UN Workers 'Beheaded' In Afghan Koran Protest

[Master of Ossus]

You are correct in the sense that not all connections must automatically lead to blame. However you seem to argue that if the connection is indirect enough, there is no blame. I want to know how far indirect.

When it involves deliberate, conscious action taken by a third-party for no reason other than to bring about the outcome in question (in this case: murder of 20 people).

Because you previously stated you see a patient who died from doctor negligence as a victim. The doctor (Pastors Sapp and Jones) didn't kill his patient (UN aid workers), the disease (Islamist) killed them. The doctor (Pastors Sapp and Jones) didn't have malice to the patient (UN aid workers). At least the doctor has the excuse that his (medical) knowledge might not be enough. Given that Jones was supposedly warned by the President that this shit could happens, whats his excuse? Yet doctors can be guilty of negligence, and in that sense "blamed" for what happened.

This is a terrible analogy on so many levels. Not only is their no deliberate intervention by a third-party in this example (negligence is caused by mistake or ignorance--not by deliberate, knowledgeable, or even reckless conduct), but doctors owe a duty of care to patients that goes far beyond what someone owes random people halfway across the globe. Moreover, negligence (even in medicine) is NOT a criminal offense--it is a private tort to which far less blame adheres. Finally, in the case of the doctor, there is no countervailing right to free speech which is impinged by his actions. Doctors have no "right" to negligently treat patients. People DO have a right to burn books and other representations of things to express a political or moral stance on the issue.

I don't see why these guys don't have some responsibility. Its much much smaller than the Islamists, but its > zero.

I can see someone reasonably arguing for SOME level of responsibility, but not enough to deserve anywhere near the vehement responses that this guy's actions have provoked, and certainly nothing approaching the level criminal liability (as at least one person inquired about), which even gross negligence in medicine does not provoke.

Since an action (bullying) is wrong because of its consequences (psychological harm etc) why isn't the Pastor's actions wrong because of its consequences, given you have stated that there is a connection? One would argue its less direct, and as such I will say outright he holds less responsibility than the bullying example above, especially given that it could be reasonably forseen, since he was warned about it.

The point he's making is that bullying is wrong in and of itself, it's wrong because it's directly hurtful to others. It's not wrong because bullied people sometimes respond with violence. Similarly, the pastor's actions (right or wrong) should be evaluated not because of the ridiculously over-the-top response that resulted. On this level, I suppose it's arguable that the pastor's actions deserve some level of moral objection--I would tend to disagree (burning a book is not wrong), but you can make a reasonable argument as to that. Your idiotic moral stance roots the wrongness of both actions, however, on the response of other people, rather than upon any direct harm which adheres to others based on the initial act.

I have no problems with criticising religion, even though I don't see burning a Koran as a better way than say, Richard Dawkins creating a documentary or dissecting their bullshit and showing their stupidity for what they are. However things are a bit more complicated than the black white world you have there.

As our emperor once said (and I paraphrase), "if a Islamist put a gun to my head, I would be praising Allah at the drop of a hat." Likewise if someone did the same thing to loved ones, I hope people have the sense to do so (until such time as they can reverse the situation). Since several countries have troops and aid workers there in Afghanistan, why are we making an already difficult job even harder by giving Islamist more propaganda ammunition? Sure they would have killed lots of people for bullshit reasons, but this time the bullshit reason they used can arguably be attributable to these two geniuses.
What great sacrifice must they make not to burn a Koran?

Their freedom of speech and expression is so compromised.

Is this like women being asked to not wear their usual clothes because its too "revealing"? Hardly since burning books isn't his usual custom. Is it like the Danish cartoonist who isn't supposed to draw satirical cartoons? Again hardly since political satire is a daily part of our free media, while book burning isn't the usual custom.

Burning things that one vehemently objects to is a form of political expression--something that angry mobs in the Middle East are all too quick to embrace, just as people use it in the United States and most of the rest of the world to make a statement about what they believe (usually the rejection of something that the burned object stands for). You can argue that there are more effective ways to argue a point--and there are--but that doesn't make burning something illegitimate.

But we know the reason why he can do it without fear. He doesn't have to face the consequences. Its those UN aid workers who get to deal with the Islamists wrath.

Therefore he shouldn't have freedom of speech? I guess that everyone here who promoted military intervention in Libya should face similar restrictions since they, too, are insulated from the violent acts that they specifically attempted to provoke.

Since I don't see the Islamists as victims, I am not sure what you are trying to get at. I do see those UN workers as victims though.

Everybody does. The question that has provoked the greatest discussion is whether or not the pastor is morally culpable for what occurred.

Lets play a total hypothetical here. This is just to test the logic that in this situation the Islamists get 100% blame and those pastors get zero.

Lets use a trope from sci fi / fantasy where a third party instigates a conflict between two other factions for the purpose of weaking them by having their citizens, infrastructure destroyed etc. They instigate it through trickery, so its actions doesn't harm anyone DIRECTLY, but indirectly it clearly does. Does the third party get any blame (no matter how small) for the consequences, or do the two warring factions get 100% blame divided among themselves?

In this case, you would judge the third-party's actions based on the moral culpability of the trickery that they used to induce the crime. Trickery is a bit of a loaded term in this context, but since trickery is morally wrong in and of itself I agree that the third party deserves some level of moral disapprobation.

Because you see, the Pastor's actions didn't directly harm anyone either, but clearly as you admit there is a link between the book burnings and Islamist going ape shit and killing people.

That doesn't mean that he's morally culpable for the deaths of the people. If you find book burning morally objectionable--and reasonable people might--then obviously he deserves some level of moral disapprobation. I'm more ambivalent towards it since we obviously allow people to burn all sorts of other symbols, and books are certainly emblematic of the ideas and viewpoints that they espouse. Certainly if the pastor had burned, say, Books of Mormon or the tenants of Scientology then I think he would have engendered far less of a moral response, here. Why should Islam be given preferential treatment over those religions? Because its followers have demonstrably thin skins?

Let me guess. You are going to say the pastor's motivation wasn't to have UN workers killed off per se (even though they were warned that this could happen) so it doesn't count. Am I right?

No, I'm going to say that that has little to do with morally weighing his actions. Your truly bizarre worldview would self-evidently reject any such criticism by refocusing on the fact that you're trying to assign some de minimis responsibility to the pastor, but without distinguishing responsibility for the book burning from responsibility for the murders.

Serious answer - the examples do show that just because an action doesn't directly cause (much) harm, indirectly it can do greater harm and it doesn't abrogate the link or the responsibility. Book burning doesn't directly harm anyone. Arguably the doctor being negligent doesn't directly harm anyone (say he doesn't do anything, unlike say MJ's doctor who gave him shit loads of propofol). However both those situation did lead to problems indirectly. If the doctor can be blamed (morally and legally) why can't the pastors (morally if not legally).

For all the reasons stated above:
1. The pastor owes no duty of care to people halfway around the world whom he's never met; the doctor owes a duty of care to his patient (both legally and morally). And, yes, the doctor's duty of care requires him to take reasonable steps to ascertain the severity of the patient's injuries or illness and to treat the patient accordingly (so the lazy doctor twist is totally meaningless).
2. There is no countervailing "right to practice medicine poorly" in the case of the doctor; there is a countervailing consideration that we should encourage free expression and free speech. Therefore, the pastor should be subject to far less blame than the doctor.
3. The doctor is not an intentional actor--the doctor acted negligently; not intentionally.

The differece between MLK, Jr. and Asshat Pastor is that MLK, Jr. knew full well that his actions would have consequences, up to and possibly including death for some, and that he and his followers were willing to suffer the consequences of their actions personally. Asshat is protected from the people he provokes by an ocean and a lot of land. HE is not the one at risk of beheading here. Asshat is quite willing to put other people at risk for his ideas, himself not so much.

