Assignment of responsibility for an accident.

Abstract

People have no real control over many of the things that happen to them. Cars can fail to start in the morning; students can get measles just before a final exam; air and rail accidents can kill the traveler; and floods, plagues, and hurricanes can destroy entire communities. Control over all environmental events is impossible both because techniques for preventing some accidents are unknown and because precautionary steps may be impractical considering the rarity of the occurrence and the number of variables involved. We acknowledge, then, that some kinds of accidents are bound to occur, and that these accidents could happen to anyone. And when we hear of an accident, for the most part we sympathize with the helpless victim of fate. Often, however, if we feel the accident is a serious one and we reflect on it at some length, we begin to have vague feelings that perhaps this accident was not beyond the victim's control. For example, the thought may cross our mind that the flood victim should have had enough foresight to build his home further from the river; that the victims of political persecution should have anticipated the inevitable and emigrated before real persecution began. Disasters are also sometimes judged by observers (and by the victims themselves) to be punishment for the