Don't make it entirely on the State. The individuals who are acting negligently on behalf of the State need to have an incentive to do the right thing as well.
At a minimum, they should be disbarred and held personally liable for damages at an amount that ruins them. Incentives matter, as does sending a message to the next ethically challenged cohort considering such behavior.
If you want to optimize systems, you should expect people to operate with self-interest with respect to the law. Attributing moral blame for self-interested parties not donating money to be within the spirit of the law is unreasonable.
If they have permission of government officials then what?
We can hold companies accountable but how do you hold government accountable? In a meaningful way? Certainly we can find a myriad of excuses not to fire an government worker for a mistake I am fine with doing the same for this as well.
The key is to learn from it and put into place processes that stop it from reoccurring. We need to weigh the penalties to the harm caused. Frankly, if no one lost their life or livelihood I don't think seeking the outcome you suggest is warranted.
I think mistakes should be paid for by the tax payer, not by the individual who was involved. Everyone makes mistakes, they're unavoidable. But the costs should not unilaterally burden the innocent person involved.
One can, and one should, but we as a society have a vested interest in providing incentives to make doing the right thing easier than doing the wrong one.
I've criticized the abrogation of responsibility elsewhere in this thread, I'm not giving anybody a pass or an excuse, but the reality of the cowardice of normal people necessitates that we provide some measure of cover for the people unwilling to risk their necks.
Many people can be responsible for an outcome. The lobbyists, the elected officials, the many people who make money by helping them. And plenty more. We can and should hold all of those people accountable for their choices.
If it had been another person then it would have been appropriate to hold that person responsible. Individuals don't get free passes to do unethical acts just because corporations exist to take their liabilities. It's still beneficial to make examples of them.
It is everyone's responsibility to do the right thing, but when someone does something wrong, it's completely unacceptable to make a more hazardous situation in response.
I totally agree. I think if we got better at holding organizations liable for their failure they would be a stronger incentive for them to weight responsible behavior more appropriately.
I think this would be greatly improve our society.
I have to disagree, when people realize the risk is personal they'll take care to make sure what they're doing is right. Just following orders is never a valid excuse. Of course we should stop with the prosecutor we should continue on to try and fix the machine, but at the very least if prosecutors know they're responsible for their actions it'll add an additional check to the system.
Just because 'that is the way things are done' doesn't make it right.
You (the hypothetical you, not the real you) are responsible for your own actions. The company doesn't control how you act, you do. It's fair enough that the company is held accountable, but you should be equally held accountable for willful negligence, gross misconduct, unprofessional conduct etc. etc. That's on you.
Just because this prosecutor is a Government official, doesn't immediately remove his culpability, nor his accountability. He was wilfully negligent and ruined an innocent man's life. The Government didn't do that, he did that. It should be on him to fix it. He should be held accountable to the extent of his means to make it right. If it is beyond his means to make it right, it should then fall to the Government to provide the shortfall.
Again we see that our law enforcement branch is overreaching, acting in error, and effectively breaking the law. What penalty is appropriate for this? How do we rebuild our country to stop this? I believe the answer is to hold the perpetrators responsible. Easy to say, but we need financial and jail times far beyond the pain these people cause. We need to root out this corruption, whether it's intentional or negligent.
reply