And we have a winner. The point isn't so much that he is blamed more than the Islamists for the killings. But just because he has a right to something doesn't mean his actions don't have consequences (with resultant responsibility for these consequences), and he is easily protected from these consequences because he lives far away. Too bad for those people who had to deal with those consequences.

So in other words, if an American soldier walked up to a large group of Muslims in Afghanistan and burned copies of the Koran while standing right in front of them, he would share no moral responsibility for the deaths of others that resulted from this (where the intervening circumstances are far less attenuated) than this guy. Under your view, because he's in America the pastor shouldn't be allowed to burn Korans (even though he can freely burn the religious texts of virtually every religious group on the planet with nigh-total moral impunity and even though Muslims living in Afghanistan or America or elsewhere are freely able to burn his religious books without fear of being murdered or even provoking any such murderous response and so cannot possibly accrue such moral responsibility)? Really? That's your moral philosophy?

[Shroom Man 777]

Europeans draw a funny Mohammad cartoon and we call the Muslims who get angry and go violent from that shitheads. A fundie burns a Koran and we call him a shithead for the Muslims who get angry and go violent from that. If the Danish cartoons were drawn by some fundie Fredrick von Phelpsteinklein, would we be going "lol crazy extremist Muslims" or "lol dumb fundie Christians"?

Do we want America to become a miss manners board? The crazy Muslim extremists fuckpalmers should back their arguments up with calculations, or else their concession is accepted, QED bitch. The anger on the fundie can be a massive style over substance fallacy.

[Zadius]

You are correct in the sense that not all connections must automatically lead to blame. However you seem to argue that if the connection is indirect enough, there is no blame. I want to know how far indirect. Because you previously stated you see a patient who died from doctor negligence as a victim. The doctor (Pastors Sapp and Jones) didn't kill his patient (UN aid workers), the disease (Islamist) killed them. The doctor (Pastors Sapp and Jones) didn't have malice to the patient (UN aid workers). At least the doctor has the excuse that his (medical) knowledge might not be enough. Given that Jones was supposedly warned by the President that this shit could happens, whats his excuse? Yet doctors can be guilty of negligence, and in that sense "blamed" for what happened.

So as long as your bully warns you first you'll share in the blame if you don't heed the warning? You still haven't explained to me whether or not you think blaming the victim is wrong. I assume not, but then you'd have to explain where you draw the line. Your doctor analogy fails because arguably Jones is standing up to a bully (fighting the disease) rather than remaining silent (negligence). It might not always be the smartest decision, but casting some of the blame for people dieing on him seems absurd. Where do I draw the line? When somebody lashes out violently without having been victimized in any way, I place all the blame on him. If s/he was victimized, than maybe some small amount of the blame goes to the abuser because there was an element of human nature at play. It's human nature to lash out when you feel your back is up against the wall after all.

Since an action (bullying) is wrong because of its consequences (psychological harm etc) why isn't the Pastor's actions wrong because of its consequences, given you have stated that there is a connection? One would argue its less direct, and as such I will say outright he holds less responsibility than the bullying example above, especially given that it could be reasonably forseen, since he was warned about it.

Same reason the Danish cartoonists aren't responsible for the riots they "caused."

I have no problems with criticising religion, even though I don't see burning a Koran as a better way than say, Richard Dawkins creating a documentary or dissecting their bullshit and showing their stupidity for what they are. However things are a bit more complicated than the black white world you have there.

As our emperor once said (and I paraphrase), "if a Islamist put a gun to my head, I would be praising Allah at the drop of a hat." Likewise if someone did the same thing to loved ones, I hope people have the sense to do so (until such time as they can reverse the situation). Since several countries have troops and aid workers there in Afghanistan, why are we making an already difficult job even harder by giving Islamist more propaganda ammunition? Sure they would have killed lots of people for bullshit reasons, but this time the bullshit reason they used can arguably be attributable to these two geniuses.

What great sacrifice must they make not to burn a Koran? Is this like women being asked to not wear their usual clothes because its too "revealing"? Hardly since burning books isn't his usual custom. Is it like the Danish cartoonist who isn't supposed to draw satirical cartoons? Again hardly since political satire is a daily part of our free media, while book burning isn't the usual custom.

But we know the reason why he can do it without fear. He doesn't have to face the consequences. Its those UN aid workers who get to deal with the Islamists wrath.

But according to you, whether or not something is part of the usual custom shouldn't matter-- only the consequences. Are there no consequences to giving in to intimidation? After 9/11, George Bush made the incredibly stupid statement, "They hate us for our freedom," which of course was and is predominantly wrong. But here we actually have a case where they attack UN workers simply because they represent countries that allow people like Jones to burn Korans, and we're going to blame to person who exercised his right? I never said burning a Koran is a smart or sophisticated thing to do, but surely if we're not going to stand up for our freedoms against extremists then we shouldn't even have our personnel over there in the first place.

It shouldn't be a matter of whether or not Jones is taking on a big risk himself. That sounds a lot like a bully's "if you don't say it to my face, you must be wrong" mentality anyway. Frankly, I take Jones to be essentially saying, "The Koran is a shitty book," which I can't find much to disagree with (Yes, he says plenty of stupid, bigoted stuff that I don't agree with, too).

Since I don't see the Islamists as victims, I am not sure what you are trying to get at. I do see those UN workers as victims though.

I explained that in the part you omitted. Also, the UN workers are the victims of the Islamists. If they are Jones' victims, then they are equally the victim of every freedom of speech law, as well.

Lets not forget he was supposedly warned that people would riot because of what he planned to do, and he still did it.

Lets play a total hypothetical here. This is just to test the logic that in this situation the Islamists get 100% blame and those pastors get zero.

Lets use a trope from sci fi / fantasy where a third party instigates a conflict between two other factions for the purpose of weaking them by having their citizens, infrastructure destroyed etc. They instigate it through trickery, so its actions doesn't harm anyone DIRECTLY, but indirectly it clearly does. Does the third party get any blame (no matter how small) for the consequences, or do the two warring factions get 100% blame divided among themselves?

Because you see, the Pastor's actions didn't directly harm anyone either, but clearly as you admit there is a link between the book burnings and Islamist going ape shit and killing people.

Let me guess. You are going to say the pastor's motivation wasn't to have UN workers killed off per se (even though they were warned that this could happen) so it doesn't count. Am I right?

Well, I certainly won't agree that his motivation was to get people killed. Nor do I think he has some sinister plan of dividing and manipulating people. I think he doesn't like the Islamic religion for his own stupid religious reasons. It doesn't really matter because the primary cause of the Islamists going ape shit is their own stupid beliefs. For your hypothetical, if one of the warring parties had as part of their religious beliefs that they would attack the other if the third party said their religious beliefs were asinine, then no I wouldn't blame the third party. I know, it sounds so contrived... I don't think we should have to walk on eggshells just because there are fucking crazy people over there who will do crazy shit.

And it doesn't matter if they warned us. If they kidnapped a thousand people and threatened to kill a hostage every day until we shred our constitution and replace it with Sharia, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves and so would you. Does that make me culpable in their murder even a smidgen? No. After that, I'd either fight them or pull the rest of our people out. Ostensibly, we are already supposed to be fighting people like that in our "War on Terror," but this is in a peaceful non-Taliban-infested part of the country, so we don't want to piss them off. That fact only serves to further my questioning of why we are there at all, rather than point my finger at some idiot in Florida.

