Is diminished responsibility close enough to excuse? http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/documents/publications/Joe_St... So if a woman has been drinking she's held to be more responsible for the rape than if she were sober and if a man has been drinking he is less responsible for the rape than if he were sober. Furthermore it has a recorded effect on mock juries. Is drunkenness an excuse for rape? It does change the burden of responsibility greatly and affects culpability.Academic studies have shown that if the female complainant is portrayed as drunk, she is perceived as less credible and the defendant is seen as less likely to be criminally culpable
compared with a sober victim (Stormo et al., 1997; Wenger and Bornstein, 2006)
Stormo KJ, Lang AR, Stritze WGK. (1997) Attributions about acquaintance rape—the role of alcohol and individual differences. J Appl Soc Psychol 27:279–305.
Wenger AA, Bornstein BH. (2006) The effects of victim substance use and relationship closeness on mock jurors judgments in an acquaintance rape case. Sex Roles 54:547–55.
In mock jury trials [...] some tended to believe that so long as a person was conscious they were capable of expressing resistance to unwanted sexual contact and that a non-consenting person would struggle even when intoxicated (see Finch and Munro 2005).
However, inebriated females were assigned more responsibility when they consumed alcohol than sober females. In addition, sober males were assigned more responsibility for the rape than inebriated males.
https://www.iusb.edu/ugr-journal/static/2000/pdf/fogle.pdf
I... that's a confusing question, because if you DID accept the premise of responsibility not being a zero-sum game, I'm not sure how you'd see anything about the other three points that required address. Those data points only work to provide the conclusion you've come to -- "criminal culpability being lessened" -- in a Responsibility-As-Zero-Sum system; otherwise, they do not equate to that understanding of what transpired. However, I'm going to attempt to guess what you want addressed, though, and at least try to say something worthwhile about it. Here goes: As I do not see responsibility as a zero-sum game, then I do not see any of the examples you posted as instances where the perpetrator automatically and inevitably becomes less responsible for the situation as the victim becomes more. Rather, I think the examples you posted show systems in which each person involved in the crime had their own individual levels of responsibility determined separately, with the rulings and consequences following from that understanding making sense in that context. In more detail: - Under your understanding of responsibility, there is a set amount of blame -- 100% -- and it can only shift from one person to another. Assuming only two people (rapist and victim) are involved, then if we say that the victim is at least 10% responsible for the occurrence of the event due to poor choices like inebriation and such, then the rapist's percentage of responsibility automatically gets reduced to only 90%... even if the victim were completely unconscious and the rapist drop-dead sober. Your understanding of blame is black-and-white thinking; an "or" clause: EITHER the rapist is 100% guilty and the victim perfectly innocent no matter what she might have done up to that point, OR the victim is partly to blame and the perpetrator is at least partially innocent. This line of thinking is often taken by newer-wave feminists and social justice warriors, and in the context of principle actually serves well, despite being pragmatically broken. - Under my understanding of responsibility - the non-zero variety - there is not a set amount of blame, and every participant -- even bystanders and society itself -- can have a varying degree of it. Further, those combined degrees do not have to equal 100% (in total OR per-participant). Under this paradigm, the perpetrator could be determined to be 100% responsible for the rape -- undoubtably, definitely at fault, no questions asked -- AND the victim could be determined to have %20 of a hand in her own demise (again, given previously discussed factors). AND the people who watched or knew what was happening and could have stopped it but didn't have some degree of responsibility, AND some societal structures such as sports culture and/or the collegiate greek system could have a few percentage points... and, and and. This type of thinking, I think, serves to paint a more faithful, in-color picture of reality, social structure, and rape... and I find is often taken up by judges, well-selected juries, pragmatists, and people who view the issue as a criminal one, despite being broken and even considered insulting in the context of principle and social justice. I think the outcomes of the points you raised make far more sense, and are even logical and understandable on a human level, when viewed through the lens of a non-zero-sum system of responsibility. Of COURSE there is a difference in opinion and action taken when something like blinding inebriation is involved; I just disagree that it means what you think it does. Is that what you wanted me to address, or did I miss what you wanted entirely?
