Biomatrix case exercises - student module  (Page 20/21)

Capacity responsibility: conditions of imputability

• Self-Sameness : We cannot punish one individual for the action of another. (Does this mean we cannot punish Yahoo for messages displayed by the BXM Police?) In more formal terms, we cannot punish one individual for the actions committed by another. We can punish one person only if he or she is the "selfsame" person as the one who committed the untoward (wrongful) action in the past. This condition says that you have to have the right person, the one who, in fact, did the wrongful action in question. In the Biomatrix case, the John Doe lawsuit serves to establish selfsameness in this case by identifying the real identities of the authors of the defamatory messages.
• Moral Sense : In general, to be responsible is to be able to appreciate the moral qualities of one's acts and to shape one's responses in accordance with this appreciation. Children do not have this capacity yet. Those (besides children) who lack this capacity are generally termed insane. (Herbert Fingarette discusses this in some detail in his book Criminal Insanity .) It is pretty clear that Costanzo, Costanzo, and Morris had moral sense, that is, that they had the ability to appreciate that their messages were defamatory and that they were wrong. Their claim that such their actions were excusable because they were online is difficult to accept. But does operating anonymously online undermine moral sense? Do different conventions (like flaming) cause us to suspend normal expectations regarding defamation? Huff, Johnson, and Miller have interesting things to say about this in their essay on Virtual Harm.
• Ownership : This condition is situation specific as opposed to moral sense which is more general. Individuals are responsible only for those actions performed knowingly and voluntarily. Put negatively, we are not responsible for actions performed under ignorance or compulsion. You betray your friend's secret without knowing that it was a secret. Does this mean you are not responsible? You said some terrible things about your friend but you were drunk at the time. How could you help it? But weren't you responsible for getting yourself into this state in the first place? The BXM Police knew what they were doing. Specifically, they knew that the information they were spreading about Biomatrix was false. And, nobody was holding a gun to their heads forcing them to send their messages. Their actions, then, were performed without ignorance and compulsion. This absence of ignorance and compulsion establishes capacity in terms of ownership.

What did you learn?

This section provides closure to the module for students. It may consist of a formal conclusion that summarizes the module and outlines its learning objectives. It could provide questions to help students debrief and reflect on what they have learned. Assessment forms (e.g., the “Muddiest Point” Form) could be used to evaluate the quality of the learning experience. In short, this section specifies the strategy for bringing the module to a close.