I think about this topic regularly, the question of how responsible a person should be for the unintentional effects of their actions.

In general society agrees that people are responsible for unintentional effects to their actions when they're obvious and predictable, such as involuntary manslaughter for killing someone while driving drunk. A reasonable person should understand the risk of that and take it into account before deciding to drive after having a number of drinks.

Where it gets more complicated and divisive is when the unintentional effects become less obvious or easily attributable.

I feel there are lots of behaviors that we're able to show empirically have negative impacts on the world yet aren't immediately obvious or unavoidably attributable, and because they're not intuitably, at-first-glance attributable there begin to be people who dismiss them despite empirical evidence proving their cause. Things like chemical dumping into rivers as an externality of an industrial process causing health impacts to surrounding communities come to mind as an example.

Where it gets even fuzzier is when impacts are social and diffuse.

A place I see a lot of discussion related to this topic is in the comedy world. You regularly see people criticize comedians for their jokes being harmful or hurtful. In my opinion these criticisms are sometimes accurate, and sometimes are inaccurate due to mistaking the topic of a joke as being the butt of it (a good example highlighting the difference I feel is Shane Gillis' jokes about autism from his standup https://youtu.be/ly14Pr2RLys, vs him calling out Andrew Shultz for jokes on the same topic but done in a derogatory manner: https://youtu.be/ENpTQ6ws3P8?t=954).

The general retort from comedians to people criticizing them is that "The intent of the joke isn't bad, it's all about the intent." I feel this is partially true, but it completely ignores the potential unintended consequences of the things they say, and the potential responsibility people have for the them.

I think this area and ones like it, involving the question of to what degree people with cultural influence should be held accountable for the unintentional impacts of their influence is really interesting and complex. I don't have much more to say beyond that I find it interesting and nuanced.

user:	looknee
created:	April 8, 2016
karma:	111