poll: who's to blame?

[mellowtigger]

Don't google. All comments are screened until I post the results on Wednesday, so you can't be influenced by others' answers.

Scenario: Janet and a friend are kayaking in a part of ocean with many jellyfish. The friend asks Janet if she should go for a swim. Janet has just read that the jellyfish in the area are harmless, and tells her friend to go for a swim. The friend is stung by a jellyfish and dies.

Q: Is Janet morally responsible for her friend's death?

Comments

[litch.livejournal.com]

If you're given bad information and act on it, when that source lacks credibility, you accept the consequences for believing it.

And since the friend acted on janets advice she accepts the consequences and janet is blameless, regardless of how good janets sources were.

[foeclan.livejournal.com]

It's not a question of blame but one of responsibility.

Janet is still partly responsible because she told her friend 'Sure, it's fine to play in the ocean-of-deadly-jellyfish because Captain Crunch told me so.'. The Captain himself also needs to take some of the responsibility for his part in this, given that he told her it was safe, but she's not completely without responsibility because anyone with two brain cells to rub together wouldn't consider Captain Crunch to be an authoritative source of information on water safety.

[litch.livejournal.com]

I don't see the difference in the distinction you make between blame and responsibility. Blame is just a function of responsibility when outcomes are unwanted. If one is responsible and shit goes wrong you are to blame, if one is not responsible then you are not to blame, your blame is in response to the amount of responsability you have for determining the outcome.