FBCE is contingent on self interest. If someone kills a living creature for money - which the Vet in this case did - then they are on the hook for that money and whatever pain and suffering they caused the pet owners and the dog. Expertise makes one culpable in its exercise regardless of the truth value of that expertise. Either you purport to be an expert or you don't. If you do... then you are taking responsibility for your actions and consequences of those actions.

Whether one falsely believes in something or not, when they claim truth without caveats (which any cult typically does) they are culpable. The same is true for a priest who takes the confession of a serial killer and fails to protect others from harm.

A philosopher on the other hand, who Socratic-ally questions their actions prior to taking them can truthfully tell others they didn't know right from wrong or at least weren't paid money to say so one way or the other (which typically philosophers are not.)

Certainly someone who gives aid to another without self interest is rare but blameless should that aid bring harm. Just as certain most everyone else carries responsibility along with their beliefs. That is why it is always best to question belief to the very limit of credulity. That much we all know is we don't know all.

I think Aristotle will agree with this.

I am not a philosopher but did graduate work in History, plus took another major in Anthropology as an undergrad. Please therefore forgive me for failing to make reference to philosophers who may or may not support my views, (except maybe Spinoza who appears to have thought like I do that free will is significantly overstated.)

This question is fascinating because it poses for me at least two enormously important questions; 1) do humans have agency, (possess free will), and 2) are we destined to be who we are. In addition, it poses a moral conundrum: if one does evil to other humans because of ignorance, should one be forgiven and by implication go unpunished.

In my revisionist view, eight of the twelve apostles must have walked out when Jesus said that everyone would be forgiven. (And of the four than remained, one was stone deaf, another toying with his sneaker laces, and the last slavishly loyal and willing to accept any manner of questionable assertions, (currently referred to as "false news.")

I assume we are discussing the massive wave of dumb that has swept across this federation of disparate states but which is euphemistically called a nation. If that is my error, I apologize for these remarks. Assuming I am correct, and dumb or malicious alien lifeforms have secretly replaced tens of millions of humans in the disunited states of America, then I assert the following: The question is past its relevant time. We are in the midst of an existential civil war which has been going on, with violence and without it since the original states were still mere colonies. The confederate states were loyalist during the American Revolution and loyalist during the English Civil War. The confederate states are culturally incompatible with the northern and western coastal states. Anthropologists will tell you people fight for their cultures. Culture is human world view. Oh, and you can pretty much erase the midwest too from rational discourse with the pervasive neo-Calvinistic fundamentalism which informs its political decisions. I am saying this because I wanted to pinpoint the epicenters of the current nonsense. It is "Nixon's southern strategy" gone wild.

The reason the question could be considered of minor import is that our very liberty and civilization is being threatened by ignorant uninformed people who were irrationally y given the right to choose political leaders. These people are being controlled by the oligarchs for their own economic, (and therefore political), advantage. Because of the very dangerous conditions caused by technology and global capitalism, the mass of humans are in an fight for our lives, (that is for our physical well-being, security and what shreds of our liberty remains.) Any discussion other than how best to overcome the massive wave of deliberately induced expressions of stupidity are a waste of time. When good men do nothing, bad men prevail. Here I sit waiting for the intellectuals to finish ruminating while the society around us in burning down. Call a spade a spade and let's get on with the real question: How can we silence these idiots and build a progressive just society? You know, the Monopoly game is all over. Almost all of us have no cash left to play. It has all been seized by "the system," by the rules of play. As Marx taught us, when the means of production change, society changes with it. In a world enslaved by gigabytes and controlled by the programmers and financiers, we must stop debating non-essentials and get moving in the right direction. Me, it's too late for me. I am old and past my time, but geez, I did hope to see a just and equitable society evolving rather than this pile of human waste I see around me.

Do we forgive people for who they are? We can't know their moral underpinnings, nor their motives, can we. I guess in general one could say that since everything is caused by everything in the past, (including the absence of somethings), and since the universe is in a continual state of flux and change, and since conditions vary from nano second to nano second, I suppose everyone can be forgiven.
Like Tim Willocks said in one of his books, "the warp of life is woven from innumerable threads." I really like that. It puts things into perspective. No, Virginia, (and also South Carolina if you want), there is no free will because we are who we were destined to be, genetically, by conditioning, by indoctrination, by culture, by whatever. Therefore, if you feel like it, bless us all with a shower of forgiveness. Me, no, I do not forgive the stupids once they cross the line and so our society harm, maybe even existential harm. Napoleon said of his generals when they failed that they were "culpably negligent." The stupid should know enough to vote morally and if they don't to avoid voting at all; and of paramount importance, keep their mouths shut. My grandparents and parents worshiped education and expressed humility in the presence of intellect. Now we have morons spewing ignorance all over the place, bringing hate and dissension into our society so the oligarchs can keep us disunited and impotent as they practice their greed and indifference.