[open_sketchbook]

This shit is stupid. The people who burned the Koran are retarded, ignorant racist fuckwits and they did a retarded, ignorant, racist fuckwitty thing, which pissed people off enough to commit murder. Thing is, the people guilty of being murderers are the actually murderers. Retarded, ignorant racist fuckwits exist and in an ideal world they'd suffer hilarious karmic justice, but this isn't an ideal world and there isn't much you can do about them except hope reasoned arguments and education prevents the next generation from being like them. Going off the handle and getting all murder-y makes you guilty regardless of what they do. How much sympathy would I get for shooting a random guy at the Republican National Convention because of what Glenn Beck says?

[Broomstick]

I can see someone reasonably arguing for SOME level of responsibility, but not enough to deserve anywhere near the vehement responses that this guy's actions have provoked, and certainly nothing approaching the level criminal liability (as at least one person inquired about), which even gross negligence in medicine does not provoke.

If you incite a riot you can be held accountable under US law.

If you yell something in a crowd situation that leads to a mass panic you can be held accountable under US law.

That doesn't mean you WILL be found guilty of a crime, but you most certainly can be called in front of an authority. In both those instances you acted in such a manner that chaos or violence was an outcome with a reasonable chance of occurring, even if not certain. That's not a form of negligence.

Burning a Koran is well known to incite Muslims. The pastor went to some effort to stage a Koran burning. Clearly, he was using his right to free speech in order to stir up trouble. Contrary to what some believe, freedom of speech/expression/religion in even the US is not unlimited. For example, there have been instances of groups like the Nazis not being permitted to march or hold public rallies in neighborhoods where there is a high likelihood such activities could provoke violence - the rationale there is that the need to protect the public is sufficient to impinge upon the groups' freedom of expression. Or, as it is sometimes explained, your right to swing your arm freely ends where your neighbor's nose begins. The law does not protect you when you use your First Amendment rights to deliberately hurt others - that's why libel and slander are illegal.

If the pastor can be proven to have burned the Koran in the hopes of violence occurring then yes, there is the possibility of him being held liable under the law. It is extremely unlikely, as none of the injured or killed were US citizens. It might be possible to bring a civil suit against him though, again, unlikely.

On this level, I suppose it's arguable that the pastor's actions deserve some level of moral objection--I would tend to disagree (burning a book is not wrong), but you can make a reasonable argument as to that.

I'd say so - I personally find book burning EXTREMELY offensive... but I wouldn't get violent about it. I might think you a really horrible person for it, and decide not to associate with you ever again. So yes, I find the pastor's actions immoral regardless of the particular book he burned.

The fact that he picked a book for the bonfire calculated to cause hurt and provoke a reaction just makes it that much worse as far as I can see.

However, I am also civilized enough to realize not everyone shares my view on the inherent values of books. So, if someone wants to burn their own books I would find the act repugnant but I wouldn't even try to stop them. Burning books with the intention of provoking violence... that I might argue is something that shouldn't be tolerated so much, if at all.

What great sacrifice must they make not to burn a Koran?

Their freedom of speech and expression is so compromised.

I value innocent human life above absolute freedom of speech. As I noted, book burnings are not common in our culture, nor are they even acceptable to many within that culture. He did something of questionable morality within his own framework in order to offend someone else, apparently hoping to provoke violence. That seems a greater imposition on others than others telling him "no, you can't burn that book".

Is this like women being asked to not wear their usual clothes because its too "revealing"? Hardly since burning books isn't his usual custom. Is it like the Danish cartoonist who isn't supposed to draw satirical cartoons? Again hardly since political satire is a daily part of our free media, while book burning isn't the usual custom.

Burning things that one vehemently objects to is a form of political expression--something that angry mobs in the Middle East are all too quick to embrace, just as people use it in the United States and most of the rest of the world to make a statement about what they believe (usually the rejection of something that the burned object stands for). You can argue that there are more effective ways to argue a point--and there are--but that doesn't make burning something illegitimate.

Nor does it make burning something legitimate. You do not have an unfettered right to light fires, whether or not they're in protest of anything. You do not have an unlimited right to free speech, and certainly not in all venues. Westboro Baptist is allowed to protest at funerals - at a specified distance, not right at the graveside.

But we know the reason why he can do it without fear. He doesn't have to face the consequences. Its those UN aid workers who get to deal with the Islamists wrath.

Therefore he shouldn't have freedom of speech? I guess that everyone here who promoted military intervention in Libya should face similar restrictions since they, too, are insulated from the violent acts that they specifically attempted to provoke.

Oh, he's allowed to say what he wants - but he's not getting away with pretending he had no idea that there could be violence as a result. You have a right to go up to a black man in the US and use the "N word" on him - but while has no legal right to respond to that word by punching you in the face you shouldn't be surprised if that does, in fact, happen.

I refer all here to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire the SCotUS case that defined "fighting words", that is, words that are written or spoken words intended to incite hatred or violence from their target. The relevant part of the decision is as follows:

There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting words" those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

For more on the "Fighting Words Doctrine" here is a the freedom forum link

Clearly, the US SCotUS has used words that can incite "an immediate breach of the peace" as a basis to limit the First Amendment rights of free speech (and by extension, freedom of expression).

One can protest Islam without burning a Koran. Therefore, barring Koran burning does not prevent someone from expressing their dislike or disagreement with Islam. Burning a Koran can be reasonably expected to result in violence among certain Muslims. Social order and morality is better served by avoiding the burning of Korans.

Everybody does. The question that has provoked the greatest discussion is whether or not the pastor is morally culpable for what occurred.

The pastor is culpable for inciting violence. He is not culpable for the actual beheadings.

That doesn't mean that he's morally culpable for the deaths of the people. If you find book burning morally objectionable--and reasonable people might--then obviously he deserves some level of moral disapprobation. I'm more ambivalent towards it since we obviously allow people to burn all sorts of other symbols, and books are certainly emblematic of the ideas and viewpoints that they espouse. Certainly if the pastor had burned, say, Books of Mormon or the tenants of Scientology then I think he would have engendered far less of a moral response, here. Why should Islam be given preferential treatment over those religions? Because its followers have demonstrably thin skins?

Because of the expectations of violence.

You say it's allowed to burn all sorts of other symbols, but that right is not unlimited. You are allowed to burn a cross on your own lawn, you are NOT allowed to burn one on your neighbor's lawn and if that neighbor happens to be of African descent it may be held to be a greater crime yet. Why? In part it's the level of deliberate hurt, but it's also the risk of violence going up.

For all the reasons stated above:
1. The pastor owes no duty of care to people halfway around the world whom he's never met

Maybe, maybe not - part of the justification used to prosecute people releasing sensitive information, particularly in war time, is that doing so may cause harm to others. One does not have to know the parties at risk in order to have the "duty of care" not to have loose lips.

2. There is no countervailing "right to practice medicine poorly" in the case of the doctor; there is a countervailing consideration that we should encourage free expression and free speech.

But, as established in legal precedent, that consideration and encouragement of free expression is not unlimited, and the limits have a lot to do with maintaining social order and reducing risk.

So in other words, if an American soldier walked up to a large group of Muslims in Afghanistan and burned copies of the Koran while standing right in front of them, he would share no moral responsibility for the deaths of others that resulted from this (where the intervening circumstances are far less attenuated) than this guy, but because he's in America the pastor shouldn't be allowed to burn Korans (even though he can freely burn the religious texts of virtually every religious group on the planet with nigh-total moral impunity)? Really? That's your moral philosophy?

You know, we slaughter cows with impunity every day - but it wouldn't be right to force a devout Hindu to eat a cow, and it would be wrong for some American in India to kill one of those sacred cows wandering around the streets of a city. If an America did kill one of those cows and an angry mob lynched him, well, no, that's not right - but you're a fucking idiot if you don't see where the cow-killer's actions triggered violence.

