6 ms·

Then you're on a slippery slope of judging the intentions (which is what we are doing nowadays, but I don't think we should be). Intentions are muddy. Decisions

by comboy 7y ago

Then you're on a slippery slope of judging the intentions (which is what we are doing nowadays, but I don't think we should be). Intentions are muddy. Decisions and actions just come to us and it's later that we invent a story about how they came to be (at least that's AFAIK our current understanding of how consciousness works)

daveFNbuck 7y ago
Why would your understanding of consciousness change whether we should judge intentions? Either way we have a person who is acting on a decision to murder. If we discovered that a robot had been programmed to murder after it tried to kill someone, we wouldn't let it back into society sooner if it failed in its attempt. We'd do our best to make sure it wouldn't murder anyone when released first.
- sysbin 7y ago
  There is a difference between programming a robot to kill, compared to a human that had events happen (without will over them) and where the events almost led to a murder. The human isn't programmed to kill by those events but they almost led to the act. You have to acknowledge absolute vs uncertainty in the problem.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    We're talking about people performing actions with the goal of causing another person's death, not someone who's completely at the mercy of fate and has nothing to do with murder. If it helps, you can think of the robot as having a bug that leads to try to kill people sometimes if the right events happen around it. Should we only fix the bug in robots that have carried out successful attempts?
    - sysbin 7y ago
      > We're talking about people performing actions with the goal of causing another person's death, not someone who's completely at the mercy of fate and has nothing to do with murder. That's an assumption and it very well can be the outcome of fate alone. It's not like there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that people have control over their actions. Neuroscience exhibits people are just cause & effect. Imagining a robot that has a bug is similar to the outcome of fate. Outside the realm of blame being on the robot but the universe that made the bug possible & happen.
      - daveFNbuck 7y ago
        Let's look at the robot some more. The universe made the bug possible and happen. I think we should try to fix the bug, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. I also think we should restrain the robot to prevent it from being able to kill again until we think the bug is fixed, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. Do you disagree with me on either of these points?
        sysbin 7y ago
        > I think we should try to fix the bug, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. Humans have been striving for this goal since the beginning of time. Of course I think the intentions are correct. > I also think we should restrain the robot to prevent it from being able to kill again until we think the bug is fixed, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. The word "restrain" shouldn't be used with what's done by the current justice system (specifically in usa). Anyhow my view of murder/any crime is similar to a person that caught an illness (like the flu for example). Outside one's control like everything else. I think the correct course of action is educating how reality really is for the unfortunate and a process that doesn't have any lingering punishment associated to it. Although the idea of knowing if a murder is no longer a murder is close to an impossibility with current day science. Similar to knowing if someone is capable of murdering when they haven't done the act.
        daveFNbuck 7y ago
        I agree with you about rehabilitation over punishment. Why do you think we shouldn't rehabilitate attempted murderers?
        sysbin 7y ago
        > Why do you think we shouldn't rehabilitate attempted murderers? I don't necessarily think what the justice system associates with rehabilitation is what I associate with the word. To answer your question, yes a person shouldn't be doomed to jail and when everything is outside one's control. Furthermore, if you study killology the reality is that the majority of humans cannot take the life of another human. The statistics in World War II was approximately 25% of soldiers would actually fire their gun. Today the number is grossly higher and the academic research has the cause being from military adopting psychological training methods for dehumanization. This is interesting to understand with the topic. Since, I theorize the majority of attempts couldn't actually carry it out and didn't realize until reaching the moment where they couldn't do it.
LegitShady 7y ago
Suggest some situations where hiring the hitman to kill a rival would be done with the correct intentions, then. Because it sounds more like boilerplate you could use yourself to muddy things that aren't muddy. It's ok to just say "killing your competition is bad". No moral ambiguity to it.
- ffsxcg 7y ago
  I don’t have to. Thats the prosecution job, which, as you point out, is almost trivially easy.
  - LegitShady 7y ago
    no, no. you totally misunderstood. You're arguing we don't know the specific circumstance so we shouldn't make moral judgments. My reply was to ask you to suggest some situations where hiring a hitman to kill a business rival would be morally ambiguous. That would be the job the of defense, not the job of the prosecution. They would be using your argument. Whats the morally ambiguous case here?
AJ007 7y ago
Consider that in China 55 crimes carry the death penalty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
badrabbit 7y ago
That's the whole point of a legal(criminal) judgement! The only thing that matters is your intention. Your intention is what the prosecution needs to prove and you need to defend against their accusation. You can literally kill anyone and get away with it if the prosecution can't prove your intent has either negligence or premeditation and you were not intending to kill in a way approved by law (e.g.: did the soldier intend to kill his enemy within rules of engagement or did he intend to kill the enemy out of personal need for vengeance or hatred)
- edoo 7y ago
  Usually the action is a crime and the intent scales the crime. If you accidentally kill someone due to negligence that is manslaughter. If you intended to do it that is murder.
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    As I replied to a different comment,negligence is proven which means the person intended to act in negligence. Manslaughter won't hold up if the person did their due dilligence as would a "reasonable" person in that situation would. Any crime at all requires criminal intent.
