Is it always wrong to blame the victim?

[Vader]

I've often heard "victim blame" criticised, and there seems to be a consensus that it is a fallacy. However, it seems to me that there are cases when, in some sense, the victim seems to be partially responsible for their misfortune. It is important to note that I am by no means suggesting that such misfortunes are deserved, or justified if they are inflicted by another person. I am simply suggesting that there are cases when the victim has acted, or omitted to act, in a way that has yielded negative consequences.

As an example, imagine a man who leaves his house empty at the same time every day. He does not have elaborate locks on his door like his neighbours, and often leaves the house unlocked. He leaves a range of valuable items clearly in sight of the window, despite his neighbour's warnings. One day, he returns to find that he has been burgled. Is there not a sense in which he is partly to blame? We feel sorry for him, and we believe the burglar to be unjustified. However, there is also a recognition that had he been more prudent, and locked the house, bought a safe etc, he would not have suffered the misfortune. Is this "victim blame" reprehensible?

Now to move the discussion to a heated topic where accusations of victim blame are common, let us consider the nasty business of rape. I understand that this is a difficult subject for many people, and I do not wish to cause offence. However, I think that the commonly held belief that the victims of rape are never in any way responsible is mistaken. I am sure I will get a flaming for this, but I'll take it.

Let us consider the example of a young woman who goes out drinking with her friends. Over the course of the night, she becomes heavily intoxicated, to the point where she is losing motor control etc. She decides that she will go home. She refuses to take a taxi as her friends suggest, and decides to walk home instead. She has nearly reached her home, when she decides to take a shortcut across a park that is renowned for sexual assaults, robberies etc. As she crosses the park, she is attacked and raped. She, of course, doesn't deserve this. It is the doing of the rapist, and it is a terrible, wrong thing. However, there is a sense in which the young woman is responsible, in that she could have avoided the attack had she made more prudent decisions. In fact, responsible is the wrong word- perhaps I ought to say that she is at fault. Of course she is not entirely to blame for her rape; but she made choices that made it more likely. Is this intuition of mine mistaken, or is it right, in this case, to lay some blame at the feet of the victim?

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Jamshyd, MDAO, I wasn't sure if P&S was the right forum for this, but I couldn't see where else it would fit, feel free to move if you wish.

 

[badandwicked]

I disagree, in both examples you cited the perpetrator is 100% to blame & at fault for the burglary and rape.

If it hadn't have been for the thief and the rapist, both parties could have acted with zero negative consequence. The homeowners posessions would have remained untouched, and the girl would have arrived home safely.

The victims could have done more to prevent these occurances, and not left themselves vulnerable, but this doesn't make them at all responsible.

 

[malakaix]

I don't think anyone should be 'blamed' for anything, however when that person refuses to accept the responsibility of their actions that consequently lead to the situation occurring, they deceive themselves into believing that they played no part in there misfortune, and through this ignore and bury an unfortunate experience which was not learn't from, which in time only serves to happen again, and again.

This is something i've recently had to come to terms with myself, the act of taking responsibility for every action i make, for i made them.. and the result of any action i make is partially my own, it can never be entirely someone else's.

An extreme example of this; Your sitting at a road intersection, waiting for the light to go green, as it goes green you drive forward only to be hit side on by a driver who ran a red-light, you did nothing wrong.. or right for that matter, but are left in a critical condition. Blaming that driver for your situation won't do any good for you in the long-run.. you eventually have to accept responsibility that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and make peace with it.

The more you hold onto that anger towards that object, the more it will consume you.

 

[Vader]

If it hadn't have been for the thief and the rapist, both parties could have acted with zero negative consequence.

Yes, this is completely true. However, both parties know that they exist in a world that contains thieves and rapists. Imagine if the government of the United Kingdom had done nothing to prepare for an invasion when the Nazi regime was swallowing up all of Europe. Instead of building aircraft, and guns, and radar stations, they had sat idly by. Had they then been overrun in an invasion, they might easily say "The Germans ought not to have invaded us; this is an injustice". They'd be right; but the fact remains that, had they made different choices, they could have prevented that injustice. In such a case, I think the citizens of the country would have been unlikely to accept the defence "It's not our fault, we did nothing wrong."; the retort would surely have been "Had you taken the necessary actions this state of affairs could have been avoided". Like I say, this doesn't justify the actions of the invaders; but it shows that victims can be partly responsible. If the girl in my first example, who was raped, were to say "Why me? Why me and not this other girl?", might it not be appropriate to answer "Well, she was not as drunk, and travelled home in a taxi, with friends." This doesn't in any way reduce the guilt of the rapist, of course, but the victim is responsible in that she made reckless, risky decisions.