As for burning other religious texts - I don't think you can conclude that people think burning them is OK. I think a lot of people would find it immoral based on an aversion to burning books of any sort, and others would find it objectionable because it's burning text sacred to someone. The thing is, though, burning of Book of Mormon doesn't typically lead to riots in the streets. Burning a copy of the Koran does, though. That is the world we live in. Saying that's ridiculous or wrong doesn't change it. Given that fact, burning a Koran is a different act than burning, say, a copy of Dr. Suess's The Cat in the Hat.

[Hamstray]

Burning a Koran is well known to incite Muslims.

Just as well as homosexuality is known to incite homophobes.
Society must not in the slightest bit concede going bat-shit crazy over getting your religious feelings hurt.

If you are illicitly inciting a riot you are usually at least trying to stir up people by giving them reasonable inclinations to be upset.

(going to keep this short due to current high post frequency in this thread)

[Mr. Coffee]

Seriously, if we want to break this down Barny Style, it was really the fault of the dumbasses that thought it'd be a good idea to go into a country predominantly filled with fundamentalist Islamics and burn copies of the Koran while there. Anyone with half a brain knows doing that is a Dumb Idea™ that's in the Top Ten list for Dumbest Ideas In Human History™. That they were influenced by someone else that thought this was a good idea is kind besides the point. Sure, the Pastor is guilty of egging everything on, but the dumbasses who went to Afghanistan to burn Koran's made the choice that ultimately ended up getting themselves killed.

Life is choices most of the time, and when you make a good decision it'll usually be followed with good consequences. When you make bad choices it's usually accompanied by bad consequences, and in the case of these dumbasses, a possible nomination for a Darwin Award.

Free will can be a bitch like that.

[open_sketchbook]

You realize the Koran burning racist pencildicks are in Florida, and the victims here are unrelated shumcks who got caught by a crowd of agnry assholes, right?

[Big Phil]

Burning a Koran is well known to incite Muslims.

Much like:

Wearing a short skirt is well known to incite rapists
Demanding one's civil rights is well known to incite racists
Getting a pap smear at Planned Parenthood is well known to incite sexists
Failing to brush one's teeth is well known to incite dentists
Standing up for one's rights is well known to incite despots
Denouncing Hitler is well known to incite fascists


The argument that you, and those agreeing with you, are using is that if there can be negative outcomes, the people directly responsible can have their responsibility lessened if they can point to someone else who "instigated" them. That's a lousy excuse.

[Mr. Coffee]

You realize the Koran burning racist pencildicks are in Florida, and the victims here are unrelated shumcks who got caught by a crowd of agnry assholes, right?

Well, shit... Guess I should take my own advice and actually read the whole damn article.

[Lusankya]

Burning a Koran is well known to incite Muslims.

Much like:

Wearing a short skirt is well known to incite rapists
Demanding one's civil rights is well known to incite racists
Getting a pap smear at Planned Parenthood is well known to incite sexists
Failing to brush one's teeth is well known to incite dentists
Standing up for one's rights is well known to incite despots
Denouncing Hitler is well known to incite fascists


The argument that you, and those agreeing with you, are using is that if there can be negative outcomes, the people directly responsible can have their responsibility lessened if they can point to someone else who "instigated" them. That's a lousy excuse.

The problem with all of this is that in all of your examples, all of the consequences are borne by the person performing the action themselves.

The situation with Pastor Dickhead, or whatever he's called, is analogous to a situation whereby if I wear a short skirt, then someone else gets raped. Now, while I'm quite happy to accept the risk that comes from wearing a short skirt* if the consequences are faced only by me, and would be perfectly moral to do so, the same could not be said if by doing so I incited harm to someone else. I do not have the right to make that choice for another. Similarly, while I think that Pastor Dickhead would be perfectly moral, and possibly even somewhat admirable had he performed this stunt in a fashion that incited violence against nobody, or at least only against his person and possibly church, the fact that he instead did something that incited violence against people who had not chosen to associate with his message shows him to be callously indifferent of others.

Furthermore, I have no idea where you (and others) are getting the idea that some people are saying that the murderers' responsibility is "lessened". It's like you think that there is some finite quantity of blame that exists for any given event, and saying, "yeah, this guy contributed" suddenly absolves the actual murderers of 0.0001% of the responsibility for their actions.

*Note: short skirts actually have very little bearing on whether one gets raped or not. Most people get raped by people who they know and trust, and wearing a long skirt/jeans gives precisely zero help against that kind of rape, while stranger rape is usually caused by the victim being seen to be an easy prey. Now, granted, there is probably a correlation between women wearing short skirts, and women appearing to be easy pray, but I put it to you that this is because women often wear short skirts when they go out to get drunk, in which case it is the alcohol that's making them easy prey, and not the short skirt. It's not really on-topic, but I very much dislike the way this misconception seems to be taken as gospel truth sometimes.

[mr friendly guy]

This is a terrible analogy on so many levels. Not only is their no deliberate intervention by a third-party in this example (negligence is caused by mistake or ignorance--not by deliberate, knowledgeable, or even reckless conduct), but doctors owe a duty of care to patients that goes far beyond what someone owes random people halfway across the globe.

1. The analogy is illustrating that we can hold someone responsible for indirect consequences as well as the direct one. Therefore whether the indirect consequence is caused by a sentient third party is irrelevant to the example is was meant to illustrate. But if you want, I can simply use another example, like those news of the world l"ets out the paedophile" gigs which leads to vigilante action against the wrong person, by naming the wrong person. It involves a third party (the vigilante) doing physical harm to the victim (the wrong person named). Is news of the world not partially responsible for what happened?

2. Actions have consequences, and one's actions don't magically not cause a consequence because you don't have a duty of care. Arguably I don't have a duty of care to you, but I am morally culpable if I did you harm.

Moreover, negligence (even in medicine) is NOT a criminal offense--it is a private tort to which far less blame adheres. Finally, in the case of the doctor, there is no countervailing right to free speech which is impinged by his actions. Doctors have no "right" to negligently treat patients.

This is becoming tangential to my main point, so I won't belabour the point. But for your own interest I would advise you to google Jayel Patel and Queensland health system.

People DO have a right to burn books and other representations of things to express a political or moral stance on the issue.

You also have a right to gamble away all your money at a Las Vegas strip. If this leads to hardship, you of course have to deal with the consequences. The same here with the 2 geniuses. He has a right to do this, which I don't deny. I however do point out this is not without consequences and he can't just hand wave and say I don't bear any responsibility whatsoever. Rights magically don't make consequences or responsibility disappear.

This has never been about his right to free speech, its about the consequences of his actions.

I can see someone reasonably arguing for SOME level of responsibility, but not enough to deserve anywhere near the vehement responses that this guy's actions have provoked, and certainly nothing approaching the level criminal liability (as at least one person inquired about), which even gross negligence in medicine does not provoke.

Thats my point. He does have SOME level of responsibility. This is clearly dwarfed by the Islamists, but his responsibility ain't ZERO. Note I am not arguing whether the responsibility falls under criminal or civil areas.

As for whether this is approaches the level of liability, presumably that would depend on a country's laws. Take this for example.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2&t=107892

A company apparently can be held responsible for the actions of a third party related indirectly to their actions. At least in my country circa 2007 they could.

The point he's making is that bullying is wrong in and of itself, it's wrong because it's directly hurtful to others. It's not wrong because bullied people sometimes respond with violence. Similarly, the pastor's actions (right or wrong) should be evaluated not because of the ridiculously over-the-top response that resulted. On this level, I suppose it's arguable that the pastor's actions deserve some level of moral objection--I would tend to disagree (burning a book is not wrong), but you can make a reasonable argument as to that. Your idiotic moral stance roots the wrongness of both actions, however, on the response of other people, rather than upon any direct harm which adheres to others based on the initial act.

