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You should at least be comparing expected outcomes (if not worst possible outcomes) rather than actual outcomes. Especially because your thought experiment is

by nickff 11y ago

You should at least be comparing expected outcomes (if not worst possible outcomes) rather than actual outcomes. Especially because your thought experiment is subject to extreme (literal) survivorship bias; no murder victim will answer your hypothetical. Other crimes such as carjacking, which has a 50% death rate for the victim, should be punished very severely even if the victim survived. In addition, in cases where people do things like cheating, they could blame the 'victim' for actually filing for divorce, and not being more forgiving. The divorce filing could be seen as much more damaging to children than the actual cheating, unless you try to instate some sort of negligence standard for 'immoral' activities. Another interesting case might be a child 'coming out' as homosexual when their parents are very religious and consider homosexuality a sin; is the child not inflicting harm here? Is honesty (or lack thereof) more troubling to you than threatening a fellow human being with disability or death?

bambax 11y ago
I think the point of the parent is not that we should punish more, it's that we should punish less: since we don't punish grave misbehaviors that have dire consequences but are technically not illegal, why punish shoplifting?
- nickff 11y ago
  I do not address the question of what (absolute level of) punishment (if any) would be appropriate for any level of harm; I am offering a set of criticisms of the standard (, how harm could be measured and compared).
- DougN7 11y ago
  But not punishing shoplifting is a non-starter. So if inflicting emotional pain is worse than mere property loss, and we want to keep things equal/relative, that means we start punishing for inflicting emotional pain. This whole line of reasoning leads to either anarchy or more punishment for arguably moral issues.
ap22213 11y ago
Where'd you pull the 50% statistic? In the U.S. it seems it's more like fewer than 14 people die for every 38,000 carjackings.

by nickff 11y ago

bambax 11y ago

I think the point of the parent is not that we should punish more, it's that we should punish less: since we don't punish grave misbehaviors that have dire consequences but are technically not illegal, why punish shoplifting?

nickff 11y ago
I do not address the question of what (absolute level of) punishment (if any) would be appropriate for any level of harm; I am offering a set of criticisms of the standard (, how harm could be measured and compared).
DougN7 11y ago
But not punishing shoplifting is a non-starter. So if inflicting emotional pain is worse than mere property loss, and we want to keep things equal/relative, that means we start punishing for inflicting emotional pain. This whole line of reasoning leads to either anarchy or more punishment for arguably moral issues.

ap22213 11y ago

Where'd you pull the 50% statistic? In the U.S. it seems it's more like fewer than 14 people die for every 38,000 carjackings.