Eubulides wrote:
>
>
> Try this argument in court after you've run a red light while talking on a cell
> phone and kill three people in an intersection with a crosswalk.
Court decisions (or the principles/legal fictions necessary for court decisions) can hardly determine our conception of the cosmos. (See current SC decisions.)
As to the hypothetical case. Obviously there ought to be procedures to bar use of cell phones while driving. Also obviously, the driver concerned here ought, under any conceivable social relations, be prevented from driving at all. AND -- Under current social & political conditions, there is no way to avoid going through the charade of punishment for the offense, a charade which will of course reinforce the ideology Miles describes.
perhaps the most widespread and kneejerk use today, however, of the concept of "taking responsibility" is in such expressions as "Those who support choice just don't want to take responsibility for their actions" (i.e., she had her fun, now let her pay for it).
Carrol