Actually my stance is based the wrongness on both the direct and indirect consequences. He seems to think the indirect shouldn't matter. Given you think his direct consequence (ie burning a book in of itself) is not wrong, but argued above that a case could be made for him having some responsibility, I can only conclude that the responsibility must come from indirect consequences of his actions.

Their freedom of speech and expression is so compromised.

For God's sake. I am not arguing he doesn't have a right to say it. I am however arguing his bears responsibility for following through with his actions.

Burning things that one vehemently objects to is a form of political expression--something that angry mobs in the Middle East are all too quick to embrace, just as people use it in the United States and most of the rest of the world to make a statement about what they believe (usually the rejection of something that the burned object stands for). You can argue that there are more effective ways to argue a point--and there are--but that doesn't make burning something illegitimate.

See above. He has a right to express things. However rights don't magically negate consequences nor responsibility for those consequences. Again since this seems to fly over people's head, I am arguing his responsibility is much less than the Islamist, but it sure ain't hell zero.

Therefore he shouldn't have freedom of speech?

No. Therefore he should take his share of the responsibility for what he has done. Duh. What is with this freedom of speech strawman?

I guess that everyone here who promoted military intervention in Libya should face similar restrictions since they, too, are insulated from the violent acts that they specifically attempted to provoke.

See above.

Because you see, the Pastor's actions didn't directly harm anyone either, but clearly as you admit there is a link between the book burnings and Islamist going ape shit and killing people.

That doesn't mean that he's morally culpable for the deaths of the people.

You make it sound like I am blaming him 100% for everything. Fuck, I don't even belief Broomstick did either.

If you find book burning morally objectionable--and reasonable people might--then obviously he deserves some level of moral disapprobation. I'm more ambivalent towards it since we obviously allow people to burn all sorts of other symbols, and books are certainly emblematic of the ideas and viewpoints that they espouse.

I am ambivalent towards it myself. However that is kind of tangential to my point.

Certainly if the pastor had burned, say, Books of Mormon or the tenants of Scientology then I think he would have engendered far less of a moral response, here. Why should Islam be given preferential treatment over those religions? Because its followers have demonstrably thin skins?

If those religions murdered 20 people I would condemn them too. The fact that those 2 pastors actions also come under scrutiny /= Islam getting preferential treatment.

No, I'm going to say that that has little to do with morally weighing his actions. Your truly bizarre worldview would self-evidently reject any such criticism by refocusing on the fact that you're trying to assign some de minimis responsibility to the pastor, but without distinguishing responsibility for the book burning from responsibility for the murders.

Say what?

For all the reasons stated above:
1. The pastor owes no duty of care to people halfway around the world whom he's never met; the doctor owes a duty of care to his patient (both legally and morally). And, yes, the doctor's duty of care requires him to take reasonable steps to ascertain the severity of the patient's injuries or illness and to treat the patient accordingly (so the lazy doctor twist is totally meaningless).

Like I said earlier, actions have consequences, and one's actions don't magically not cause a consequence because you don't have a duty of care.

2. There is no countervailing "right to practice medicine poorly" in the case of the doctor; there is a countervailing consideration that we should encourage free expression and free speech. Therefore, the pastor should be subject to far less blame than the doctor.

So you do agree he should be subjected to blame? Isn't that what I said? As to what level of blame he gets, I have said repeated its more than zero but much less than the Islamist. I am not sure which mathematical steps you get from that to blaming equal blame to a doctor in another hypothetical (where the Doctor is the only one being blamed), but whatever.

[Hamstray]

Wearing a short skirt is well known to incite rapists
Demanding one's civil rights is well known to incite racists
Getting a pap smear at Planned Parenthood is well known to incite sexists
Failing to brush one's teeth is well known to incite dentists
Standing up for one's rights is well known to incite despots
Denouncing Hitler is well known to incite fascists

The problem with all of this is that in all of your examples, all of the consequences are borne by the person performing the action themselves.

You mean in those examples the persons performing the actions of the former are the ones to bear the consequences and therefore they are at their own risk? By this you are effectively suppressing their behavior. They should be safe to do those actions without concern for consequences.

[Serafina]

Furthermore, I have no idea where you (and others) are getting the idea that some people are saying that the murderers' responsibility is "lessened". It's like you think that there is some finite quantity of blame that exists for any given event, and saying, "yeah, this guy contributed" suddenly absolves the actual murderers of 0.0001% of the responsibility for their actions.

Just to elaborate:
If we went by that "finite blame"-logic, then 10 guys murdering one person would be individually less guilty than one guy murdering a person. In fact they should only be 10% as guilty as the single guy.
That logic is obviously rubbish. If i am committing a crime along with someone else, then i am just as guilty as he is, and just as guilty as if i did it alone. If i am aiding him, i might be less guilty than him but that doesn't mean that he is less guilty as if he did it alone or if i helped him more.

The same applies here:
Just because they got incited into doing so, the murderers are no less guilty. The one doing the inciting is more guilty than if he did nothing.

[mr friendly guy]

So as long as your bully warns you first you'll share in the blame if you don't heed the warning?

Come off it. He wasn't being warned by the bully, he was warned by the President. Its easy to get all high and mighty when you aren't the one facing having to deal with the Islamists in their backyard.

You still haven't explained to me whether or not you think blaming the victim is wrong.

The victim was the UN workers and other people killed by the Islamist. Since I never once blamed them in this thread the answer should be obvious. But if its not, I will say it out loud, based from the article in question I can't see what fault the UN workers did.

I assume not, but then you'd have to explain where you draw the line.

I see this as similar to an incitement to riot, especially if this particular riot is likely to not happen without it (thats not to say another riot can't happen in the future, especially when we are dealing with unreasonable people like Islamists). If the people who rioted hurt someone, they can then be blame for the assault. The inciter gets the blame for inciting. Either way the inciter doesn't get off with zero blame for the WHOLE affair.

Your doctor analogy fails because arguably Jones is standing up to a bully (fighting the disease) rather than remaining silent (negligence).

I was using the doctor analogy to illustrate the consequences rather than the motivations per se. So burning a book in itself does no harm. However clearly the indirect effects are there.

It might not always be the smartest decision, but casting some of the blame for people dieing on him seems absurd.

Arguably if this particular violet protest won't have happen / isn't likely to happen if he didn't incite it, then he can get some of the blame for the consequences. Now the Islamist may in future find some other reason to do violence, but that doesn't change the fact that this particular situation he was the one inciting things.

The 2 pastors are like the kids in school who would egg on other kids to attack someone other kids. They might not be the ones raining the blows down, but they aren't innocent either.

Where do I draw the line? When somebody lashes out violently without having been victimized in any way, I place all the blame on him. If s/he was victimized, than maybe some small amount of the blame goes to the abuser because there was an element of human nature at play. It's human nature to lash out when you feel your back is up against the wall after all.

Just to make sure I understand, if you were bashed up by someone, 100% of the blame goes to that person right? Would it change if you found out that person only bashed you up because a third person told him that you were sleeping with his partner? Would it change further if you found out that the lie the third person told wasn't just an error from being too lazy to check the facts, but made up because he got his kicks from telling lies? You would not hate the third person what so ever.

But according to you, whether or not something is part of the usual custom shouldn't matter-- only the consequences.

Except if we gave up our customs that would be a consequence. He did not have no custom of burning books, yet alone this book. The consequences of CHOOSING not doing it would be minor.

Are there no consequences to giving in to intimidation?

