is why I think Beatrice bears no blame in the scenario above and Carla does: Beatrice is responding to somebody who has deliberately restricted his own choices in an attempt to pre-empt hers, Carla is not.
But, like I said, interested to hear other people's views.
[Edit: And I just realised two of my made-up names match two LJ friends... oops! Similarities entirely unintended.]
Arthur and Beatrice get married, and they have two kids. Unfortunately, the marriage turns sour; Arthur becomes violent and abusive to Beatrice and tells her that if she leaves him he'll track her down and kill their children.
Beatrice has no doubt that he means it, but decides enough is enough - she leaves anyway, taking the kids. She tells her friend Carla where she's going, tells her about Arthur's threats, and warns her not to let anybody else know.
Arthur is furious. He's thinking about making good on his threat, but he has some second thoughts - they are his kids, after all. He goes down to the bar and starts complaining about his "ungrateful bitch of a wife", without going into specifics. A guy named David hears his story, commiserates, and tells Arthur he shouldn't be afraid of a little payback - no man should take that sort of crap lying down, right?
David starts telling a story about the time he slashed his ex-wife's tires, but Arthur doesn't need to hear any more; he's been reassured that payback is how a man deals with this situation, and he starts making plans. He's not in a position to threaten Carla, but he knows she's in trouble at the moment - she's borrowed a lot of money and is being threatened with violence if she can't repay it. So he offers her $10,000 (telling her he just wants to see his children) and Carla tells him where to find his wife and kids.
With this information and David's unwitting encouragement, Arthur drives down to Beatrice's hiding place and makes good on his threats, killing his kids. Afterwards, he tells any who'll listen that it's Beatrice's fault; after all, he told her exactly what would happen if she left and she did it anyway.
Question: which of these four people are morally responsible for these murders, and to what degree? I have my own thoughts (below), but I'd like to hear your comments before you read mine.
************************
My thoughts:
First off, "X is guilty" doesn't preclude "Y is guilty". Moral responsibility is not a fixed-sum game; if two people collaborate to commit a murder, you don't divide the guilt by two.
My gut instinct says that Arthur is 100% culpable for his actions, but Carla and David also have some responsibility (maybe 70% for Carla and 40% for David) and Beatrice has zero responsibility. But putting that into a rational framework takes a bit more work...
Devil's advocate: If Carla is guilty, it's because she acted for her own sake while knowing her actions were likely to endanger the children via Arthur. But the same is true of Beatrice; there was no danger to them as long as she stayed with Arthur.
So why don't I accept that? It comes back to a discussion I had with Cerebrate a while back about irrationality as a tactic in game theory, which I'll illustrate with another hypothetical.
Consider a game with two players; one represents a bomber trying to get a ransom under threat of detonating a very large bomb (big enough to kill both of them), the other is a negotiator trying to prevent the bomb going off (preferably without paying a ransom). Each gets to choose between cooperation and non-cooperation, with the negotiator choosing first. There are four possible outcomes to this game:
A: Both cooperate: the negotiator pays a ransom, the bomber doesn't detonate the bomb. This is the best possible outcome for the bomber, and the second-best outcome for the negotiator.
B: Only the bomber cooperates: the negotiator doesn't pay, but they both get to live. This is the second-best outcome for the bomber, and the best outcome for the negotiator.
C: Only the negotiator cooperates: the money is paid, but the bomb goes off anyway and both die. This is the equal-worst outcome for both.
D: Neither cooperates: money isn't paid, both die. This is also the equal-worst outcome.
Clearly, both parties would prefer outcomes A or B over the other two possibilities. But how do they decide between those two?
Regardless of the negotiator's choice, the bomber is better off choosing cooperation - living, with or without a ransom, beats suicide. Knowing this, the negotiator can choose non-cooperation, knowing that a 'rational' bomber will still cooperate, leading to outcome B.
This is great for the negotiator, but not a good proposition for the bomber. Is there any way he can steer the outcome towards A?
As it happens, there is: if he can somehow eliminate B as an outcome in advance. Take option B off the table, and the best remaining outcome for both parties is A - mutual cooperation.
To achieve this, the bomber has to restrict the options in advance. If you're making a bad action movie, this can be done with gimmickry - "the bomb will detonate automatically unless the money is wired into my account, I couldn't disarm it even if I wanted to".
But the simpler approach is to commit yourself to an 'irrational' course of action, conditional on certain circumstances - "if you don't pay the ransom, I will blow us all up".
Does the negotiator believe the threat? If he doesn't, he'll call the bluff... at which point, a rational bomber will give up, and the negotiator wins. So the negotiator has to be convinced that the bomber will do it - that he's irrational enough to choose suicide if he can't get what he wants.
So "irrational anger" isn't necessary irrational at all; it's part of a longer game. If you can convince people in advance that you are an unreasonable cuss who won't settle for second place, you can eliminate those second-place options from play, steering things to victory. By limiting your options in advance (and letting others know you've done so), you might actually improve your outcomes.
The counter-tactic to this is to make the negotiator's choice before the bomber can commit to irrationality: make a philosophical commitment not to reward people for limiting their own choices (and advertise that you've done so).
In general, I believe we're responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our actions, even if mediated by others. If Carla knew that giving information to Arthur would result in death, then she bears guilt for those deaths, even though she didn't want them to happen. David had less reason to foresee the consequences of his words, so he shoulders less of the blame, but he isn't off the hook.
But in this case, 'irrationality' is an attempt at game-playing by twisting the consequences out of order. If Beatrice had left Arthur, and he'd then killed his kids with no prior warning, we would certainly (and rightly) place the blame entirely on Arthur; by making his threat before Beatrice makes her choice, he tries to reverse the order of choices and shift the blame to her. As far as I can tell, the only way to defeat that insidious tactic is to refuse to play along with it, and shift the blame back to the blackmailer. (I've spent half an hour trying to formulate this argument; I'm not happy with it, but I think the truth is somewhere in this direction.)
This is why I think Beatrice bears no blame in the scenario above and Carla does: Beatrice is responding to somebody who has deliberately restricted his own choices in an attempt to pre-empt hers, Carla is not.
But, like I said, interested to hear other people's views.
[Edit: And I just realised two of my made-up names match two LJ friends... oops! Similarities entirely unintended.]