Honestly my paragraph at the end was merely designed to sum up the link above rather than act as a conclusion, I don't _think_ it added anything that would call it an argument. What I was hoping you'd go into was to do with the first three quote portions by themselves where I haven't put any analysis. Which is slightly too much to infer from what I said, so I apologise and I'll put up some extra here. To issue in short is that responsibility isn't the only thing up for grabs; there's a lot of other factors considered by the other quotes that are pretty straight forward and mostly that's culpability. Responsibility takes place after it's been established there was a crime taking place and to say the victim was partially responsible is to lessen the defendant's sentence. I figured that I could give up the responsibility without losing any force against b_b's claim that there isn't anyone who thinks drunkenness is an excuse in some degree for rape. I'm too happy to give up points like that when I think it can still be won because zero-sum games etc are usually long arguments over semantics that I don't care for. You've brought it up though and given some thought to it so I will tackle that by itself because otherwise it's a bit rude to go "I didn't explain myself very well and so let's dismiss your argument in favour of what I hoped you inferred." Mostly the other cases discuss whether a crime took place. In the first case the female witness is described as drunk and is less credible as a witness. This case is not discussing responsibility - it does not suggest because she has been drinking she was increasingly her likelihood of being raped - it is describing how it is less believable she was raped because she was drinking. This is claiming that the act didn't actually take place rather than a lessening of responsibility, currently UK law has no events that lessen punishment for rape, only a rather long list of things that can increase it. To claim that a rape did not take place because of the witness being drunk is to excuse it happening entirely. The second one only notes that this is not merely individuals who find this result but mock juries. This raises practical concerns about rape trials rather than just societal concerns about how we view rape and drinking. That's a stretch for someone to read into what I said, so it's best off to read this as being introduced now. The third is Finch/Munro. No one worth listening to is going to claim the girl was more responsible for the rape if she did not struggle, their claim will be that the act was consensual because someone who is not consenting ought to struggle. I think the issue with that is pretty blinding but again it is excusing that a crime took place because of the actions of the victim under the influence of alcohol. So to discuss zero sum games. Partially innocent is an interesting term. I was under the impression what usually happened under cases of limited responsibility was that they were still pronounced guilty and then their sentencing was adjusted to consider their diminished responsibility for the action. Murder and manslaughter is the common example where if you are not of sound mind, acted with loss of control or even in a suicide pact you are deemed to have diminished responsibility but are still guilty. Innocent and guilty are pretty binary. So in your case if the victim made bad choices she lessens the responsibility of the man acting upon her. I don't think anything I've said has linked the two - I think it's more in tune with your second category at any rate. Case A: A woman drinking, she is more responsible for the rape.