Of course there are. Which is why we shouldn't give in if someone asks us to change our ways even though our ways arguably do no objective harm, eg a women wearing certain clothes. However he was deliberately changing things to provoke. This isn't about fighting Islamic extremists. Its about publicity for a media whore. Arguably giving them more propaganda ammunition to recruit more potential terrorists is a dumb way of fighting.

After 9/11, George Bush made the incredibly stupid statement, "They hate us for our freedom," which of course was and is predominantly wrong. But here we actually have a case where they attack UN workers simply because they represent countries that allow people like Jones to burn Korans, and we're going to blame to person who exercised his right?

Like I said before to MoO, rights don't magically negate responsibility.

I never said burning a Koran is a smart or sophisticated thing to do, but surely if we're not going to stand up for our freedoms against extremists then we shouldn't even have our personnel over there in the first place.

Dude, we all agree what he did is stupid. The question is can he be held account (ie be blamed morally if not legally) for his stupidity. Apparently you think not.

Since I don't see the Islamists as victims, I am not sure what you are trying to get at. I do see those UN workers as victims though.

I explained that in the part you omitted. Also, the UN workers are the victims of the Islamists. If they are Jones' victims, then they are equally the victim of every freedom of speech law, as well.

I don't see how. Freedom of speech law doesn't force you to do what Jones and Sapp did. Nor did everyone who has freedom of speech choose to do what they did.

Well, I certainly won't agree that his motivation was to get people killed. Nor do I think he has some sinister plan of dividing and manipulating people. I think he doesn't like the Islamic religion for his own stupid religious reasons.

Maybe I was a bit unclear. I don't think his motivation was to get people killed. I just think he didn't care about the consequences as long as he can get his lets bash Islam gig going.

It doesn't really matter because the primary cause of the Islamists going ape shit is their own stupid beliefs.

Which is why I feel the Islamists get the lion's share of the blame. Jones is like the kid in school egging another kid to hit his victim some more.

For your hypothetical, if one of the warring parties had as part of their religious beliefs that they would attack the other if the third party said their religious beliefs were asinine, then no I wouldn't blame the third party. I know, it sounds so contrived... I don't think we should have to walk on eggshells just because there are fucking crazy people over there who will do crazy shit.

As weird as this sounds, I am betting we agree on most things in regards to this issue, just disagree on the finer details. We shouldn't give in to them, but at the same time I don't see any benefit of pointless going out of our way to provoke them, giving them another propaganda tool to recruit more their numbers. Don't they have enough already.

And it doesn't matter if they warned us.

Er, the President warned him. Heck I could have warned you this shit would happen. I would have suggested the better way (assuming we have the fortitude) is to fucking raise the standard of living and education in those regions since we are already committed. This will likely breed more moderates than bat shit insane extremists. A strategy my country has adopted with setting up strategic schools in Indonesia to combat Islamic extremism.

If they kidnapped a thousand people and threatened to kill a hostage every day until we shred our constitution and replace it with Sharia, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves and so would you. Does that make me culpable in their murder even a smidgen? No.

In that scenario they are the aggressors, and clearly provoking us. We shouldn't give in because it will most likely embolden them. However that isn't whats happening with this case. Jones went out of his way to provoke them. Its not like a woman doing her normal activities and dressing "scantily" or a cartoonist doing their usual job of political satire. Book burning, yet alone burning a Koran isn't exactly the usual activity for the church.

After that, I'd either fight them or pull the rest of our people out. Ostensibly, we are already supposed to be fighting people like that in our "War on Terror," but this is in a peaceful non-Taliban-infested part of the country, so we don't want to piss them off. That fact only serves to further my questioning of why we are there at all, rather than point my finger at some idiot in Florida.

Well if I point a finger at this particular idiot, every other finger and more is pointed to the Islamist. Since I clearly attribute more to them. I am just saying the 2 Pastors aren't exactly innocent, and in our rush to rightly condemn the Islamist we shouldn't forget Dumb & Dumber's contribution to this affair.

[mr friendly guy]

The same applies here:
Just because they got incited into doing so, the murderers are no less guilty. The one doing the inciting is more guilty than if he did nothing.

Precisely.

[Lusankya]

The problem with all of this is that in all of your examples, all of the consequences are borne by the person performing the action themselves.

You mean in those examples the persons performing the actions of the former are the ones to bear the consequences and therefore they are at their own risk? By this you are effectively suppressing their behavior. They should be safe to do those actions without concern for consequences.[/quote]

Had you read my post, you would realise that I don't really have an issue with those people doing those actions, because the only people they put at risk are themselves. My issue was with people who perform risky actions when they know that other people will be put at risk - such as obviously happened with this Quran burning business.

Also, "They should be safe to do those actions without concern for consequences." Consequences happen whether or not people are concerned about them or not. No matter how unconcerned a chain smoker is about the quality of his lungs, he's still going to end up getting breathing difficulties and possibly lung cancer. And so are his kids, in all likelihood, which is a sad thing, and is an example of a consequence that he should damn well have thought of before he started smoking around them.

[Big Phil]

Burning a Koran is well known to incite Muslims.

Much like:

Wearing a short skirt is well known to incite rapists
Demanding one's civil rights is well known to incite racists
Getting a pap smear at Planned Parenthood is well known to incite sexists
Failing to brush one's teeth is well known to incite dentists
Standing up for one's rights is well known to incite despots
Denouncing Hitler is well known to incite fascists


The argument that you, and those agreeing with you, are using is that if there can be negative outcomes, the people directly responsible can have their responsibility lessened if they can point to someone else who "instigated" them. That's a lousy excuse.

The problem with all of this is that in all of your examples, all of the consequences are borne by the person performing the action themselves.

The situation with Pastor Dickhead, or whatever he's called, is analogous to a situation whereby if I wear a short skirt, then someone else gets raped. Now, while I'm quite happy to accept the risk that comes from wearing a short skirt* if the consequences are faced only by me, and would be perfectly moral to do so, the same could not be said if by doing so I incited harm to someone else. I do not have the right to make that choice for another. Similarly, while I think that Pastor Dickhead would be perfectly moral, and possibly even somewhat admirable had he performed this stunt in a fashion that incited violence against nobody, or at least only against his person and possibly church, the fact that he instead did something that incited violence against people who had not chosen to associate with his message shows him to be callously indifferent of others.

1. The only place where Muslims have rioted and murdered people "because" of his actions is Afghanistan. No reasonable person can argue that he should have know that Muslims in Afghanistan would riot because of something he did in Florida.

2. The expectation that he should have known that Muslims in Afghanistan would riot and murder people is racist, in other words "Muslims are too immature/childish/backward to behave like responsible adults." I find that attitude at least as reprehensible as the notion that a person should be held culpable for indirect "consequences" of their actions.

3. Murder as a response to burning books is not a proportional response.

Furthermore, I have no idea where you (and others) are getting the idea that some people are saying that the murderers' responsibility is "lessened". It's like you think that there is some finite quantity of blame that exists for any given event, and saying, "yeah, this guy contributed" suddenly absolves the actual murderers of 0.0001% of the responsibility for their actions.

Hmm... perhaps because Illuminatus Primus, EnterpriseSovereign, Sarevok, Broomstick, Brother-Captain Gaius, and possibly Alyeska (and that's just the first page) responded by addressing the pastor's guilt, but not that of the people who actually committed the murders. If they didn't think it lessened the murderer's guilt, one would have expected a response different from "And this guy now has blood on his hands, what the fuck did he think was going to happen after the shitstorm this stirred up the first time it was announced?"

