Are you morally culpable if ...

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...you unintentionally cause harm?

Not from a deontological standpoint, but try telling that to the guy you just pissed off.

In Law, the necessary prerequisite of a person committing a criminal offence can be segregated into actus reus (the unlawful act) accompanied by mens rea (guilty mind). The Crown must prove both elements beyond reasonable doubt in order for the offender to be convicted. As a result, the Law understands that some people may not have intended for a certain event to take place, and consequently, it is crucial that the prosecution be able to prove the subjective awareness of a criminal intention.

So legally you would have to be intentionally committing a wrong act, but should you feel guilty even if you didn't intend the harm?

Guilty? No, I don't think so. Thoughtful enough to analyse the problem and try to make it less likely to happen again - yes, that's the productive way IMHO.

In civil law there is such a thing as "negligence".

If you didnt intend something to happen but you could for see that it could likely happen and you dont take preventative measures then you would be liable.

That makes sense ... learn from it so as to be less likely to make the same error.

Negligence is a cause for guilt

Mr Magoo knows he cant see but still goes out

How would you determine what could be reasonably foreseen?


Good point. If you keep making the same mistake that would show either inability or lack of care.

I think you are in some circumstances.

If I am driving a car and a dog runs out in front of me and I am concentrating and doing my best to avoid the animal but I still hit it then I don't think I would be morally culpable or guitly. I might still try to help the owner and their dog and I would feel sad too at what had happened but I would feel that I did all I could to avoid it.

If the same thing happened only, instead of driving with proper care, I was messing about with the CD player or distracted or in some way unfit to drive then I think I would be morally culpable, at least to some extent because I wasn't driving at a reasonable standard and I may have been able to prevent the accident.

In both instances there is no intention to harm the dog but in one my poor driving contributes to the animal's injury and in the other there is nothing more I can do to prevent it.

That's how see it.

I definitely think there are some instances where you would not be, however if you could do something to correct the harm you did, but you don't then you are morally responsible for that.

I think it depends on the situation. If I drink and had too much and I fall on top of my child or fall down the stairs with them and they get hurt, yeah they could charge me with child neglect. Or if I decided to do some drink and I got in the car and drove or I decided to do drugs and drove and got into an accident, then yeah. If I was going fast and not driving safely and then I hit someone then yeah. If I wasn't watching the road because I wasn't paying attention or I got distracted and I hit someone then yeah. If I were at work mopping and I didn't put down wet floor signs and someone slipped and feel and got hurt, then yeah. if I got mad at someone so I punched them but yet they lost their balance and it caused them more harm than I had given them then yeah. Think of that one incident where a man punched an aspie in the face and he fell and hit his head and died of an injury.

What about if I were to open the restroom door but I didn't push it open gently so I knock a child down who was standing right close to the door and they got a bruise on their head or a bloody nose, is it my fault? What of my own son did that and that happened to another child standing directly behind the door? Would it be my fault for not stopping him in time or not telling him to push open gently? What if it was another adult that was about to open the door and bam, the door flies open and hits them in the face or jams their toes?

I once had a similar situation occur. It was back in the mid '80s and I was in high school. Well some student group had put posters up which blocked the view through the glass doors. Being a careless airhead at the time I swung open the door in front of me right into the knee of one of the language teachers. He had just had surgery on his knee. He howled and bent over in pain. I still feel bad about this incident and have never swung a door open ahead of me since. It was awful.

No. At least in general. To be morally culpable you must have intentionally done something or been in a situation you clearly should have known better and you are responsible for your lack of thought and thus the damage as well. If you point your gun at your buddy and it goes off, you should have known as basic gun safety is never point it at a human. If on the other hand you opened a one's knee.