Terrapin Station wrote:Sure, people can decide to emulate someone else's crime, but you can't blame the initial crime for the copycat crime. It was the copycat's decision to emulate the crime. In no way did the original crime MAKE the person emulate the crime, and the vast majority of people who were familiar with the original crime didn't emulate it. If the original crime had the sort of power/influence to be culpable for the copycat, then it would be inexplicable why most people familiar with it do not emulate it.
Yes, that's pretty much what I'd expect you to say as it's consistent with the views you've expressed before on the nature of human actions. Previously you've said that human action, when the word is used in the context of philosophy, can, by definition, have no prior causes. As discussed previously, and as shown again by the parts I've highlighted above in bold, you seem to regard causality as all-or-nothing. If A is a prior cause of B then your view seems to be that it
forces B in such a way that if A happens B
must necessarily happen. Since clearly human actions aren't like that you'd conclude that the concept of prior cause is not applicable. Human actions can (in your view) cause things but can't be caused by things.
As I've said before I think the concept of causality is useful for describing complex systems like humans and that it's perfectly consistent to talk of humans actions being causally influenced by things, even when B doesn't always follow A. I don't view causality in that all-or-nothing way and it appears to lead to what I view as absurdities, such as that the Nazi high command were entirely morally blameless and that all the blame should be taken by the foot soldiers, or any others who actually carried out physical actions. I don't make the hard, discrete distinction between words and actions that you seem to make.