*Note: short skirts actually have very little bearing on whether one gets raped or not. Most people get raped by people who they know and trust, and wearing a long skirt/jeans gives precisely zero help against that kind of rape, while stranger rape is usually caused by the victim being seen to be an easy prey. Now, granted, there is probably a correlation between women wearing short skirts, and women appearing to be easy pray, but I put it to you that this is because women often wear short skirts when they go out to get drunk, in which case it is the alcohol that's making them easy prey, and not the short skirt. It's not really on-topic, but I very much dislike the way this misconception seems to be taken as gospel truth sometimes.

Why do you think I used it as an example? Of course it's a bullshit excuse for rapists (she was asking for it!), no more valid than the argument that Pastor Douchebag incited the riot half a world away.

[Shroom Man 777]

Just how different is what this fundie pastor did from what the Danish cartoonists did? Do the same objections raised here against the fundie pastor apply to the Danish cartoonist? If I remember correctly, nobody here seemed to mind the Danish cartoonists or poo-pooed his actions that also incited extremist angers.

[Zed]

The Danish cartoons certainly weren't trying to promote hate - they were making a point about free speech.

[Metahive]

I would say no. Depicting Muhammad is a taboo only for Muslims which they have no justification to enforce among non-muslims. Events like "Draw Muhammad Day" or PZ Myers' "desecration" of a host in 2008 make the point that religious freedom is not a free ticket to force your beliefs on others.
Burning books in comparison makes no point other than expressing your hatred and resentment towards the target. Pastor Jones can buy and burn as many Qu'rans as he wants but that doesn't mean that he can wash his hands of the consequences, especially when they were so predictable. I'd like to remind people that Afghans have no reason to be particularly enarmored or tolerant of western folly ever since that whole "Kill Team" fiasco came out. I think the Qur'an burning was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Lusankya]

1. The only place where Muslims have rioted and murdered people "because" of his actions is Afghanistan. No reasonable person can argue that he should have know that Muslims in Afghanistan would riot because of something he did in Florida.

This would be a fucking great point had not the President of the United States told him to please cut it out because of the reaction it would cause.

2. The expectation that he should have known that Muslims in Afghanistan would riot and murder people is racist, in other words "Muslims are too immature/childish/backward to behave like responsible adults." I find that attitude at least as reprehensible as the notion that a person should be held culpable for indirect "consequences" of their actions.

This would be a fucking great point had the Muslims in Afghanistan had not then gone out and proven themselves to be too immature/childish/backwards to behave like responsible adults.

3. Murder as a response to burning books is not a proportional response.

Shit, man. Nobody is saying that it is.

Just how different is what this fundie pastor did from what the Danish cartoonists did? Do the same objections raised here against the fundie pastor apply to the Danish cartoonist? If I remember correctly, nobody here seemed to mind the Danish cartoonists or poo-pooed his actions that also incited extremist angers.

Well, the argument that mr friendly guy is advancing is that by burning the books, the guy is deliberately going out of his way to be a douchebag, in a way that is considered douchebaggery in his own culture. The danish cartoonist, on the other hand, was merely doing his job, and was treating Islam with the same kind of respect that would be considered appropriate to treat any other religion in his culture.

There's also the fact that a political cartoon is designed to encourage people to think, while burning the Quran is not likely to achieve anything apart from pissing people off. In the case of the Danish cartoons, pissing off Muslim extremists is incidental to the primary purpose of making political commentary, while in the case of burning the Quran, pissing off Muslim extremists is the primary purpose.

Furthermore, while the reaction of extremists to insults to Islam in the western media is well known now, I seem to recall that the Danish cartoons were one of the things that actually brought this to attention. I also recall that while the Danish cartoonist received threats against his own life, I don't remember if anyone else was killed as a result of the Danish cartoons.

[Master of Ossus]

1. The analogy is illustrating that we can hold someone responsible for indirect consequences as well as the direct one. Therefore whether the indirect consequence is caused by a sentient third party is irrelevant to the example is was meant to illustrate.

I addressed this precise aspect of the analogy in considerable detail: the doctor is not a conscious actor in your example. He is an accidental one because negligence by definition excludes intent. If the doctor were to intentionally kill, maim, or otherwise poorly treat the patient then the original person would no be culpable for the killing, maiming, or poor treatment involved at all: that would be on the doctor.

But if you want, I can simply use another example, like those news of the world l"ets out the paedophile" gigs which leads to vigilante action against the wrong person, by naming the wrong person. It involves a third party (the vigilante) doing physical harm to the victim (the wrong person named). Is news of the world not partially responsible for what happened?

I don't understand the analogy you're making, here, but mere "but-for" causation is insufficient to establish moral fault. Is a parent responsible for the murder of their child 50 years down the road? After all, without the parent's decision to have a child, raise them, etc., there would have been no child for the murderer to kill.

2. Actions have consequences, and one's actions don't magically not cause a consequence because you don't have a duty of care. Arguably I don't have a duty of care to you, but I am morally culpable if I did you harm.

What the fuck? You have a duty to AVOID HARMING OTHERS. A doctor has a much more specific duty towards his patients: he must treat them in a way that is consistent with standards of medicine, and that includes making reasonable inquiries into their symptoms. The pastor's duty towards others is satisfied because his actions did not harm anyone in the slightest. That other people took that as a cassus belli does not therefore impose a duty on him: he had already satisfied his duty.

This is becoming tangential to my main point, so I won't belabour the point. But for your own interest I would advise you to google Jayel Patel and Queensland health system.

You mean Jayant Patel who was convicted of reckless practice of medicine. Do you even know what negligence means? Recklessness is an entirely different state of mind that involves willful or conscious disregard of a known risk. Patel's actions were not negligent at all and this doesn't even touch my point.

You also have a right to gamble away all your money at a Las Vegas strip. If this leads to hardship, you of course have to deal with the consequences. The same here with the 2 geniuses. He has a right to do this, which I don't deny. I however do point out this is not without consequences and he can't just hand wave and say I don't bear any responsibility whatsoever. Rights magically don't make consequences or responsibility disappear.

Once again, you fail to assign any significance whatsoever to the concept of an intervening actor, who consciously and deliberately elects to create the consequences you then try to pin on the original actor. I don't know how many more times I will have to say this.

This has never been about his right to free speech, its about the consequences of his actions.

"Consequences" which are entirely brought about by an intervening third-party who deliberately creates them.

If I punch someone and they fall and break their arm, I am morally culpable for punching them and making them fall, and for the injuries that they sustained in the fall. I am not morally culpable for the fact that the doctor they see for treatment decides to murder them and prescribes them cyanide pills in the guise of a mild anti-inflammatory.

Thats my point. He does have SOME level of responsibility. This is clearly dwarfed by the Islamists, but his responsibility ain't ZERO. Note I am not arguing whether the responsibility falls under criminal or civil areas.

But why? And, moreover, you are assigning far more blame to this individual than would be reasonable if he were burning any other group's religious documents.

As for whether this is approaches the level of liability, presumably that would depend on a country's laws. Take this for example.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2&t=107892

A company apparently can be held responsible for the actions of a third party related indirectly to their actions. At least in my country circa 2007 they could.

Nonsense. The Australian trial court misapplied the relevant legal standards, even in your legally backwards country. The justice at the appeals court partially overturned that plaintiff's award on the two grounds that the rape was not a foreseeable consequence of the broken ankle, and moreover because the corporation should not be held responsible for the intervening criminal actions of others. In fact, under both of our moral metrics, the trial court judge's decision was unconscionable since you seem to root liability on some vague notion of foreseeable consequences.

Actually my stance is based the wrongness on both the direct and indirect consequences. He seems to think the indirect shouldn't matter. Given you think his direct consequence (ie burning a book in of itself) is not wrong, but argued above that a case could be made for him having some responsibility, I can only conclude that the responsibility must come from indirect consequences of his actions.

