entity                   (O) moral objects
                          /     \                  (S) moral subjects
                   (O)  actor  plant (O)
                        /    \
                    animals  corporate bodies (S)
                      /   \
                  humans  other animals
                 /   |  \________
           young  mentally       able adults (S)
        children  disabled
  

Remarks: Note that dead people are no moral objects. They do not have any rights. The reason is that dead people cannot suffer. However, dead people are protected under some circumstances, including the following:

• A dead person's property is transferred to the heir as stated in the will.
• A dead person (or rather: his heirs) will be compensated for any offense against that person, if the offense was commited before the death and has not yet been resolved.
• A person owns his body, so a person may state what shall happen to his body after his death.
• A dead person cannot be insulted. However, if something insulting is said about the dead person, and if this statement is provably wrong, the perpetrator may be charged with lying.

We have to define the timepoint at which a set of cells starts being a moral object, because this timepoint will tell whether abortion is legal. There are many things that make the life of an undesired child very hard:

• A child requires considerable emotional and also financial efforts by the parents. Of course, this is welcome if the child is desired. If it is not, however, the financial and emotional capabilities of the parents may be trespassed.
• A child that is not desired by his parents will feel so.
• A child that is not desired may suffer from the unpreparedness of his parents. He has often lesser chances of getting a good education, proper care and a loving environment.

The main reason against abortion is the protection of unborn life. As the definition of "life" is at least disputable and the previous arguments provide strong pragmatic reasons for abortion, this essay does not necessarily count a set of cells as an animal.

Remarks: Once a certain educational level has been reached, the person does no longer count as child. This shall be approximately at the age of 14. This definition shall encourage both parents and child to engage in the child's education.

Remarks: This interface contract ensures that the law can treat corporate bodies and humans alike. The law can find a corporate body to be the perpetrator of an offense and it can charge the corporate body. Note that if a member of the body claims wrongly that he acts in the name of the corporate body, the blame will not fall on the corporate body. Instead, the person will be held responsible for his actions and in addition, he will be charged with lying (i.e. claiming something that is false). The notion of contract will be defined later on.

Note that there is an easy default form of the interface contract : No action is performed by the body and the body does not have any property. Since moreover contracts can have quite an informal character, any group of persons with a common goal can form a corporate body. This corresponds to the "civil law association" in the Civil Codes ("Gesellschaft Bürgerlichen Rechts", "GbR" in German) .

Remarks: This is a technical notion to simplify talking about a group of people as a unit.

Remarks: Some people have disadvantages that are not their own fault. This includes, e.g., handicaps or illnesses. We need charities to take care for these people. The laws of this essay will produce values that do not belong to anybody (namely penalties and ownerless heritage). These values will be given to charities to support their work.

    State1:    -event->   State2:              -event->    State3:
      red(car)             paints(Alonso,car,green)        green(car)
                           partially-red(car)
                           partially-green(car)
    -----------------------time---------------------->
  

Remarks: The notions of "events" and "states" build up our model of the course of time. We see the course of time as a (linear) graph, in which the events lead from one state to the following. Obviously, this model is a rough simplification, which is far to coarse to express everything that happens. Its granularity has to be chosen depending on the application. The model allows different formalizations for the same course of time. Fortunately, courses of time will be used only to make comparisons with other courses of time, so that the Principle of Difference applies.

Remarks: Of course, the laws of nature entail that a dice falls in such a way that it shows a specific number. However, this strict notion of natural predestination proves unhandy for this essay, since events of this kind cannot be predicted. A very strict notion of natural predestination, together with a physical view of the human brain, could even entail that the behavior of humans can be predicted by the laws of nature. To circumvent this question, this essay adopts a less strict notion of natural predestination. Hence random events and human behavior are considered non-necessary events. The relation of necessary events between states is transitive.

Remarks: Every necessary event is possible.

Remarks: Unfortunately, the definition of probability is very vague. Assume for example that Alonso's car is red and Alonso paints his car green. What is the probability of this event? Depending on how the question is phrased, different values result:

• The probability of S2="Alonso paints his car green on this very day" in the state S1="Alonso's car is red on this day" is 1.0
• The probability of S2="Alonso paints his car green" in the state S1="Alonso's car is red" is 0, because this is the first time that Alonso changes the car's color from red to green.
• The probability of S2="Alonso paints his car" in the state S1="Alonso's car has some color" may be quite high if Alonso often changes the color of his car.
• The probability of S2="Somebody paints his car" is even higher.

Careful abstractionis necessary to determine the probability of a state, because the probability will be used to estimate how common a state is. If a state is common, it is expected that people take it into account when they plan their actions.
The probability of a necessary event is 1.0.

Remarks: The closest reasonable course of time is used to estimate the "usual" consequences of an action. In this course of time, everything happens as it happens in the real course of time, but humans act in a "reasonable" way. This means that they try to minimize damage and in particular that they do not cause injust damage .

Remarks: In contrast to the possible and reasonable courses of time, the hypothetical course of time mirrors reality as closely as possible. It is a formal variant of the "ceteris paribus" argumentation.