Case B: A man drinking, he is less responsible for the rape. Where's the link? I think you might have imputed slightly more on to me than was actually there. Responsibility as zero sum is kinda interesting though. So if I used the example of two people pushing a car off a cliff - in case A only person A pushes the car and in case B both person A and person B push the car. In case A person A is 100% responsible and person B 0% responsible, but in case B you could see it as they are both 50% responsible for the act or they are both 100% responsible for the act as either of them acting would have been sufficient for the event?So if a woman has been drinking she's held to be more responsible for the rape than if she were sober and if a man has been drinking he is less responsible for the rape than if he were sober
Firstly: an honest "thank you" to you, for actually having a discussion instead of a flame fest. There is actual thought here, and an interest in engaging in a hard discussion in a level-headed way, and I'm so appreciative for that, that I'd put you on my Christmas list if I knew who you were. Sincerely, I thank you. On to the matter at hand. "To issue in short is that responsibility isn't the only thing up for grabs; there's a lot of other factors considered by the other quotes that are pretty straight forward and mostly that's culpability." Of interest, to me, is the fact that when one Google's the definition of "culpability", the very first word of the very first definition of the very first result is "responsibility". Don't take my word for it: https://www.google.com/search?q=culpability&oq=culpabili... I bring this up because you mentioned semantic land-mines, and I argue that this is one such thing. Responsibility, culpability, blame: really, we're dancing around synonyms at this point, and it plays into the hands of my zero-sum thing almost too conveniently. To continue (into the foray of how I believe you are seeing the game as zero-sum -- if we can actually comfortably define this as a "game" behind the shielded apathy of our clickey typing aids): you ask where the link is, and then, in the next sentence, show me the link directly: "Case A: A woman drinking, she is more responsible for the rape. Case B: A man drinking, he is less responsible for the rape. /n/n Where's the link?" The link is right there, in the words "more" and "less". In a non-zero-sum game, neither party gets to BE "more" or "less" responsible, because that implies a static relationship: that the MORE responsible one is, the LESS responsible another is! That implies, if not outright states, the shifting of blame as I described it in case 1 above, instead of unlimited parties sharing an inexhaustible pool of responsibility (or culpability, or blame, or whatever word is sufficient). Were it truly a conversation in a non-zero-sum system, it would be completely rephrased, because it would HAVE to be. Because in a non-zero-sum game, it simply does not make logical, mathematical sense to use words like "more" and "less". It would be something like "this man is completely responsible for the crime, yet it cannot also be said that the victim did not have a hand in her own undoing". AND vs. OR. The difference might seem subtle, and an issue of hair-splitting... at least, on the surface. But really, it changes the entire thing. It permeates even into your final conjecture: "In case A person A is 100% responsible and person B 0% responsible, but in case B you could see it as they are both 50% responsible for the act or they are both 100% responsible for the act as either of them acting would have been sufficient for the event?" Well, that depends mightily on a number of things, but what's worrying is that according to your example, there still seems to be a finite amount of responsibility/culpability/blame to go around. At worst, there is 100% blame that each person could have -- 200% total. At best, there is only 100% shared among each participant. Either way, there is a set amount, and it is exactly this that I protest against as a false understanding of the premise. To my mind, person A -- the "pusher" in each case -- would likely be assigned 100%. Person B? Unless he actively exerted some effort to put an end to the catastrophe, they would carry SOME blame, even and especially if he did nothing. Could have stopped it, but didn't? Yeah, there is culpability there. Helped a little? More culpability. But at the risk of turning this into a novella: I see what tree you're sniffing at the base of, and would like to bark up it for a hot minute. It's about empathy. Responsibility is one thing, but empathy is the added factor in the discussion. I say "added" because it adds to the conversation a much-needed dimension that is often ignored. If one commits a crime that others can empathize with -- especially if the others are jury members or a judge -- the severity of the crime gets reduced and/or the sentence gets lightened. Note, that in this case, the crime still exists as such, and no one questions whether or not the perp is responsible for committing it; its just that if you can get a jury or judge to empathize with the reasons it was committed, the results of the trial -- and the severity of the sentence -- change. "Stealing bread to feed your family because you seemed to have no other choice" is the most facile example I can think of. Is stealing wrong? Yes. Is the person who stole a criminal? Yes. No one doubts either thing. Yet, given the circumstances, I doubt you'd find a judge or jury who'd really bring down the full