444,

Hmm... I'm not sure if I see the necessity of invoking the lack of Free Will here, but would indulge it. Just because one doesn't have Free Will doesn't excuse their action... ever. The courts are safe on this point.

False belief on the other hand in a world without Free Will, where a person is capable of truth, where they are responsible for finding truth for others (ie a Vet asked to euthanize an ailing dog by it's owner) that is beyond guilty. It is negligent.

Historians, Philosophers and Anthropologists alike have a calling for truth. Any negligence in that calling might be termed stupid but I would impute a more sinister intention and gruesome reward.

Hmm... is that stupid?

Good thoughts, Mr. Smith. It continuously annoys me that there is a fundamental contradiction in all of my thinking and expressions. That is to make moral choices myself and expect them from others. Yet, I increasingly believing we have no "free" choices. Put another way, we only have very defined and confined choices and pre-formed decisions about those choices. We are everything that came before and are so controlled.. How can one choose any action "freely," (good or bad or otherwise), if one is not in command of one's own destiny nor even one's persona?

We are in a constant state of making decisions we think are choices, yet do not comprehend we are driven to those choices and decisions by who we are and by everything past, present, (and since Time is non-linear and merely a human construct), future as well. I guess that my simple understanding of some quantum physics has upset my formerly primitive view of life and what it means to be a human and an individual. So, do I opt for the answer that "intent" is the definitive factor to consider when deciding forgiveness? That is the ancient Catholic response, is it not? That one's intentions determine guilt or innocence. But there is another compelling argument: that we are known by what we do. Perhaps my personal position at this point in time, given what little I know, is that we are all destined to be what we were born to be; a criminal, a healer, a thinker, a magician, a dancer, a prostitute, tinker, tailor soldier or spy..... Neither intent nor action defines us. There is only the outcome (consequence) of everything before.

When someone behaves foolishly for example, I can only shrug and think they were destined to do so. I think that it is foolish for us to ignore billions of wiser people in non-Western cultures who believe it is up to Allah to will something, to occur or not, or that karma will prevail, or that what is meant to be is meant to be. There are many such expressions of humanity's absence of agency. We should take them more seriously rather than believe we had individual choice which somehow mattered. Perhaps we would have been less vexed. In a religious context, I have in other venues argued that free will is a tactic for religious people to assign guilt in the absence of knowledge about the complexity of causation. If one can assign guilt because of a theological position, one can have power and control over others. Admittedly though, it is not comforting to think that because we are destined and free will is largely a fiction, all manner of disorder and low behavior must be expected.

Oh, and of course, since everything is related, this begs the question for me: do we indeed live in a simulation? At least one might argue that if we are destined to be who we are and to make the "choices" we do, have not we been programmed by the consequences of everything which occurred or failed to occur in what we call, "the past?"

Neil,

It seems to me that you are perhaps prevaricating over your definition of person capable of being murdered. As far as I can tell your only reason for modifying the culpability of the Veterinarian vs Sarah, is contingent on the definition of "what can be murdered" being different. The appropriate critical question is about the actor (Vet vs Sarah), not the being acted upon (Dog vs. Person), but your moral consequent seems to be critically dependent on the being acted upon.

Your call to intuition to lead your assessment demonstrates this. Your intuition is developed based on your survival, not morality--morality may effect survival, but it isn't the entirety of it. Intuition seeks to achieve a quite and final solution to an immediate problem. Blaming Sarah would achieve this--she would then be apprehended, punished/imprisoned, and perhaps rehabilitated. But it wouldn't address the actual reason/impetus behind the fact that James (the otherwise sustained meme framework of "there exist a human-like race of demon-people who should be killed and that look like R") was killed and was thus the culpable party to the Murder of James.

This is not to say that Sarah isn't culpable of some crime (such as manslaughter), just not "murder" of the "human being" here named James.

The argument is really that Sarah should have known better than to kill James. How exactly? Well, in this context, Sarah should have confirmed that James was really a demon, as described in her false beliefs. Likewise, the veterinarian should have confirmed that Rufus was really the sick canine Fred, as described by his false beliefs. FBCE must apply the same way.

I enjoy this forum because unlike so many others I visit on occasion, the comments are intelligent and cogent. Thank you for providing a few minutes of sanity.

Many beliefs are false, if only because of Dewey's pronouncement We are, for example, mired in an era of extremism. Be that religious, political or anywhere along a continuum. Exculpatory? Good luck with that notion. I believe water is wet. Water, in this universe, would be wet, whether I believed it or no. I also believe I am fairly intelligent. That is propositional, on my part. Not everyone agrees. So what is my point? If you haven't gotten it, you were not paying attention. If THAT is propositional, on my part, sobeit.

One might ask: if someone is acting under the influence of false belief, does that act merit exculpatory consideration? It has been asserted that ignorance of the law is no defense. Do we not have a parallel here? Or, am I failing to understand a distinction?