 

[badandwicked]

Yes, the UK government had a duty of care towards its citizens, and failure to act would have probably made them liable in the eyes of the law, should they have been tried for negligence.

However this duty of care does not extend to an individual caring for themselves, that would be impossible to govern. Therefore legally, the blame has to lie with the perpetrator.

I do see what you mean, but I disagree with use of the words responsible, blame or fault used in conjunction with the victim . I do agree with malakaix, in that these people would have suffered a concequence of their actions. Thats different to being responsible for the unfortunate outcome. The responsibility and blame can only lie with the perpetrator.

I dunno, Im tired and not really expressing myself very well. I'll come back to this one!"

 

[Vader]

I'm not talking about where the blame should lie legally. I'm talking about whether or not the victim is really responsible. I'm not saying that in the rape case, the rapist should be given a lesser sentence because his victim was at fault. I'm just suggesting that we might consider her to be partly responsible, through her negligence.

Aside from the legality, is there any difference between the rape and the invasion cases? If the country is justified in blaming the government for the invasion, although it was an injustice that they did not perpetrate, then is the rape victim not justified in blaming herself?

 

[Raw Evil]

is the rape victim not justified in blaming herself?

That's rough, man.

That's all I can say.

 

[purple_cloud]

Yerg, I get flamed all the time for having a similar opinion. When a girl gets fall-over drunk at a party and is all over a guy all night, and he has sex with her and she cries rape, she deserves some of the blame. It is up to you to protect yourself, and realize that there are plenty of bad apples in this world. The woman coming home from a long day of work and grabbed while getting into her car is not at fault, but I think the rape thing is heavily situational. If you put yourself in a risky or stupid situation, and something bad happens, you are the only one to blame since you could have avoided it.

 

[Vader]

^I certainly don't think that you are the only one to blame; the rapist is obviously committing a heinous injustice. The victims don't deserve that injustice, and they should not solely, or mostly, blame themselves. However, they are involuntarily complicit, in that they have willingly chosen conditions that facilitate the crime.

RE, I know it's rough man, although I think it seems worse taken out of context. I don't mean that the victim should blame herself outright; but she might be remorseful of the bad decisions she made. Taking moral principles to their rational conclusion often yields some pretty unpalatable results.

 

[Jabberwocky]

It is wrong to steal a bike equally if the bike is locked up or left unlocked, a percentage of the thief's guilt does not deducted from his guilt because the owner was imprudent. Pointing out that someone was reckless or imprudent does not mean they were "at fault" in the sense that they deserved it or that the perpetrator is even slightly off the hook.

Some recklessness is criticism worthy. In cases where people got raped or had family murdered I would keep comments about their bad choices to my self out of sensitivity to a traumatized person. If the event was less traumatic like a stolen bike I'd readily ask someone what they expected leaving their bike out unsecured.

 

[badandwicked]

Interesting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8515592.stm

Women say some rape victims should take blame - survey

The survey found there was some reluctance to report being raped
A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests.Amnesty International's UK director Kate Allen said the new findings were "alarming but sadly not surprising".

"It is depressing that, nearly half a decade later, people are still quick to blame the victim of rape rather than placing the responsibility where it actually belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator," she said

My issue is where does it end? If someone wishes to do wrong to another they will, there's always a window of opportunity if someone's determined enough. Does that mean if they spot a chink in the defense, it's the victims fault for that chink being there in the first place?
Should we all have homes like fortresses and leave the home only with an armed guard? When you start blaming the victim you do remove it from the perpetrator, and you remove some of the moral expectations from society. Everyone should be expected to behave well, not some people expected to behave defensively.

Even though it's not possible, as a society we have to strive for the ideal, no less. i.e no burglars and rapists. When we start expecting & preparing for less, and most importantly allocating blame on this premise, it's dangerous ground.

 

[Raw Evil]

Should we all have homes like fortresses and leave the home only with an armed guard? When you start blaming the victim you do remove it from the perpetrator, and you remove some of the moral expectations from society. Everyone should be expected to behave well, not some people expected to behave defensively.

Even though it's not possible, as a society we have to strive for the ideal, no less. i.e no burglars and rapists. When we start expecting & preparing for less, and most importantly allocating blame on this premise, it's dangerous ground.

This, times a million.

 

[ebola?]

