komponisto comments on Rationality Quotes July 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: RobertLumley 04 July 2012 12:29AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 05 July 2012 06:28:10AM *  9 points [-]

Murder and Medicine: The Lethality of Criminal Assault 1960-1999

Despite the proliferation of increasingly dangerous weapons and the very large increase in rates of serious criminal assault, since 1960, the lethality of such assault in the United States has dropped dramatically. This paradox has barely been studied and needs to be examined using national time-series data. Starting from the basic view that homicides are aggravated assaults with the outcome of the victim’s death, we assembled evidence from national data sources to show that the principal explanation of the downward trend in lethality involves parallel developments in medical technology and related medical support services that have suppressed the homicide rate compared to what it would be had such progress not been made.We argue that research into the causes and deterrability of homicide would benefit from a “lethality perspective” that focuses on serious assaults, only a small proportion of which end in death.

To be clear there are other possible explanations for why violent assault as recorded has become less lethal, I just think this one is by far the most plausible.

Comment author: Alicorn 05 July 2012 04:56:06PM 8 points [-]

I always think it's weird on cop shows and the like where an assaulter is in custody, the victim is in the hospital, and someone says "If he dies, you're in big trouble!". The criminal has already done whatever he did, and now somehow the severity of that doing rests with the competence of doctors.

Comment author: komponisto 07 July 2012 05:32:11AM 2 points [-]

Indeed, this seems to be an area where the legal system opts for a consequentialist approach; no surprise, then, that you would find it weird.

Comment author: scav 09 July 2012 08:21:35AM 1 point [-]

Um, I thought consequentialism was about evaluating the goodness of a course of action based on its probable consequences. If all it amounts to is hindsight then it's not much use for making ethical decisions about future actions. But I think that would be a straw man.

If you apply that crazy approach to consequentialism then I should be allowed to stand on a roof heaving bricks out into the street, and I'm not doing anything wrong unless and until one of them actually hits somebody.

Comment author: komponisto 09 July 2012 03:07:06PM 2 points [-]

Consequentialism is about deriving the ethical value of actions from their consequences. If someone thinks that the badness of an action is not determined until the consequences are known (like the police in Alicorn's example, or more to the pont the legal system they represent), then, necessarily, they are applying consequentialist moral intuitions, and not deontological moral intuitions.

No one said anything about "all it amounts to" being "hindsight". Your second paragraph is a straw man. While it is true that if someone believes that, they must be a consequentialist, it does not follow that a consequentialist must necessarily believe that.

Comment author: scav 09 July 2012 04:13:05PM 1 point [-]

I did say that it would be a straw man version of consequentialism. But I think I misunderstood what you were saying, or at least where your emphasis was, so I was kind of talking past you there :(

Thankfully in other areas the law is not concerned only with the contingent consequences of actions in general. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime. Attempted murder is a crime. Blackmail is a crime even if the victim refuses to be bullied and the blackmailer doesn't follow through on their threat. Kidnapping isn't considered to be babysitting if the victim is released unharmed.

So yeah. I think anyone could find it a little weird with or without calling it consequentialist.

Comment author: komponisto 09 July 2012 05:26:53PM 1 point [-]

I think anyone could find it a little weird with or without calling it consequentialist

Perhaps, but my point was that, since it does presuppose consequentialism, non-consequentialists such as Alicorn would be particularly disposed to find it weird (whether or not some consequentialists would also have a similar reaction).

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