3 ms·

Basically my thought is that blame is not zero sum. Assigning some blame from one party should not in any way be taken to mean another party is not less to bla

by jlgreco 14y ago

Basically my thought is that blame is not zero sum. Assigning some blame from one party should not in any way be taken to mean another party is not less to blame. Multiple parties could each be (for lack of better terminology) "100% to blame".

mindcrime 14y ago
Have an upvote, for an interesting comment. I'm not completely sure I agree with the sentiment, but you make an interesting point. I'm not sure what exactly it would mean to say that two different parties are both "100% to blame" for something, but I suspect there's at least kernel of something there that I would agree with.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  As a simple and obviously rather obscure example to think about zero-sum blame, consider two men sitting in a room facing opposite walls. In front of each of them are identical control panels; in order to launch the nuke they both need to issue identical commands at the same time. Both should be considered fully responsible for anything that happens. I would would not consider "Well he turned his key too!" to reduce blame in any way, they would both be to blame just as much as if the system only required one operator. Wether this principle of non-zero-sum blame can be applied to situations less obviously engineered is something I can't really support, but it is a point of view that I hold.
benatkin 14y ago
Mathematics isn't failing here. You're mixing contexts. If you look at it from the perspective of the victim, it's less than 100% of the blame. If you look at it from the perspective of a single perpetrator, they're 100% to blame because the other perpetrator doesn't absolve them of any of the blame. If you try to add the 100% of each perpetrator in isolation together, you're making an error.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  My point isn't that mathematics is failing somehow, but rather that blame or responsibility is something that cannot be summed. Trying to do so is like trying to add up happiness and sadness. Ethics, and the underlying human emotion, don't have a system of arithmetic that we are aware of.
  - benatkin 14y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U

by jlgreco 14y ago

mindcrime 14y ago

Have an upvote, for an interesting comment. I'm not completely sure I agree with the sentiment, but you make an interesting point. I'm not sure what exactly it would mean to say that two different parties are both "100% to blame" for something, but I suspect there's at least kernel of something there that I would agree with.

jlgreco 14y ago
As a simple and obviously rather obscure example to think about zero-sum blame, consider two men sitting in a room facing opposite walls. In front of each of them are identical control panels; in order to launch the nuke they both need to issue identical commands at the same time. Both should be considered fully responsible for anything that happens. I would would not consider "Well he turned his key too!" to reduce blame in any way, they would both be to blame just as much as if the system only required one operator. Wether this principle of non-zero-sum blame can be applied to situations less obviously engineered is something I can't really support, but it is a point of view that I hold.

benatkin 14y ago

Mathematics isn't failing here. You're mixing contexts. If you look at it from the perspective of the victim, it's less than 100% of the blame. If you look at it from the perspective of a single perpetrator, they're 100% to blame because the other perpetrator doesn't absolve them of any of the blame. If you try to add the 100% of each perpetrator in isolation together, you're making an error.

jlgreco 14y ago
My point isn't that mathematics is failing somehow, but rather that blame or responsibility is something that cannot be summed. Trying to do so is like trying to add up happiness and sadness. Ethics, and the underlying human emotion, don't have a system of arithmetic that we are aware of.
- benatkin 14y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U