- levythe 7y ago
  An voluntary or involuntary manslaughter conviction may be less severe a sentence, but it's hardly getting away with it.
  - wbl 7y ago
    Drive a car and there will be no penalty.
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      In the UK: If you kill somebody by purposefully driving into them, even if the prosecutors can't prove whether you intended them to die or just be severely injured: Murder. If you _try_ to kill somebody with your car but you fail: Attempted Murder. If you were just trying to "scare" them, or if you weren't on a road at all and they died "by mistake": Manslaughter If you inadvertently kill somebody while driving drunk: Causing Death by Careless Driving while Under the Influence of drink or drugs If you were so very bad at driving that it should have been obvious that you might kill someone: Causing Death by Dangerous Driving or Gross Negligence Manslaughter. If you were just bad at driving: Causing Death by Careless Driving. Of course if your husband is an American spook you can just lie and then hurry aboard a flight home before anybody realises where you went...
exegete 7y ago
Someone accidentally hitting someone with a car and someone intentionally doing so are very different things. The key is what evidence you have to show one or the other. If there is evidence someone hired a hitman then I don’t see how that can be muddied. The person intended to murder someone. I’d also like to see a source on your claim about consciousness. I’m not sure how decisions and actions can just come to us and then we can purposely add a motivation afterward (but not before?).
al2o3cr 7y ago
Then you're on a slippery slope of judging the intentions I mean, who hasn't spent more than 40x the average disposable income in their country on a hitman just to jump out at the last minute and yell "IT'S JUST A PRANK BRO"?
- krapp 7y ago
  What even is a "hitman?" Seems like it's just an arbitrary term that can be used to mean anything. Maybe I'm a hitman. Maybe you're a hitman. Who gets to decide what a "hitman" is and what that means? What is their agenda? And "murder?" We don't even know what life is, how can we be so arrogant as to define something like "murder" on so murky a premise as the ending of "life?" That's like dividing by zero. The commonly accepted list of the characteristics of a living thing (it consumes material to feed itself, it can grow and reproduce, it can die and respond to its environment) also apply to fire, so obviously firemen are also committing murder, and firemen are also hitmen. Someday when we all tumble into the Orwellian nightmare this slippery slope is sending us down, we'll all be "hitmen" and everything will be "murder." This whole "hitman" thing is so obviously just another thinly-disguised form of thoughtcrime perpetrated against free-thinkers who don't blindly conform to the status quo. Wake up, sheeple!
Larrikin 7y ago
This point is constantly brought up on message boards like its a valid point, but in reality a large chunk of the law is literally about judging intent to determine the severity of the crime.
make3 7y ago
man in this case his intentions are crystal clear. he hired a hitman for a giant sum in his country. there is no ambiguity at all about his intentions
gregmac 7y ago
Once you've hired a hitman, the outcome is basically out of your control. Is there an argument where someone had hired a hitman with the intent they're unsuccessful? That seems far fetched to me. I can buy your argument if they had intended to commit the murder themselves, because they can change their mind at any point up to actually doing it. Similar situations to the hitman exist, too: planting a bomb, poisoning food, etc. Just because they're a bad bomb maker, or the poison wasn't potent enough, or the target doesn't drive/eat the food/etc doesn't change that they clearly intended to kill someone. To be clear, I draw a distinct line between possessing a bomb and actually planting it in someone's car - the former might be still be a crime but is clearly not the same severity as actually killing someone, whereas the actions the perpetrator took in the latter are indistinguishable, regardless of outcome.
- gist 7y ago
  > Once you've hired a hitman, the outcome is basically out of your control. And what happens if you hire a hitman and by accident he kills 20 people instead of 1 person? [1] [1] Say some poison or even he just goes berzerk with the gun or weapon.
  - glofish 7y ago
    Imagine you hire someone to mow your lawn, they accidentally destroy the neighbors' lawn, run over their dog, then set their house on fire. Also, they were drunk and on the way home from the job drove into a crowd of people. Should you be responsible?
    - QuinnWilton 7y ago
      These aren't comparable examples. If you hire a hitman, there's a reasonable expectation that people will die. No such expectation exists for hiring someone to mow your lawn.
      - gruez 7y ago
        There's a reasonable expectation that the victim will die, but not anyone else. I guess you can argue that there might be a risk of collateral damage, but there's also a risk of collateral damage in hiring contractors for your house (eg. the plumber starting a gas leak resulting you and your neighbor's house getting blown up).
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
Slippery slope? Our entire legal system is based on intention, which is why there is a huge difference in sentencing between crimes like negligent homicide and premeditated murder.
- bloak 7y ago
  For a murder conviction and a long sentence there has to be both: someone killed and "malice". You punch someone in anger and they die: murder, years in prison. You punch someone in anger and they are not seriously injured: relatively minor. You accidentally shoot your wife while cleaning your revolver: relatively minor. What I don't like is when they try to convict people for having conducted some kind of feasibility study. Sometimes this results in people who would have decided against committing the crime going to prison for decades as if they had committed it. Sometimes it results in people who would have committed the crime going free because the jury thinks, "This is ridiculous". I know it's more expensive and often a bit dangerous, but probably the police should wait until the gang actually arrives at the bank, or whatever, before making their arrests, rather than trying to prosecute a bunch of people who were talking about perhaps raiding a bank.
  - snagglegaggle 7y ago
    I agree; minority report and other fiction works aren't talking about some future where people are judged on potential futures. They are talking about now.

