At 10:51 PM 2/9/2001 +0000, Charlie Stross wrote:
> This assumes that the person committing a criminal act
>_intends_ to die in the process. I don't buy this; it's not a likely
>situation. We can't attribute intentions to someone who's dead which are
>at odds with their apparent actions, and if the actions look like a bank
>robbery, then I see it as a bank robbery rather than a suicide attempt.
You could frame this in the same way as any risky behavior: It is
reasonable to expect in any activity that one has tacitly accepted the
obvious risks involved. There is a reasonable expectation of possibly
getting killed in a bank robbery, and by engaging in that activity, one has
tacitly accepted the possibility of that outcome. Just because you don't
like it doesn't mean that one can blithely ignore the risks without
accepting the possibility. When a skydiver jumps out of a plane they have
tacitly accepted the possibility that they might die due to a parachute
failure. Whether or not the chute rigger may share responsibility for the
outcome, it in no way absolves the jumper of the consequences of his action.
If a bank robber had the ability to dictate outcomes, he certainly wouldn't
need to rob a bank for cash.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:38 MDT