Poll: An unlocked car is stolen, who is to blame?
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It is also quite interesting to know that burglary insurances won't pay if the customer has been grossly neglient, for example if they have some sort of climbing aid next to their house.
This sort of policy does not strike me as unethical, but in the light of this discussion it seems like it should. Don't really know what to think.
This sort of policy does not strike me as unethical, but in the light of this discussion it seems like it should. Don't really know what to think.
The person who actually stole it is always to blame for the act. However, you can point out the stupidity of the lack of precaution without feeling guilty, as it is no different than flaunting safety warnings by playing in the street. Yes, you need to acknowledge that crime exists and that because it exists, not being a target it on you even if the actual guilt of the crime is on the committer.
Since the crime was likely going to happen one way or another, being stupid about it and not taking precautions increases the likelihood of it happening to that individual over others. So while they take no blame for the crime itself, they do take blame for being a daft fool about the situation where a legitimate threat existed.
Since the crime was likely going to happen one way or another, being stupid about it and not taking precautions increases the likelihood of it happening to that individual over others. So while they take no blame for the crime itself, they do take blame for being a daft fool about the situation where a legitimate threat existed.
Exactly, if they are responsible, should they not be held liable criminally for their part in a criminal act?Sonmi said:
1: Yes, you are blameless. If that is not the case and you are to blame for your loss, should we not charge you with bike theft as you just said it's your fault the theft happened?one squirrel said:
But you do deserve dumb things happening to you. And there's a point where something can be both and sometimes the onlooker loses empathy. Depends on the person, I'm guessing, and we're seeing a whole spectrum of people along with their opinions on the matter in this thread, aren't we?lacktheknack said:
What I find sorta interesting are the comments saying they are appalled seeing (or finding out) people think this way. I know I can be a rather mean person, but perhaps that doesn't even cut it and it should be something like "mean as fuck" instead. Moreover, with some people it could be about their personal philosophy - deterministic vs free will and so on.
How so? Is criminal responsibility not based in personal responsibility? If not, then what is it based on?Sonmi said:
The logic of the quote about keeping honest people honest. Honest people aren't saints, they just have composure and self-control. To just assume that they have no temptations and then proceed to further provide them with more temptations will inadvertently end up pushing some of them over their limit of composure while if you take care not to do this then the minimum amount of incidents will occur.BeetleManiac said:
We have a tendency to just shame people who have a dark side and tell them off but doing so is not going to make that dark side go away.
I think if you are being so certain about something, you must be willing to defend your stance against ever less plausible examples. You have to draw the line somewhere or live with the consequences of not drawing the line at all and apply the same principle in absurd situations. And yes, thank you for correcting my error.BeetleManiac said:
I tend to agree there, but then it seems like a question of being or not being an asshole. Why would a statement that was correct prior to the crime suddenly beome wrong or unethical after the crime?BeetleManiac said:
No, I don't think you have to come to that conclusion. We are talking about two sorts of responsibilities: The thief is responsible for the theft, the victim might be responsible for the loss. Noone is aguing that the victim is responsible for the theft.Smithnikov said:
The thief is still a criminal. However the owners is not smart and probably voided their insurance contract somewhere.
But that's ultimately the matter of a civil contract being breached. No laws have been broken, unlike when the criminal breaks the law by stealing.one squirrel said:
If we break this question down to it's most basic principal level it might be a little easier to remove any of the ambiguity that is being debated here.
Owner of car has the ability to lock or leave unlocked their car. The action he takes either way does not actually end in the car being stolen unless an outside element, the car thief intervenes. Without the unlawful action of the car thief, the car remains unstolen in either event. If you remove the car thief from the equation, the theft does not happen regardless if the car is unlocked or locked. This leaves us with a pretty clean logical conclusion of who is to blame for the crime. After all if we are going to talk about the owner not taking measures to prevent the crime, why stop at locking doors? Maybe a club to lock the steering. Maybe remove a tire. Several layers of security systems. Armed guards. Armed guard who themselves would not steal it. Where is the line?
Take the thief out of the equation, there is no theft. Pretty simple isn't it?
