Claripup ([info]claripup) wrote,
@ 2008-03-08 18:31:00
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Current mood: melancholy

Ok this is going public cause I kind of want opinions seeing as my brain isn't getting anywhere with it.

How much of what is caused by our own actions is our own fault?

I mean if I break into someone's house and get arrested then yes that is my fault... but if I go walking through a dark cemetery late at night and I get murdered is that also my fault? or at least partly my fault? Yes I'm not the one breaking the law in the latter case... but am I taking a stupid risk? So would it be partly my fault if something did happen or not?

I'm aware these are extreme examples but they demonstrate the point well enough

I'm kinda leaning towards not then I start thinking about stuff... and well I guess I change my mind... and back again


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[info]rracnerak
2008-03-08 06:51 pm UTC (link)
if you went walking through a dark cemetery late at night and you got murdered it would not be your fault. You would have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would be the fault of the murderer for carrying out the attack. Everything is a risk - walking out of your front door is a risk - what happens if you fall over the cat that decided to sit on the doorstep? would that be your fault coz you decided to walk out of the door at that precise moment? of course it wouldn't - it would be just unfortunate timing. There is a lot of scope for self blame in lots of circumstances where it isn't warranted, I guess you just have to make the decision to not take the blame where something really isn't your fault.

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[info]ascendant_angel
2008-03-08 09:15 pm UTC (link)
I like to take walks after dark with my Ipod on so I cant hear any potential attackers. If something happened to me I wouldn't call it my fault though. I do what makes me happy I have the right to that, and I don't think its to much to ask to expect to feel safe in my own country. Its at least partly the responsibility of the police, and government to keep its citizens safe. Maybe I should take more responsibility for my own safety, but like the poster above said just stepping out the door is dangerous, in fact just waking up is dangerous so many accidents some fatal happen in your own home.

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[info]guantanamobabe
2009-08-30 02:01 am UTC (link)
It wouldn't be your fault, but you can't act as though we live in an ideal world because we don't.

"It's not about what your rights are, it's about what he thinks his rights are."
Unfortunately, I can't remember who said that.

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[info]maryrose3
2008-03-08 11:23 pm UTC (link)
Can't say much more except that I agree with them both.

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[info]travelintheways
2008-03-09 08:40 pm UTC (link)
I'm just a first year law student, so take anything and everything with a grain or two of salt.

In a civil case (someone suing someone else), yes, you could be held partially liable under "comparative negligence". In most American jurisdictions, this means that the person suing gets the percentage of damages equal to the other person's wrongful negligence. That is, if the person sued (B) is 80% responsible for $100 worth of damage, while the person suing (A) is 20% responsible, A can recover $80.

Okay. But in criminal law, there is no doctrine of comparative negligence. This gets a little shady with rape law, but generally, criminal law doesn't blame the victim.

So this is all legalese and not personal opinion, but I thought I'd put it our there for your edification :D

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[info]fuzzzzybum
2009-04-16 09:04 pm UTC (link)
That's a hard one..... depending on how you look at it everything is your fault. The cat on the doorstep is not your fault but not looking where your putting your feet is.....so falling over the cat is your fault. I suppose its an unanswerable question. If you believed everything was your fault, you would probably become very depressed. If you believed nothing was your fault you would be ignorant. I think fault must be passed depending on the situation. Making the conscious choice to walk through a known murdering area when safer paths are available and getting murdered is not entirely the murderers fault. Maybe 90%, if you avoided the dangerous path then the fault to you is less. But know one is perfect and shit happens :-)

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[info]chrismouse
2009-08-20 10:51 pm UTC (link)
I think your question is really one of avoidability. Certain risks are avoidable, such as your example of walking through the cemetery late at night. Your degree of risk goes up or down depending on other circumstances. You can control some of those circumstances, but not others. Likelihood of an event occurring is also a factor.

The question is, did you take an avoidable risk without making the effort at minimizing that risk? That's where your degree of culpability in a matter comes in.

In the Navy, we have somethin called operational risk management, which is this whole process we have to go through even for something as simple as a road trip, where we have to think of all possible problems: maintenance issues, for instance, and then decided the likelihood of these problems happening and how we would respond, and a whole lot of other crap which is basically just about risk aversion and adaptability.

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[info]guantanamobabe
2009-08-30 02:00 am UTC (link)
One quote I read a while ago comes to mind.
"It's not about what your rights are, but what he thinks his rights are."
It's never your fault if someone decides to attack you. You should be able to go wherever you want and do whatever you want (without harming others, of course) without risking an attack, but unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world. We need to tailor our actions for the world we live in, not the world we'd like to live in.
It all comes down to what you consider acceptable and unacceptable risks to take- how important is the action to you vs. how bad is the outcome?

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[info]claripup
2009-08-31 12:39 am UTC (link)
But...just to be argmentative... going shopping isn't all that important to me and I might get mugged/hit by a bus/murdered etc so maybe I shouldn't leave the house?

I should say that this post was triggered originally by someones comment about a child that was abducted while out playing... the child was about 4/5 and it happened between 9:30-11pm and someone pointed out that the mother was to blame for allowing her child to play outside that late.

If you look at what could possibly happen for any action you take during regular life it could have a very bad outcome... but generally doesn't... yet a large percentage of victims feel that they are to blame for the attack... when they are just going about their lives.

I don't want to be scared to leave my house after dark as I may get raped... I don't want to worry that if my other half goes out without me something terrible might happen...

I seem to have lost my point... if my rights are subjugated by what other people may consider their rights to be then surely if I get murdered while out walking through graveyards at 3am then I am partially to blame...

And I seem to have come a full circle and am no nearer working out the answer.

But thank you for commenting... :-)

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[info]guantanamobabe
2009-08-31 01:08 am UTC (link)
They're never to blame, but unfortunately, since the perpetrators aren't decent enough to not carry out attacks the responsibility falls on us to prevent them. It is a complicated issue.

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