They might not cause any harm too.
You seem to think that anything that is legal must be "ok". That is certainly not the position I am taking. Lots of things are legal that I do not think are "ok", and some things that are illegal and I think should not be (such as mere possession of drugs), are still not "ok" to me. I would not advise anyone to drive while drunk or high, and if someone does it and manages to not cause harm, they were lucky and shouldn't expect to be so lucky if they try it again. And if their parents or spouses or significant others want to penalize them for doing something so stupid, that's fine with me. I just don't think the law should penalize them unless they actually cause harm.
I think that drunk driving checkpoints are often taken advantage of to work around the 4th amendment, but making it legal to drive drunk unless you harm someone is insane. Drunk driving directly causes around 10k deaths per year in the US.
What if I decide to walk down a crowded sidewalk swinging a sword over my head, under your system is that fine until I actually hit someone? Do you have no legal recourse to stop me?
Is it OK for me to drag race down a residential street at 120mph as long as I don't hit anything?
Lets say the guy next door decides that he's going to build a nuclear reactor. Do you have to wait until your hair starts falling out to stop him?
Clearly there is a limit where a behavior is inherently dangerous enough that we've decided to outlaw the behavior before it causes harm. Does drunk driving not cross that threshold for you? Where is the limit for you personally?
Clearly there is a limit where a behavior is inherently dangerous enough that we've decided to outlaw the behavior before it causes harm.
Clearly in our current system we do this, yes. And clearly it doesn't always work (as we see in the drunk driving numbers). And even in cases where it does "work", I think that's more because of the cost of the dangerous behavior--very few private individuals have enough wealth to be able to build their own personal nuclear reactor, and the ones that do appear to have better things to do with their wealth--than because of legal prohibitions. ("My house has anti-tiger protection." "But there are no tigers within thousands of miles of your house." "See how well my protection works?")
The fundamental problem is that some people have a propensity to do stupid and dangerous things. How do we stop them? Legal prohibitions don't seem to work very well. (If personal nuclear reactors were affordable, do you think making them illegal would really stop all the people who want to build one?) Plus, legal prohibitions preempt other possible methods, and reduce respect for the law, and undermine personal responsibility. So what are they really gaining us?
And fundamentally the only way to stop some people from doing stupid and dangerous things is with force.
Let's say my neighbor sets up steel target in his backyard. Directly behind the target is my kid's swingset.
My neighbor insists that he is such a good shot that he will never miss. He hasn't actually caused any damage yet.
Let's assume my neighbor is an asshole and asking him (and other forms of social pressure won't work).
You've taken the libertarian anti-regulation stance much further than anyone I've ever met. Most libertarians would say that the mere threat of him missing the target causes me harm, just like the threat of swinging a sword around on a crowded sidewalk causes harm.
> Legal prohibitions don't seem to work very well.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. You can't seriously look at the history of regulation over the past century or so and not realize that there are some successes and some failures.
I used to be a hardcore libertarian when I was younger, but I've learned that the world is rarely binary. Dogmatic approaches to governance rarely work, and no regulation is just as bad as a command economy.
The search for a simple set of fundamental governing principles is a search for elegance--the same as trying to design an algorithm with no edge cases and no exceptions. The problem is that I've yet to encounter a system that didn't require edge cases and exceptions.
Yes, that's true. But the law is not the only way to apply such force.
> Most libertarians would say that the mere threat of him missing the target causes me harm
I don't think they would. But I think there are plenty of libertarians who would say that a homeowners association, neighborhood group, etc.--i.e., a private organization, not the government--has the right to tell your hypothetical neighbor that the rules prohibit him doing shooting practice in his back yard. And people who really, really can't live with such restrictions will, under a libertarian system, end up living far away from anyone else, because no one wants to live near them.
> I've yet to encounter a system that didn't require edge cases and exceptions.
I agree with this. But different systems can have very different edge cases and exceptions; and it seems reasonable to me to judge systems based on which ones have edge cases and exceptions that are more manageable.
In our current system, the edge cases and exceptions are instances in which regulations prevent people from doing things which would benefit them but which some rare people can't be trusted to do safely. Such cases are common: for example, to go back to the topic that originated this discussion, lots of people get stopped for speeding that would not have caused an accident had they not been stopped. And the fact that everyone knows such edge cases and exceptions are common means that people have less respect for the law--which spills over into the cases that are not edge cases and exceptions.
