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!
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.)