Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Is It Murder?
Not sure what to say about this one ... CBS's 60 Minutes aired a story about drunk driving and asks if people who choose to drive drunk should be charged with murder in the event that a life is lost due to the crash. More importantly, the question is asked of Nassau County's District Attorney, Kathleen Rice, "Do you think that charging someone who's driving drunk and kills someone with murder is a deterrent?" With my training in public health/behavior change AND with my very personal and intimate experience in this topic - I was far from convinced by Kathleen's reply of why this is her solution to this problem. As of today almost 600 comments have been posted to this article - some with very thought provoking solutions. Maybe someday, I'll have a lot more to say about that. Bsafe.
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4 comments:
oh gosh, I am so disappointed! I wrote this fantastic response and blogspot ate it when I tried to use OpenID to post. I'll try again, but I'm sure it won't be as good as the first response :(
I am reading "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature" by Steven Pinker (because I'm even more of a word geek than a computer geek).
The book looks at how we express ourselves and how children can learn languages despite all the anomalies, and the premise is that it's the underlying semantics that lead us to feel that something sounds correct or not.
There is a section on "acting, intending and causing" that seems relevant to this discussion.
We can say "John broke the window" and "John caused the window to break (by startling the carpenter who was installing it)."
In the first case, we'd generally be describing a situation where John had a hammer, and took direct action. In the second case, things are less direct. The book also brings up the notion of intention: is the outcome what was the reason for the action on the behalf of the individual?
The book didn't go here, but I also see it this way:
John took an action to startle the carpenter (we will not even worry about whether or not he intended to do so). There are a few possible outcomes: one is that the window breaks, and the other is that it did not. If we are to state that John is responsible for one of these outcomes (the window ultimately shattering), so too must we stated that he was responsible for the other, had it occurred. So it is possible that John was responsible for the window NOT breaking...?
Ok, round back to the actual case at hand. If a driver decides to drive impaired and is responsible for killing someone (if that is what happens), so too must we state that they are responsible for NOT killing someone any other time they make the same decision? That's completely ludicrous.
With every step in a chain of events, we add more complexity and more options as to what the outcome may be, and we cannot always trace things backwards as easily as we may like.
Andrea - I have been delinquent in recognizing your comments and celebrating the mindful and thought provoking person that you are! Thanks for taking the time to add value to the discussion. Do you think we can be so logical about such an emotional topic?
Hmmm, you tap into a favorite linguistic exercice of mine -- you can "change your mind", but you can't "change your heart" - you can't teach someone faith. Is logic the ONLY way to cause someone to change their emotions?
(p.s. of course, the other side is that we speak of being 'brain-washed' but never 'heart-washed' -- which IS the most powerful organ?)
I could go on further, but my alarm didn't go off this morning and I need to get ready for work. Just stopped by to respond to your comment :)
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