by comboy 7y ago

daveFNbuck 7y ago

Why would your understanding of consciousness change whether we should judge intentions? Either way we have a person who is acting on a decision to murder. If we discovered that a robot had been programmed to murder after it tried to kill someone, we wouldn't let it back into society sooner if it failed in its attempt. We'd do our best to make sure it wouldn't murder anyone when released first.

sysbin 7y ago
There is a difference between programming a robot to kill, compared to a human that had events happen (without will over them) and where the events almost led to a murder. The human isn't programmed to kill by those events but they almost led to the act. You have to acknowledge absolute vs uncertainty in the problem.
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  We're talking about people performing actions with the goal of causing another person's death, not someone who's completely at the mercy of fate and has nothing to do with murder. If it helps, you can think of the robot as having a bug that leads to try to kill people sometimes if the right events happen around it. Should we only fix the bug in robots that have carried out successful attempts?
  - sysbin 7y ago
    > We're talking about people performing actions with the goal of causing another person's death, not someone who's completely at the mercy of fate and has nothing to do with murder. That's an assumption and it very well can be the outcome of fate alone. It's not like there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that people have control over their actions. Neuroscience exhibits people are just cause & effect. Imagining a robot that has a bug is similar to the outcome of fate. Outside the realm of blame being on the robot but the universe that made the bug possible & happen.
    - daveFNbuck 7y ago
      Let's look at the robot some more. The universe made the bug possible and happen. I think we should try to fix the bug, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. I also think we should restrain the robot to prevent it from being able to kill again until we think the bug is fixed, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. Do you disagree with me on either of these points?
      - sysbin 7y ago
        > I think we should try to fix the bug, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. Humans have been striving for this goal since the beginning of time. Of course I think the intentions are correct. > I also think we should restrain the robot to prevent it from being able to kill again until we think the bug is fixed, even though it wasn't the robot's fault. The word "restrain" shouldn't be used with what's done by the current justice system (specifically in usa). Anyhow my view of murder/any crime is similar to a person that caught an illness (like the flu for example). Outside one's control like everything else. I think the correct course of action is educating how reality really is for the unfortunate and a process that doesn't have any lingering punishment associated to it. Although the idea of knowing if a murder is no longer a murder is close to an impossibility with current day science. Similar to knowing if someone is capable of murdering when they haven't done the act.
        daveFNbuck 7y ago
        I agree with you about rehabilitation over punishment. Why do you think we shouldn't rehabilitate attempted murderers?
        sysbin 7y ago
        > Why do you think we shouldn't rehabilitate attempted murderers? I don't necessarily think what the justice system associates with rehabilitation is what I associate with the word. To answer your question, yes a person shouldn't be doomed to jail and when everything is outside one's control. Furthermore, if you study killology the reality is that the majority of humans cannot take the life of another human. The statistics in World War II was approximately 25% of soldiers would actually fire their gun. Today the number is grossly higher and the academic research has the cause being from military adopting psychological training methods for dehumanization. This is interesting to understand with the topic. Since, I theorize the majority of attempts couldn't actually carry it out and didn't realize until reaching the moment where they couldn't do it.

