A logical calculus about blame

[edevos@xxxxxxx]

[DISCLAIMER:  I'm finding the discussion quite stimulating and it's helped
me to frame some questions (if not the answers).  I'm making this
contribution to the list to offer an approach that might help to "unpack"
some of the complicated issues involved.  I make a number of
oversimplifications and am quite possibly mistaken in many of my judgments.
However, I think the questions and the approach may be worth considering.]

In addition to the issue of "volition" I would also offer the important
corollary of "intent."  If we add the concepts of "blame" and
"responsibility" to the mix, it takes us, I believe, to the crux of a
(potential) conflict between criminal justice and therapeutic
identification and response to abuse.  And to complicate matters further,
there is the question of how the victim perceives the intent of the
perpetrator.  In trying to tease apart the various relationships, I began
by asking myself a set of questions:

1/   Is the "abuse" in the intent or in the outcome or in both?

2/   What of perceived intent?  By the victim, by the perpetrator, by an
"objective" third party?

3/   How are our judgments affected by the active vs. passive nature of the
"event"?  (e.g., neglect, failure to protect)

4/   What is the relationship between responsibility and intent?
Responsibility and injury?

5/   What is the relationship between blame and intent?  Blame and injury?

I then tried to strip these questions down to their bare elements.  The
following chart, for example,  looks at the relationship between intent and
injury on the one hand and responsibility and blame on the other.  [To help
read the chart, consider the first line as an example.  In a situation
where there is intent (to harm) and injury, the perpetrator is both
responsible and subject to blame.]  The chart doesn't actually shape a
definition as much as it helps to sort out what our implicit definitions
may be.

Intent (yes/no)          Injury (y/n)    =>   Responsibility (y/n)
Blame (y/n)
y              y         =>        y               y
y              n         =>        n               y
n              y         =>        y               n
n              n         =>        n               n

Whether you agree with my subjective judgments or not, the chart reveals
that in my personal thinking,  "responsibility" is tied to outcome
(regardless of intent), and "blame" is tied to intent (regardless of
outcome).

This is reminiscent of the stages of moral judgment described by Piaget in
the Moral Judgment of the Child, where the child's conception of that which
is "naughty" shifts from a focus on outcomes to a focus on intent.

This "logical calculus" may help to sort out the more complex questions as
well.  By the way, my intent was not to cause injury.  If I have, I accept
responsibility, but please, no blame.

Ed De Vos

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Edward De Vos, Ed.D.
Director, Center for Violence & Injury Prevention
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02458-1060
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fax: 617-244-3436
email: edevos@edc.org
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www2.edc.org/HHD/CVIP.asp
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