As a causal attribution, yes, except for exceptionally nuanced, multifaceted causal attributions. As for ethical claims, so much is an open matter of debate.

ebola

 

[Vader]

I feel another analogy may make my argument a little clearer. Say that you know an individual who is unhealthy. This is because he smokes and drinks constantly, eats a huge amount of fast food, never exercises, etc. Sadly, this man develops heart disease. Is this not in some way his fault? He might say "What, am I supposed to consider my health constantly, and only act in the healthiest of ways?"- this is analogous to "Should we all have homes like fortresses and leave the home only with an armed guard?". Of course our expectation is not that he should be a health nut, and our claim is not that anyone who is not a health nut deserves heart disease. However,we recognise that the victim is partly to blame because he failed to undertake reasonable precautionary measures which might have protected him from the misfortune.

When you start blaming the victim you do remove it from the perpetrator, and you remove some of the moral expectations from society.

This was something that I had trouble with, that if the victim is at all to blame, then either the perpetrator is less guilty, or there is more guilt to go around, so to speak, which seems odd. However, I think that reference to the analogy above can again be fruitful. If our heart-diseased friend had lived a reasonably healthy life, there would have been no blame for his disease. However, since he acted in a reckless way, there is blame. Similarly, for our burglary victim; had he taken reasonable precautions, he would not have been at fault. He did not take those precautions, and so is at fault; however, that is an entirely separate matter to that of the burglar's guilt. The burglar is equally guilty, whether or not the victim is also to blame. I think that though the idea of "extra blame" might be counter-intuitive, there's nothing absurd or inconsistent about it.

 

[badandwicked]

As a causal attribution, yes, except for exceptionally nuanced, multifaceted causal attributions. As for ethical claims, so much is an open matter of debate.

ebola

ebola, i've tried but my brain just can't process this. Could you re-phrase it in a simplified format? I'm having a slow day...

Yerg - I'm sorry but the heart disease analogy just doesn't work for me at all. One's an inaminate disease, the others a human act. I'm short on time but will def elaborate later.

 

[K12]

As a causal attribution, yes, except for exceptionally nuanced, multifaceted causal attributions. As for ethical claims, so much is an open matter of debate.

ebola

I would argue that both are open to debate

 

[Vader]

bnw, I'm aware of the gap between the two examples that you mention, but to be honest I don't see how it matters for the purposes I employed it for.

 

[The_Winner]

At first I was thinking of expressing my own views on the matter.
But I couldn't get over this question:
What's the purpose of this thread?
If we somehow determined a consensual answer to the OPs question, what would we achieve? Or even if we didn't and we only expressed our different opinions about it?
What would we achieve by knowing, how much we could blame someone for their actions?

edit:
Since I have nothing better to do, I'll answer my own question. I might be wrong tho, otherwise I wouldn't have asked.

I think there is no use of blaming, ever.
Even if we determined somehow, that we could blame someone for their misfortune, it would do us no good. But! This does not eliminate the fact, that we can learn from unwise decisions, which have brought us misery.

As I have just already expressed my opinion about this in another thread here, I believe there is in essence no evil deeds. There are only unwise actions, which arise from ignorance and this ignorance again is not some negative trait of a person, but just another 'effect' in the endless cause and effect chain.
If one becomes a drug addict murdering pedophile, there are reasons behind it, which cause this. It's not, that this person is evil. It's just stuff, that happened, which led to it.
Once you become to understand this chain of cause and effect, you become to see the futility of blaming anyone for anything they have done.

 

[badandwicked]

At first I was thinking of expressing my own views on the matter.
But I couldn't get over this question:
What's the purpose of this thread?

What's the purpose of any of the threads in P&S?

To invite debate and inspire thought and opinion. Sometimes people just can't help joining in, as you ably demonstrated.

This is a subject which has given me a few hours enjoyable thought, and exercised my brain. The OP and I may not agree, in fact we may have reached an impasse, but it has now motivated 9 people (at least) to reflect & post, and that in itself is the purpose of this thread.

Yerg - I'm still thinking!

 

[The_Winner]

What's the purpose of any of the threads in P&S?

To invite debate and inspire thought and opinion. Sometimes people just can't help joining in, as you ably demonstrated.

This is a subject which has given me a few hours enjoyable thought, and exercised my brain. The OP and I may not agree, in fact we may have reached an impasse, but it has now motivated 9 people (at least) to reflect & post, and that in itself is the purpose of this thread.

I might have come off a bit unclear. I have nothing against people trying to figure out stuff and actually am all for it.
I guess my questions were more of a rhetorical kind, which arose from my own views towards this topic, as you maybe could have concluded. ^^