LegitShady 7y ago

Suggest some situations where hiring the hitman to kill a rival would be done with the correct intentions, then. Because it sounds more like boilerplate you could use yourself to muddy things that aren't muddy. It's ok to just say "killing your competition is bad". No moral ambiguity to it.

ffsxcg 7y ago
I don’t have to. Thats the prosecution job, which, as you point out, is almost trivially easy.
- LegitShady 7y ago
  no, no. you totally misunderstood. You're arguing we don't know the specific circumstance so we shouldn't make moral judgments. My reply was to ask you to suggest some situations where hiring a hitman to kill a business rival would be morally ambiguous. That would be the job the of defense, not the job of the prosecution. They would be using your argument. Whats the morally ambiguous case here?

AJ007 7y ago

Consider that in China 55 crimes carry the death penalty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

badrabbit 7y ago

That's the whole point of a legal(criminal) judgement! The only thing that matters is your intention. Your intention is what the prosecution needs to prove and you need to defend against their accusation. You can literally kill anyone and get away with it if the prosecution can't prove your intent has either negligence or premeditation and you were not intending to kill in a way approved by law (e.g.: did the soldier intend to kill his enemy within rules of engagement or did he intend to kill the enemy out of personal need for vengeance or hatred)

edoo 7y ago
Usually the action is a crime and the intent scales the crime. If you accidentally kill someone due to negligence that is manslaughter. If you intended to do it that is murder.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  As I replied to a different comment,negligence is proven which means the person intended to act in negligence. Manslaughter won't hold up if the person did their due dilligence as would a "reasonable" person in that situation would. Any crime at all requires criminal intent.
levythe 7y ago
An voluntary or involuntary manslaughter conviction may be less severe a sentence, but it's hardly getting away with it.
- wbl 7y ago
  Drive a car and there will be no penalty.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    In the UK: If you kill somebody by purposefully driving into them, even if the prosecutors can't prove whether you intended them to die or just be severely injured: Murder. If you _try_ to kill somebody with your car but you fail: Attempted Murder. If you were just trying to "scare" them, or if you weren't on a road at all and they died "by mistake": Manslaughter If you inadvertently kill somebody while driving drunk: Causing Death by Careless Driving while Under the Influence of drink or drugs If you were so very bad at driving that it should have been obvious that you might kill someone: Causing Death by Dangerous Driving or Gross Negligence Manslaughter. If you were just bad at driving: Causing Death by Careless Driving. Of course if your husband is an American spook you can just lie and then hurry aboard a flight home before anybody realises where you went...

exegete 7y ago

Someone accidentally hitting someone with a car and someone intentionally doing so are very different things. The key is what evidence you have to show one or the other. If there is evidence someone hired a hitman then I don’t see how that can be muddied. The person intended to murder someone. I’d also like to see a source on your claim about consciousness. I’m not sure how decisions and actions can just come to us and then we can purposely add a motivation afterward (but not before?).