force and backing of the law to punish such a thing. AND vs. OR. Guilty? Yes. Criminal act? Yes. AND, were there reasons some of us could relate to? If the answer is "yes," things go down differently. Does this facile and woefully inadequate analogy apply? To rape?? I think the answer is -- truly -- "sometimes". Can she hold her liquor to the point where she's about to fall down but doesn't slur her words? Does she, under those conditions, flirt and make out with people she normally wouldn't (were she of sober mind and body)? Was she, during that night, wearing unusually revealing clothing and hitting on people she would not were she sober? Did her "no" -- if she was even capable of uttering one, at that point -- come off as a demure come-on, after which she almost enthusiastically went along with the act? And him: was he drunk and horny enough to not see what might be exceptionally subtle cues of protest, followed by compliance that would be perceived as "willing" by even sober men? These paragraphs are, by no means, intended to paint every -- or even a majority -- of rapes in a way that would suggest that most, if not all, rapes are really just rebranded regret. Instead, they are intended to outline the complexity -- the color version, as opposed to black-and-white version -- of the entire situation, in a way that is more true to how things might have gone down; and how I know a vast amount of these things go down, and how an overwhelming amount of such situations are eventually perceived and understood by both the participants and the people attempting to decide the fate of all involved. It's a sticky situation, even before you bring into play the obvious hypocrisy involved regarding drunk people in the USA -- that being, how everyone is conditioned to assume that drunkards are utterly and ultimately responsible for every horrible act they perpetrate, even upon themselves, UNLESS we're talking about rape and consent, at which point everything that ever happens is someone else's bad. The TL;DR is, I guess, that this topic is so much more complicated than a zero-sum view of responsibility can present that I am held breathless and in awe -- in an unmistakably negative way -- at the number of people who view it that way. It simply does not do. Which is why I find myself, a bleeding-heart liberal and proud progressive, with a wife who is a former sex worker and sex educator, at odds with the principles of the current social justice movements in place by the unanimously younger crowd I interface with these days.
For it to be zero-sum it requires a shift in responsibility from someone onto someone else. The cases are independent of one another and do not happen simultaneously or co-happen. They are the two very different results of what people studied think. Case A: The woman drinks more.
She is held to be more responsible for being raped than a sober woman would. The man is unaffected in terms of responsibility. Case B: The man drinks more.
He is held to be less responsible for the act than a sober man would. The woman is unaffected in terms of responsibility. Should it be a zero-sum game, there needs to be a link from the man's total responsibility to the woman's total responsibility. There is not. Case Z: The woman is drunk.
The woman is held to be more responsible, ergo the man is less responsible. Case Z would be a zero-sum example. The others are not. Responsibility is pretty damn separate to criminal culpability if only in matters of discreteness - responsibility can be in terms of degree but you are not partially culpable in the eyes of the law, you are guilty or not guilty. We are not merely dancing around synonyms if there is a clear difference in properties like that. My 'final conjecture' is a complaint of how ridiculous the number game works out to.
Ah, I see. I was confused, and I apologize: I did think cases A and B were the same case, that's my mistake. Case Z would be what I've been talking about (more like railing against). That said, I see now why A and B are interesting to you. If B is as you present it, then I disagree with the groupthink there, as in every other criminal avenue we view inebriated people as responsible for the horrible acts they commit under the influence. In fact, we often ratchet the severity up if one does something horrible in an altered state, and criminalize otherwise legal acts if they attempt to be done drunk (like driving). That should be the case in B, and that it isn't displays a double-standard regarding responsibility and inebriation that I can only describe as "breathtaking". On the other hand, I find it is common to have less sympathy for inebriated people who hurt themselves or otherwise get themselves into bad situations then would normally be felt if those people were sober. I often view this as reasonable, and share the sentiment, so I can't say that I disagree with A at all. I disagree that it is somehow sexist to point out that she had a hand in her own undoing, or to suggest that the situation may well not have come to pass were she sober. On your last sentence, I think we've actually come to some sort of agreement, as my entire gripe against zero-sum responsibility is that it reduces things to a numbers game whereas percentages of responsibility don't make any real (or even mathematical) sense otherwise. I mean yeah, you can try to do it, but if you did you'd very realistically have situations wherein the sum total of all blame to go 'round could very well be something like 487%, and that's just a silly and useless way of looking at it.