Remarks: This is a formalized version of the "conditio sine qua non" principle. We are trying to determine whether a certain action caused a certain state. For this purpose, we imagine that the action did not take place and we see if the state would still appear. If the state would not appear, the action caused the state. Note that by this definition, the grandma is an agent of her grandson stealing a car, because she gave birth to the person who gave birth to the grandson. So, without her, the theft could not have happened and she is an agent. This problem is solved in different ways:

• in the German Civil Code, a person is the cause of a state if the action "leads to the state according to common life experience" (adequacy-theory). So grandma is safe — unless she lives in a criminal society in which the majority of people steals.
• in the German Criminal Law, one distinguishes between "causing" and "being responsible for" (equivalence-theory). Although someone may be the cause of a damage, he is only responsible for it if his action caused the danger of damage, as defined by the law. In the example, the grandma is the cause of her grandson stealing a car. However, she is not responsible for it, because having a grandson is not seen as a danger of damage in the law. The problem is that someone might find a way to cause a damage without producing a danger of damage as defined in the law.

This essay will try another solution, although this solution is also imperfect.

The notion of double causality is necessary to avoid the problem of cumulative actions: Imagine that Alonso and Bertram each give a deadly portion of poison to Cedrick (2 actions). Cedrick dies. Each of the two actions can be left away without helping Cedrick. But if both actions are left away, Cedrick survives. Hence, both Alonso and Bertram are the agents of Cedrick's death. Double causality includes the case in which it cannot be determined which action exactly caused the damage. The standard example is the car accident, in which a car hits a biker and causes deadly injuries. Some seconds later, a lorry passes by and also causes deadly injuries. The biker is brought to a hospital, but dies. It cannot be determined which injuries exactly caused the death. So both the lorry driver and the car driver count as agents.

Remarks: This essay will take the direct agent of a damage as responsible for the damage. That means: the last agent in a chain of agents is the direct agent. The problem is that, according to this definition, someone who steps on a land mine is himself responsible. As a way out, this essay provides the offense of "bad surprise" (sb.). Different cases of direct agents can be imagined:

• There is no direct agent at all (like for instance for natural disasters)
• There may be one agent (this is the easy case)
• There may be multiple agents if the agents acted simultaneously or if double causality applies. This is, e.g., the case when two cars bump into each other. In this case, the agent that could have avoided the damage most easily receives a bigger share of the responsibility. There are two special sub-cases of this scenario:
  • If one person wilfully causes harm to another person (e.g., Alonso wilfully bumps his car into Bertram's), then obviously the harming person receives all resposibility, because he could have avoided the damage very easily by refraining from the action.
  • If someone creates a dangerous situation, where the other party is forced to react (e.g., if Alonso blindfolds himself and then rides his car), then the reacting party becomes the direct agent, but can still shift the burden by invoking bad surprise.

Since multiple agents are taken together as a natural corporate body, this essay talks of "the direct agent".

Remarks: It is non-trivial to determine when a declaration has actually been completed: Consider a mail that is lost or not read, a letter that is written without the intention of sending it and which is then found and sent by somebody else, a sign that is put up but not read, a declaration in a language that the addressee does not understand, a declaration made to or by a machine etc.. This essay accepts a flow of data as a declaration only if it fulfills certain standard criteria. These criteria are highly contingent. They depend on the nation of the addressee (for the choice of language), the cultural enviroment (to determine whether a statement is serious or just a joke), the technical state of development (to estimate the period of time needed to find and read an e-mail) and time (to comply with new ways of communication). Hence this essay cannot name the criteria. Usually, the national Civil Code contains useful criteria.

The question of what humans actually mean when they speak is enormeously complicated, especially because a declaration shall comprise all of its implications (the so-called implicatures). The study of pragmatics is dedicated to this issue. To determine the meaning of a statement, this essay proposes the following simplistic procedure as a rough guideline: Collect the set of all meanings that could be intended. Delete from this set all meanings that are tautological. If the set contains more than one meaning, delete from the set all meanings that could easily be expressed more explicitly. If the set is singleton, chances are that you found the intended meaning. Otherwise, you should clarify the utterer's intention by asking him. Consider some examples:

• "Do you like dancing?"
  Reasonable meanings:
  1. "I would like to go dancing with you"
  2. "I would just like to know whether you like dancing"
  None of these meanings is tautological. It is easy to express the first meaning more explicitly, namely by the phrase "I would like to go dancing with you". By contrast, it is clumsy to express the second meaning more explicitly. Hence it is reasonable to assume the second meaning.
• "I will be at the party tomorrow"
  Reasonable meanings:
  1. "I will definitively be at the party tomorrow"
  2. "I am planning to be at the party tomorrow, but I'm not yet sure"
  None of these meanings is tautological. It is easy to express the second meaning more explicitly — simply by saying "I plan to be at the party tomorrow". By contrast, it is not trivial to express the first meaning in a simpler way than by the above statement. Hence this statement is to be considered a promise . This interpretation urges people to be careful what they say. But after all, statements are made for other people to rely on them.

