Blaming Crime Victims
Q&A Radio: 21 September 2014, Question 1
I answered a question on blaming crime victims on 21 September 2014. You can listen to or download the podcast of just this question below – or check out the whole episode of Philosophy in Action Radio.
Is it wrong to suggest that a crime victim should have taken greater precautions? My wife and I were discussing the recent iCloud data breach in which a hacker stole and published nude photos of hundreds of female celebrities. I made the comment that while the hacker's actions were despicable, at the same time I thought the celebrities were stupid to have trusted iCloud to protect the privacy of their photos in the first place. My wife balked at this, saying that this amounts to blaming the victim, and is no better than saying a woman who is raped was stupid for wearing a short skirt, or for drinking alcohol. But I see it as being more akin to saying a person whose bag was stolen from their car was stupid for leaving the door unlocked. Do comments of this sort really amount to 'blaming the victim'? Is it proper or improper to make such comments? Does my level of expertise or the victim's level of expertise make any difference? (As a computer engineer, I am very aware of the dangers of the cloud, whereas your average celebrity would probably be clueless about it.) Intuitively, I feel like the comments would be improper in my wife's example, proper in my example, and I'm unsure about the data breach itself. But I'm struggling to identify what the defining characteristics are for each case. What's the right approach here?
My Answer, In Brief: Criminals are fully to blame for their criminal acts – always. However, if only for the sake of preventing future crimes, we should recognize that victims might have provided opportunities to the criminal by taking unnecessary and even negligent risks. In the case of the stolen celebrity nudes, the technology is pretty confusing to non-geeks, but hopefully the incident will inspire people to be more careful in future with their sensitive data.
Tags: Crime, Ethics, Moral Judgment, Negligence, Responsibility, Technology
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About Philosophy in Action
I'm Dr. Diana Brickell. I'm a philosopher specializing in the application of rational principles to the challenges of real life. I received my Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2009. My book, Responsibility & Luck: A Defense of Praise and Blame, is available for purchase in paperback and Kindle. The book defends the justice of moral praise and blame of persons using an Aristotelian theory of moral responsibility, thereby refuting Thomas Nagel's "problem of moral luck."
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