Owner of car has the ability to lock or leave unlocked their car. The action he takes either way does not actually end in the car being stolen unless an outside element, the car thief intervenes. Without the unlawful action of the car thief, the car remains unstolen in either event. If you remove the car thief from the equation, the theft does not happen regardless if the car is unlocked or locked. This leaves us with a pretty clean logical conclusion of who is to blame for the crime. After all if we are going to talk about the owner not taking measures to prevent the crime, why stop at locking doors? Maybe a club to lock the steering. Maybe remove a tire. Several layers of security systems. Armed guards. Armed guard who themselves would not steal it. Where is the line?
Take the thief out of the equation, there is no theft. Pretty simple isn't it?
This is just everyone wanting to establish a level of empathy towards a person who leaves their soon-to-be stolen car unlocked. The "blame" towards the owner of the car is actually "the amount of finger pointing, facepalming, ridicule, or whatever I would personally direct to the owner for being careless" which is different for each person in this thread AND also changes every time with the scenario.jklinders said:
For example I've said that an open door plus leaving the key inside is asking for your car to be stolen, but if it's hotwired then no. A single line is indeed tough to draw unless people think about it as "maybe the car gets stolen or maybe not". But there are flavours in this. Maybe the thief tried a row of cars and one had its door unlocked. The thief is lucky to find a car they can steal, BUT the owner of the car isn't unlucky because the thief came by - they're unlucky because they left the door unlocked.
But is that not the very problem posed here. Just where do we draw the line. The question (I'm being pedantic here but fuck it) was asking who was to blame for the theft, not could the owner have made it more difficult. Blame implies that the owner was specifically asking for the calamity of the theft to be visited on him. If I'm a pretty girl walking home at night, am I asking to be raped? If i'm the owner of a car and leave it unlocked am i asking it be broken into? Seriously, there is a lot of overlap in these scenarios. What about if I live in a shitty neighborhood and lock up? Is it still my fault because I did not take effort to live in a better area? Also not covered in the question, but if a car thief can hotwire a car, i guarantee that they can bypass the lock in seconds. If the lock is disabled where do we draw that line?McElroy said:
I say again, if we remove the thief from the equation, is there still a theft? The owners actions are not coming into this end result as much as you might think. And I'm not talking insurance law here. The question was clearly a moral one. Moral questions rarely have a whole lot of real world bearing. In the real world people smash car windows if so much as a quarter is visible though the car window. Or a couple of bridge tokens even. My father used to take the incident reports for the local police. Thinking that a car lock is an impediment in a real world setting is more laughable to me than you might think.
Small edit to correct sentence meaning.
It is scary how many people hereblame the car owner for doing nothing wrong. He commited no crime and made noones life harder. what the hell are you blaming him for somone else stealing shit?
Remmeber when people used to leave their houses unlocked? Were they also committing crimes?
Remmeber when people used to leave their houses unlocked? Were they also committing crimes?
Well, I've seen noone arguing that not locking ones car is committing a crime. Also, what and what not is to be considered sensible/responsible is dependent on circumstances and environment. If I live on a hill I don't need flood insurance, and similarly if I don't live in an area where there are almost no burglaries I can have my house unlocked without being overly irresponsible.Strazdas said:
Insurance is an interesting example since it is illegal to drive a car if it's uninsured. Even if you never crash it if you are found driving it you will have problems.one squirrel said:
Isn't that the case because car accidents are a common enough occurrence that having no insurance amounts to some degree of illegal-levels negligence?
That being so, clearly there is a line where "doing nothing wrong" can still end up being illegal, so the question is where to draw the line. People who claim there's never such an instance are going at it from a fictional angle where if you do nothing wrong you "deserve" only good things to happen to you, as though the world is some kind of videogame.
Yes. Behaving responsibly also means acknowledging that not everyone is playing by the rules. Failing to take that into account is a reason to shift part of the blame onto the supposed victim.Dreiko said:
One other interesting example (at least in my country) for this is that if someone is crossing the street using a crosswalk but being extremely careless and as a result they get hit by a car, they might not be entitled to compensation.