al2o3cr 7y ago

Then you're on a slippery slope of judging the intentions I mean, who hasn't spent more than 40x the average disposable income in their country on a hitman just to jump out at the last minute and yell "IT'S JUST A PRANK BRO"?

krapp 7y ago
What even is a "hitman?" Seems like it's just an arbitrary term that can be used to mean anything. Maybe I'm a hitman. Maybe you're a hitman. Who gets to decide what a "hitman" is and what that means? What is their agenda? And "murder?" We don't even know what life is, how can we be so arrogant as to define something like "murder" on so murky a premise as the ending of "life?" That's like dividing by zero. The commonly accepted list of the characteristics of a living thing (it consumes material to feed itself, it can grow and reproduce, it can die and respond to its environment) also apply to fire, so obviously firemen are also committing murder, and firemen are also hitmen. Someday when we all tumble into the Orwellian nightmare this slippery slope is sending us down, we'll all be "hitmen" and everything will be "murder." This whole "hitman" thing is so obviously just another thinly-disguised form of thoughtcrime perpetrated against free-thinkers who don't blindly conform to the status quo. Wake up, sheeple!

Larrikin 7y ago

This point is constantly brought up on message boards like its a valid point, but in reality a large chunk of the law is literally about judging intent to determine the severity of the crime.

make3 7y ago

man in this case his intentions are crystal clear. he hired a hitman for a giant sum in his country. there is no ambiguity at all about his intentions

gregmac 7y ago

Once you've hired a hitman, the outcome is basically out of your control. Is there an argument where someone had hired a hitman with the intent they're unsuccessful? That seems far fetched to me. I can buy your argument if they had intended to commit the murder themselves, because they can change their mind at any point up to actually doing it. Similar situations to the hitman exist, too: planting a bomb, poisoning food, etc. Just because they're a bad bomb maker, or the poison wasn't potent enough, or the target doesn't drive/eat the food/etc doesn't change that they clearly intended to kill someone. To be clear, I draw a distinct line between possessing a bomb and actually planting it in someone's car - the former might be still be a crime but is clearly not the same severity as actually killing someone, whereas the actions the perpetrator took in the latter are indistinguishable, regardless of outcome.

gist 7y ago
> Once you've hired a hitman, the outcome is basically out of your control. And what happens if you hire a hitman and by accident he kills 20 people instead of 1 person? [1] [1] Say some poison or even he just goes berzerk with the gun or weapon.
- glofish 7y ago
  Imagine you hire someone to mow your lawn, they accidentally destroy the neighbors' lawn, run over their dog, then set their house on fire. Also, they were drunk and on the way home from the job drove into a crowd of people. Should you be responsible?
  - QuinnWilton 7y ago
    These aren't comparable examples. If you hire a hitman, there's a reasonable expectation that people will die. No such expectation exists for hiring someone to mow your lawn.
    - gruez 7y ago
      There's a reasonable expectation that the victim will die, but not anyone else. I guess you can argue that there might be a risk of collateral damage, but there's also a risk of collateral damage in hiring contractors for your house (eg. the plumber starting a gas leak resulting you and your neighbor's house getting blown up).

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

Slippery slope? Our entire legal system is based on intention, which is why there is a huge difference in sentencing between crimes like negligent homicide and premeditated murder.

bloak 7y ago
For a murder conviction and a long sentence there has to be both: someone killed and "malice". You punch someone in anger and they die: murder, years in prison. You punch someone in anger and they are not seriously injured: relatively minor. You accidentally shoot your wife while cleaning your revolver: relatively minor. What I don't like is when they try to convict people for having conducted some kind of feasibility study. Sometimes this results in people who would have decided against committing the crime going to prison for decades as if they had committed it. Sometimes it results in people who would have committed the crime going free because the jury thinks, "This is ridiculous". I know it's more expensive and often a bit dangerous, but probably the police should wait until the gang actually arrives at the bank, or whatever, before making their arrests, rather than trying to prosecute a bunch of people who were talking about perhaps raiding a bank.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  I agree; minority report and other fiction works aren't talking about some future where people are judged on potential futures. They are talking about now.