This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://curi.us/2597-the-injustice-of-strictly-and-literally-making-victims-whole-such-as-all-children
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This is pretty close to what Rand might say right?
I doubt it.
I remember searching for what she thought about innocents in war, international law, etc back in November 2023. I think there’s more she’s said about it somewhere but even in this video, she talks about in war, if one party is the aggressor, anything that the other party does is morally justified, and the total annihilation of the aggressor is justified. And how the majority in any country at war is innocent, but if by neglect, ignorance or helplessness, they couldn’t overturn or choose a bad government and choose a better one, then they have to pay the price for the sins of their government. She doesn’t mention making the country who was agressed 100% completely whole, but I can imagine her agreeing with most of what you guess Deutsch might say.
I think Rand is too harsh (I wouldn’t say what she did) but as you say her comments weren’t about the victim being made 100% whole so that’s pretty different.
And she seems to have in mind scenarios like dealing with an aggressive USSR or Nazi Germany which make her comments more understandable. I think she was thinking of scenarios where an unfree country is trying to invade you, in which case disproportionate force is not much of a concern (but it still could be IMO, e.g. imagine if we had bombs so powerful they’d blow up cities in neighboring countries – I don’t know what Rand would say about those but I doubt she’d authorize their unlimited, indiscriminate use for any defensive cause when that use helps with offense but is totally unnecessary for preventing your own country from being conquered.)
Israel has had wars in the past with the militaries of other countries. I think Rand would say those were defensive wars and that Israel’s behavior was fine. The current conflict with Hamas is not with a country, not with a normal military, does not involve Israel being at risk of being invaded/conquered, and is dragging on much longer than past wars despite a more powerful IDF and less powerful adversary. I’m no expert on the details of what’s happening but it seems potentially like Israel’s actions in Gaza, since a few months after the conflict started, are not very effective and are primarily hurting non-combatants. I also don’t know what is going on with diplomacy currently and what the possibilities are for setting up a non-Hamas Palestinian government and stuff (I don’t know how underground Hamas has been forced either) or what terms Hamas would accept (I understand that some Israelis are mad at their government and think Israel could have negotiated a end to the conflict, including returning all hostages/corpses, by now if they actually wanted to). There are also potentially significant elements of Western/US/UK/Israeli/etc partial guilt and I don’t know if Rand would agree with any of that or not (keep in mind she didn’t support Reagan and had a somewhat isolationist take on WWII before Pearl Harbor, so I don’t think she’d approve of all the US meddling and colonialism around the world). Due to these and other differences I think Rand might analyze it differently.
Rand mentioned that both sides could be at fault. It sounded like she considers that unlikely in standard wars where countries try to invade each other using militaries, but I don’t think we can infer that she considers it unlikely in non-standard wars/conflicts.
Rand’s pre-Pearl Harbor hesitance about US involvement in WWII also indicates differences in her point of view compared to Deutsch’s.
I think the analysis of the current conflict depends on why it’s taking so long, which I don’t confidently know, and I think that would be relevant to Rand’s take.
I try to be careful about attaching Rand’s name to causes she didn’t comment on where there’s some ambiguity. She’s pretty unique and didn’t fit into any standard tribe or bundle of views very well. She is also the type who could totally change her conclusion based on one factor instead of treating every factor indecisively. It’s also hard to know how access to the internet and better information sources would have changed her views on anything where she may have been opining with some limited, flawed information. Like she said some basically pro-colonialism stuff about the settlers and their conflicts with native Americans, but it’s possible that she would change her mind with better information, just like if she actually read Silent Spring maybe she would have changed her mind some like I did.
I do think I’m more inclined to see conflicts as gray instead of as good and bad guys than Rand or Deutsch. But it’s hard to know what actions by Israel (or the US etc) she might think crossed some line.
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Vaguely that doesn’t sound too unique. I remember watching some Tort law lectures (nothing advanced, just something to get a feel for it) and they said stuff similar to what you said Deutsch said. They believed, and I assume a fair amount of Tort professors but idk, that we need more lawsuits. That there are a lot more things that need to be covered by Torts. That we need more restitution to make people whole. They just shared that as an opinion about Tort law and didn’t elaborate. So I don’t know what thoughts they have to establish that view.
I think that’s a fairly common opinion. Here’s something from Gemini, I asked “does the legal system under compensate victims in tort”:
Yes, the tort legal system can undercompensate victims due to high transaction costs, limitations on recoverable damages like pain and suffering, caps on awards, and the fact that compensation is often based on a victim’s “worth” rather than just the injury itself. While the system aims to make victims whole, practical and systemic factors frequently result in the actual compensation received being less than the full value of the harm suffered.
Hmm. You said legal system broadly. I also think that’s a fairly common opinion. I think a lot of people think that government programs fail to sufficiently cover the damages people suffer.