In the kind of libertarian system I envision, the edge cases and exceptions are instances in which private preemptive action is not sufficient to stop someone from causing harm. I would expect such edge cases and exceptions to be rare, since most people don't want to cause harm and will respond to reasonable requests to curtail potentially harmful activities. Furthermore, I would expect there to be much more respect for the law in such a system, because everyone understands that the law has a clearly defined boundary: cause harm, get punished.
And every drunk driver who causes a death should be penalized, no question. But penalizing people who have caused no harm undermines people's respect for the law. It also undermines personal responsibility: people figure that if it's legal, it must be ok, instead of exercising their own judgment.
Actually, the very fact you quote should make you doubt the effectiveness of penalizing drunk drivers who have not caused harm. Everyone knows you can lose your license for drunk driving, yet drunk driving still causes 10k deaths per year? What sort of draconian system would it take to actually deter all those drunk drivers if the law is the only tool we have to do it? I don't want to find that out.
What if I decide to walk down a crowded sidewalk swinging a sword over my head, under your system is that fine until I actually hit someone? Do you have no legal recourse to stop me?
Once again, you're conflating "legal" with "ok". Obviously walking down a crowded sidewalk swinging a sword over your head is stupid and carries a huge risk of harm. And everyone around you should be ducking and screaming at you to stop, for goodness' sake, you're going to hurt someone. But no, the law should not punish you unless you actually do hurt someone.
Your underlying fallacy here is that the only way to prevent people from doing something is to make it illegal. That is both too weak and too strong. Too weak, because, as noted above, even severe legal penalties aren't sufficient to deter some people (including, apparently, 10k drunk drivers a year). Too strong, because there are lots of ways to deter people without any legal penalties whatsoever--but that requires us, as individuals, to take responsibility for regulating our own behavior and pointing out obviously stupid and dangerous things that others around us are doing and asking them to stop, and imposing non-legal penalties if they don't. Sorry, you can't come into my house with that sword, it's too dangerous. Sorry, you can't come into my store with that sword, it's too dangerous. Sorry... Pretty soon the idiot will get the idea that nobody is going to interact with him if he persists in swinging his sword around all the time. (Applying similar logic to people who are prone to try driving while drunk is left as an exercise for the reader.)
But let's not argue in vague generalities about using social pressure instead of laws.
A company builds a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan. There is a 10% chance per year that the plant will fail. The failure will catastrophically damage Lake Michigan and the surrounding area. The company decides that it's worth it.
Under your system, a boycott is the only way to stop them?
A lab decides to manufacture biological weapons to sell to dictators. There is no chance of a boycott doing any good because the owner doesn't sell to anyone in the US. There is a 5% chance per year that safety procedures will fail, releasing a virus that will kill an estimated 50 million people in the US.
Under your system, what do we do about it?
These hypothetical situations are extreme, but I'm trying to find out what your limits are. Because I really don't think you've thought this through.
But there are still 10k of them a year. Why, by your logic, don't we tighten up enforcement until there are none of them? What justifies stopping anywhere short of that?
> Under your system, a boycott is the only way to stop them?
How did they manage to build a plant with a 10% per year chance of catastrophic failure? It takes thousands of people to build a nuclear plant. Why would all of them participate in such a thing?
> Under your system, what do we do about it?
Under our current system, what do we do about it? You have described the current world situation: someone could have such a lab right now and we couldn't stop them. So why hasn't it happened?
> I really don't think you've thought this through.
I'm not sure you have either. You are assuming a world in which we have eliminated all penalties against people who have not done actual harm, but nothing else has changed from our current world. That is not at all what I have been assuming. I am trying to contrast what we have now--a system in which the law penalizes people who have done no actual harm, and which has evolved for a long time under that assumption--with what we would have if a system in which the law does not penalize people who have done no actual harm had evolved for a long time under that assumption. In such a world, many, many things would be different from today's world.
As an illustration, I'll redescribe your two scenarios:
A company wants to build a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan. However, when they try to acquire the land, they find the landowners asking what they are going to use the land for, and when they say a nuclear plant, they start getting asked all kinds of hard questions about the risks involved. They can't give satisfactory answers, so the landowners refuse to sell. Similarly, when they try to recruit people to help work on the plant, they find the prospective employees asking the same hard questions, and refusing to work for them when they don't get satisfactory answers.