Since you draw no moral division between direct and indirect consequences of actions, how do you separate but-for causation from being sufficient to provoke a moral claim?

For God's sake. I am not arguing he doesn't have a right to say it. I am however arguing his bears responsibility for following through with his actions.

So he is morally blameworthy for... exercising his freedom of expression because people halfway around the world don't respect that right? You can recast this in virtually any way you want. It will not change the fact that you are holding him responsible for the gross and deliberate overreaction of others.

See above. He has a right to express things. However rights don't magically negate consequences nor responsibility for those consequences. Again since this seems to fly over people's head, I am arguing his responsibility is much less than the Islamist, but it sure ain't hell zero.

And the fact that there's an intervening and deliberate actor means nothing to you.

You know that guy who feels guilty because he forgot to turn on the dishwasher before he left the house, called his wife and asked her to do it before she went off to work, and whose wife is then hit by a drunk driver because she was leaving the house 2 minutes later than usual? You know how everyone tells him that it wasn't his fault? That guy has your exact moral philosophy. Under your argument, he actually is morally culpable for his wife's death. The fact that this gives you absolutely no pause whatsoever does not make it a valid method of evaluating the moral culpability of a person's actions.

No. Therefore he should take his share of the responsibility for what he has done. Duh. What is with this freedom of speech strawman?

The fact of the matter is that freedom of expression, and protecting its free exercise, are powerful countervailing values that we should aspire to promote in society. That would tend to argue, even apart from all of the other arguments against your worldview (which I have already laid out in meticulous detail) that we should institute greater moral protections for people engaged in acts of free expression than we would to people under other circumstances who are acting in a manner that is not consistent with the exercise of freedom of expression.

Again, the very fact that you dismiss this argument as a "strawman" undermines your credibility still further.

I guess that everyone here who promoted military intervention in Libya should face similar restrictions since they, too, are insulated from the violent acts that they specifically attempted to provoke.

See above.

See above? Spell it out for me. Without their influence, military intervention may well not be taking place in Libya, and the people who are killed and wounded by such intervention may well not be harmed. Explain to me why this is radically different from the situations you have hung your hat on.

That doesn't mean that he's morally culpable for the deaths of the people.

You make it sound like I am blaming him 100% for everything. Fuck, I don't even belief Broomstick did either.

Explain why a system of morality that assigns blame to the pastor is better than one that does not. I have explained in rather painstaking detail why I do not believe this to be true:
1. Your system assigns blame to people who are acting in otherwise innocent manners because of the criminal actions of others, and not by virtue of their own actions. This leads to incredibly arbitrary distinctions in a very wide variety of contexts, a few of which I have detailed.
2. My system provides better moral safeguards for things like freedom of expression which demonstrably improve the quality of life and discourse within a society.
3. (Admittedly only detailed in this post.) Your system of morality, widely applied, can actually increase the grief and emotional suffering endured by people with survivor's guilt and related symptoms--something which should be discouraged.

The fact that my system is vastly more closely related to the laws of every state and country with which I have sufficient acquaintance to speak for on this point further tends to argue that mine is the predominant worldview: culpability and legal responsibility do NOT go hand-in-hand with but-for causation, and the chain of culpability is typically severed by the intentional actions of a third-party (for an idea of the kinds of things that are required to assign culpability in spite of the criminal actions of a third-party, look up something like "key in the ignition cases"--it's pretty hard for normal people to get into those situations).

Certainly if the pastor had burned, say, Books of Mormon or the tenants of Scientology then I think he would have engendered far less of a moral response, here. Why should Islam be given preferential treatment over those religions? Because its followers have demonstrably thin skins?

If those religions murdered 20 people I would condemn them too. The fact that those 2 pastors actions also come under scrutiny /= Islam getting preferential treatment.

At the risk of making this sound like a playground debate: Uh... yeah, it does. You are assigning moral responsibility to the pastor based on the fact that Muslims killed people. Had he burned religious texts of any other major religious group, no one would have been killed and you would not have assigned him any moral responsibility. That does equate to preferential treatment for religions that react violently when their religious texts are burned--ironically the very groups to which we should make special efforts to discourage.

For all the reasons stated above:
1. The pastor owes no duty of care to people halfway around the world whom he's never met; the doctor owes a duty of care to his patient (both legally and morally). And, yes, the doctor's duty of care requires him to take reasonable steps to ascertain the severity of the patient's injuries or illness and to treat the patient accordingly (so the lazy doctor twist is totally meaningless).

Like I said earlier, actions have consequences, and one's actions don't magically not cause a consequence because you don't have a duty of care.

Okay, let me try to spell this out for you, yet again: simply stating that "actions have consequences" does NOT establish moral culpability because but-for causation of negative outcomes is not remotely adequate for establishing moral blame. You can screech, "actions have consequences" as much as you want, but that will not suffice to show that the pastor should be blameworthy: your test is massively too broad, and moral systems that sever causality chains at the point where another person criminally intervenes are demonstrably superior to yours.

When I state that certain people have "duties of care," I am indicating that the normal standard does not apply because those people have additional duties above and beyond what is generally owed to others. As has been discussed in detail, doctors have a special duty towards their patients because society has decided that imposing this duty on professionals leads to better moral outcomes. You can easily come up with other examples yourself where someone has a special burden to subordinate their own needs in favor of those of others because of some relationship that the two have or because of the position in which they find themselves.

So you do agree he should be subjected to blame? Isn't that what I said? As to what level of blame he gets, I have said repeated its more than zero but much less than the Islamist. I am not sure which mathematical steps you get from that to blaming equal blame to a doctor in another hypothetical (where the Doctor is the only one being blamed), but whatever.

I don't think he should be assigned any blame at all because I think systems of morality that assign him no blame have features which are demonstrably better than the alternative system which you have espoused.

[Broomstick]

I think some people are confusing the ideal world with the actual world. In the ideal world a woman who dresses slutty, goes to a bar, gets drunk, and passes out on a pool table would never be raped. In the actual world she is putting herself at higher risk than if she stayed home. In an ideal world no one would be killed over a book burning. In the actual world that's a real possibility.

In the case of the Danish cartoonist he was probably aware that his cartoon would upset people - after all, other cartoons of his probably did - but he probably did not realize it was enrage people to the point of murder. In the case of burning the Koran it's pretty common knowledge that will really piss some people off - that is, after all, kind of the point of burning the book - and there was even reason to believe that it could incite physical violence, as that sort of thing has been seen before when the Koran has been desecrated. The pastor created a high risk situation, and worse yet, he was insulated from the risks he created and they were all borne by other people.

Does that lessen the barbarity of the killings? Of course not. Problem is, in their culture a Koran burning might be seen as a mitigating circumstance, "fighting words" so to speak. The pastor gave the extremists an excuse to get violent. It increased the odds of violence. I am baffled that some of you are willing to let the pastor off scot-free with no responsibility whatsoever for what his actions led to.

And no, it's not racist to say that a Koran burning is likely to lead to violence. No one is suggesting that ALL Muslims fly into a murderous rage at the act, and they certainly don't. But in the actual world there are people with less self-control, with more anger, and who are looking for an excuse to commit violence. Sure, say and do whatever you want, but you can't be oblivious to the fact that there are consequences to what you say or do, and not all of those consequences are just or proportional because a certain segment of humanity isn't any better than poo-flinging monkeys.

[Zed]

I'd just like to note to all the people talking about "the Danish cartoonist": the Danish cartoons were created by a lot of different cartoonists. It's just that Westergaard got most attention, because he drew the one where a Muslim's turban is a bomb.