Hmm. Interesting. I think how the law currently answers this is by going off “reasonable” person standards (in quotes because it seems more like average person standards as opposed to reasonable person standards), They would ask what would a reasonable person expect in this scenario. Deutsch seems more subjective here? Though I have heard of the “egg-shell” doctrine(?) in law. If you punch someone who is more frail than others you are subject to compensate them for all damages even though they are more frail than others. I don’t think this applies to people who are emotionally egg-shells, but the idea kinda fits.
This remind me of something I watched recently: Day in the Life: 24 Hours As A Lawyer
Paraphrasing here from around ~9:40 (none of the below is a direct quote):
Case 1 was about a wrongful death cafe of an 18 year old. We are suing the place he was killed at. We are in contact with an economist to value the financial contribution that 18 yr old would have for the rest of his life from lost wages to the family, lost value he provided to his household and other things.
This seems to me like trying to do way too much. I don’t even know the economist is going to attempt to get them a reasonable number.
Hmm. I don’t know if certain lawyers view go that extreme, but I do know that part of the reason lawyers believe victims are under-compensated is due to legal costs.
Also something else I remember: I remember the idea being shared that Tort attempts to make people whole again before anything happened. Now the law can’t make you back to how you were before. It can just give you money. I think that idea influences lawyers. We literally(I think thats the goal) want to do our best to make current you into the past you the best we can through money, since other things aren’t feasible.
In Deutsch’s view?
I think courts should be used for more last-resort measures for more serious things.
To me, their comments sound compatible with a wide variety of viewpoints that disagree with Deutsch. I wouldn’t assume, from that information, any kind of agreement with Deutsch (but I also wouldn’t rule it out).
That’s different. The Gemini answer is saying that victims are not made fully whole because doing so would be impractical and therefore bad. We have to compromise because other factors matter besides 100% restitution.
Deutsch’s position is that it’d be better to change the system to demand victims be made 100% whole. He’s not concerned with all those other factors. He doesn’t want to compromise with them and have a practical approach. He wants demands a wildly different system than society has which would have consequences that most people do not want.
Believing that victims are under-compensated makes sense: yeah, they usually aren’t made fully whole. Wanting to actually change this is a very different matter though because there are all sorts of downsides to raising compensation, which is why it is where it is now, not higher. I expect that most lawyers don’t want to fundamentally change the current system, which was created by their predecessors (and politicians, etc) on purpose. If most people in a field don’t support the status quo and genuinely want major change then usually things do change.
If lawyers are just saying “hey, try not to be a victim, because FYI most victims don’t really get paid enough to make it worth their while” that is reasonable, practical advice that’s totally different than wanting radical legal reforms that I think most people would view as impractical and harmful.
There’s also a doctrine that you have to take reasonable steps to avoid being harmed. That includes being reasonably robust, not unreasonably fragile, where possible. (If you have an uncurable health condition, like hemophilia, then you should carry bandaids or something to reduce risk but also people who make you bleed will be responsible for higher damages).
Yes, and in my view too, and I have heard of this being a legal principle involved in some current laws. I think it might already be a widespread current legal principle but I’m no expert.
Oh. So if I’m understanding this correctly Deutsch position is/was that the system needs to be changed now? I took it as you sharing Deutch’s view that the system is flawed and we should strive for a better one. Maybe he talked about some possible ways to achieve that better one. Instead he just wanted to change up the whole system? Hmm. Maybe its related to how he viewed the world as better than it was? Deutsch may think this is something our smart and “amazing” courts can handle.
Something I remember about liability and stuff, from Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences:
For all practical purposes, the omnipresent tort tax we pay today was conceived in the 1950s and set in place in the 1960s and 1970s by a new generation of lawyers and judges.
I’m having trouble finding a different quote from the book where he mentions that this was done very fast (for the legal world) and by a few set lawyers.
I shared some stuff from the book before and then forgot. This is a reminder to go read it. Especially cause I’m talking about tort in the law topic.
mmm. that makes sense.
~yeah. I came across this in an audiobook I was listening to that covered tort law. They didn’t really give a name for the doctrine (if there’s one). I wonder if the tort course I’m doing right now will cover it.
I meant:
Deutsch: Making victims fully whole is ideal. That would be better than the current system. That would be a good change.
Others: The current system doesn’t make victims fully whole. But it’s a good, practical compromise that has other benefits. We shouldn’t necessarily change it. While the system could definitely be improved somehow, just focusing on making victims whole while ignoring other factors would make it worse.
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That’s really interesting to me. I have a low opinion of the current system where many civil cases are very expensive in terms of lawyer bills. But I didn’t guess it was a recent problem. I’m curious who changed it, how, why, what it was like before that, etc.