A lab wants to manufacture biological weapons. However, they are unable to get funding to even start, because there are no dictators or similar insane rulers to sell to. Plus, once the lab's employees find out what the owners are thinking, they all quit.
In short, in our current world, where we allow the law to penalize people preemptively, everyone expects the few people who make the laws to be responsible for stopping people from doing harmful things. So nobody feels individually responsible for doing it. In the world I'm describing, where everyone understands that the law won't step in until actual harm is done, everyone feels individually responsible for stopping people from doing harmful things, which means stepping in preemptively based on their own individual judgment instead of expecting the law to do it.
Would such a world be free of harmful things? Of course not. But neither is our current world. The question is, would the world I'm describing have fewer harmful things happen? Would it have fewer than 10k drunk driving deaths a year? We don't know because we can't run a controlled experiment, but I think it's quite possible that the answer could be yes.
In some cases, the person who might have an adverse impact of a decision is someone other than the person taking it. And sometimes the impact of that decision may be irreversible.
In those kinds of circumstances, we, as a society have to ask whether the externalised risks (i.e. the risk that person A imposes on person B, against their will or knowledge) outweigh the curtailing of rights (i.e. the right to do whatever I like) that a restriction would impose.
While I don't think that laws are the only way to prevent someone from doing something bad, I will leave you with a potential downside to what you're suggesting:
Lets say someone is rich/powerful, would the rules apply the same to them in your scenario? Should they?
Are there any studies that demonstrate that people will not engage in undesired behaviors solely because they're illegal as opposed to what they feel is right due to their upbringing and/or education?
For example, I'll wear a seat belt while riding or driving a vehicle regardless of whether there's a law that makes it a requirement.
That's the principle that underlies our current system, yes. But it's not the only possible principle on which to base a legal system. The alternate principle I am proposing is basically that the point of the law is to make clear exactly what actions cause harm and will cause those perpetrating them to suffer penalties.
> Lets say someone is rich/powerful, would the rules apply the same to them in your scenario?
Sure, why not?
I can take concealed firearms into a public space start firing into the air with no intention of hurting people, and so long as I don't accidentally hurt anyone, the law is powerless to stop me.
No one wants to let me into their store? Ok. I'll just walk down the street and shoot into the air!
While I don't think that anything legal must be "ok" and law is perfect I still don't agree with you and there is serious reasons for that. First of all one can simply be "lucky" with careless driving or just straight defective brakes.
Second I seen how law enforcement changed driver behaviour in my country of origin. Even with extreme amount of corruption it's still forced almost everyone to use seat belts, pass vehicle inspection regularly and avoid breaking the law if there is chance that will end up with loss of their driving license or huge bribe. I totally sure that without proper enforcement that would be never achieved otherwise.
Third is that I seen the difference between driving behaviour in the UK and Asia and while UK system cause a lot of false positives lethality numbers make a big deal. Even if enforcement is not the only measure to calm traffic it's important one. I really can't see how one can justify that 3x-10x more people going die.
Last reason is that I simply not believe that society on it's own can change driver behaviour as effective (if at all) as enforcement. Fines and tickets work because they are market mechanism like fuel and horsepower taxes, paid parking and London's congestion charge, etc.
Also there are plenty of other laws that limit overtaking on sidewalk, illegal parking and many more that only work because there are enforced. Remove them and streets of any country will slowly turn into hell.
UPD: Grammar fixes.
I see a big difference. Driving drunk/high impairs your judgment; it means you are less capable of knowing what a safe speed is (as well as being less able to judge many other factors). So it obviously increases risk.
Violating the speed limit, assuming you are sober, might not increase risk at all, because the driver has more information about the conditions in the particular situation than whoever set the posted speed limit, and therefore is better able to judge what a safe speed is. His judgment might be (and often is, if typical behavior on highways in the US is any indication) that the posted speed limit is too low--that speeds higher than that limit are still safe. I don't see any basis for saying that he must always be wrong and the posted speed limit must always be right.
> I seen how law enforcement changed driver behaviour in my country of origin
I didn't say that law enforcement doesn't change behavior. Of course it does. The question is, at what cost? And is the cost less than the benefit? Could the same (or greater) benefit be achieved at a lower cost by some other method.
Your own description suggests very large costs that you do not appear to be taking into account: you speak of "extreme amount of corruption" and "huge bribe". What cost does your society as a whole bear as a result of these things, compared to a society in which people are held strictly responsible when they cause harm and know they can't bribe their way out of being punished?