those victims presumably would want to be compensated for damages caused to them
But who are "those victims"? There's no way to distinguish between the 1000 people who would have gotten sick regardless of my actions, and the 100 people whose illness actually is my fault. On probabilities, we can be pretty sure that I hurt somebody, but we don't even know for sure how many people, since there will be random variation in the background rates.
By the same token, if we let rapists go free because their past victims forgive them, that causes harm to real, visceral people - assuming we accept the argument that lower chances of going to jail reduce the deterrent effect, which I don't think is a terribly controversial one.
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Date: 2009-12-17 12:09 am (UTC)But who are "those victims"? There's no way to distinguish between the 1000 people who would have gotten sick regardless of my actions, and the 100 people whose illness actually is my fault. On probabilities, we can be pretty sure that I hurt somebody, but we don't even know for sure how many people, since there will be random variation in the background rates.
By the same token, if we let rapists go free because their past victims forgive them, that causes harm to real, visceral people - assuming we accept the argument that lower chances of going to jail reduce the deterrent effect, which I don't think is a terribly controversial one.