Finally, add the logical implications of the meaning and its presuppositions (i.e. the facts that have to be true to make the statement a reasonable statement). Note that this procedure may result in no meaning at all.

This essay treats altering data and creating data in the same way in order to treat data sabotage similarly to lying.

Creating damage can count as an agreement to a declaration , if it is known to do so. This mechanism, the "service agreement", allows service providers to bind certain obligations to certain customer actions. Examples include:

• Entering a train
  The damage is trespassing the service provider's territory. The declaration accepted by the customer are the terms of service.
• Entering an auction hall
  Again, the damage is trespassing. By trespassing, the customer accepts that by raising his hand he buys the item that is being auctioned.
• Taking a newspaper out of a sell box
  The damage is theft. The customer agrees to pay the price noted on the sell box.

The customer shall know that he agrees to some declaration and he shall have easy access to that declaration . Note that a declaration cannot be made by refraining from doing something. The latin phrase "Quis tacit consentire videtur" ("Who does not speak seems to agree") does not apply.

Declarations may be nested and combined. E.g. by entering an auction hall, you agree that raising your hand counts as a declaration that you will buy the item. Thanks to the abstract definition, also clicking on some button in the Internet counts as a declaration .

Set phrases shall not be taken literally if they imply damage to the utterer. For instance, imagine that Alonso proposes to Bertram to go on a 4-week hike through the inner Congolese jungle. Bertram answers politely "What a cute idea". Bertram's reaction cannot be understood as an agreement, because

• participating in the tour is "damage" to Bertram in the sense that it prevents him from doing something else (obstruction)
• the declaration lacks explicitness

In such a case, Alonso should ask Bertram to agree explicitly.

Remarks: By making a promise a special kind of declaration , lying and breaking promises can be treated in the same way.

Remarks: There are different forms of a contract. The most common form of a contract is a declaration on a sheet of paper that both parties sign. This is to be understood as a promise by each party to fulfill its respective requirements. The contract is not to be understood as the declaration of one party that the other party will fulfill its respective requirements!

A contract can also be established without writing. Since declarations can be quite informal, a simple verbal agreement already constitutes a contract. Since a declaration can also be made implicitly (e.g. by entering a restaurant), contracts may even spring to life without a single spoken word (see the definition of declaration).

The technically cleanest form of a contract is the following:

In this dialogue, Alonso offers a contract to Bertram by making a conditional promise . Up to this point, neither Alonso nor Bertram are obliged to do anything. Bertram can trigger Alonso's promise to come into effect by making a promise as well. Now Alonso is bound to do X and Bertram is bound to do Y. Usually, the national Civil Code deals with a number of special cases concerning contract s. For example, it has to be clarified what shall happen if one party makes the other party's promise impossible to fulfill. This essay leaves these decisions to the parties. However, the parties are invited to use the definitions of the national Civil Code (or of any other common set of definitions) for their contract . For example, they can agree to engage in a purchase in the sense of the national Civil Code.

The above definition of a contract differs from the definition in the German Civil Code, where a contract consists of "two coinciding declarations of will". With this definition, though, lying, breaking a promise and breaking a contract have to be treated separately.

Remarks: "Property" in itself is nothing else than an arbitrary relation. It cannot be determined from the nature of a thing or from a person's dealing with the thing. Note that you cannot get rid of property except by contract .

Remarks: By the will, a person may bequeath his property to a heir. The heir needs to declare that he accepts the property, so that a contract results and the property gets transferred. If the will does not exist, if the actor is incapable of making promises (if he is an animal, e.g.), if the heir does not accept the property, if the property transfer is not immediate or if the will does not specify a heir for a property, the will automatically counts as a declaration that gives the property to a charity. If a charity agrees, a contract results and the property is transferred. By this mechanism, X can bind the heirs to a certain behavior if they accept the heritage. For example, a heir may own the house if he agrees not to sell it etc..

The concept of heritage poses the question whether a death duty is reasonable. Without a death duty, the heir of a millionaire does not have to work, because he could simply have his father's money work for him. Although this does not cause damage to anybody (on the contrary), it might be a fair assumption that everybody should work to earn his livings. Under this assumption, we may give part of the heritage to a charity. This would greatly benefit the community, but it would not cause damage, because, under the assumption, earning his livings is not a damage to the heir.

Remarks: The notion of knowledge is a mental notion. Philosophers are of the opinion that mental notions cannot be defined convincingly on principle. Therefore, this essay simply assumes that in certain situations, a person does know something. If the person does not know about a state although one of the above criteria applies, the person should at least know about the state. This assumption shall encourage people to walk through their life with at least a minumum amount of attention. Furthermore, a state counts as known if the person says that the state is known (by the the Dixit-Principle, see lying).

The notion of knowledge is central to define denial of assistance: A person can only help somebody in an emergency if he knows about the emergency.

Remarks: It is important to know whether a state is desired or not. If a state is damaging and it is not desired, we need to prevent it (see imparative assitance).
Promised states are always desired. Thus, if Alonso sells his car, the damage that results (namely the loss of his car) is desired. Hence the damage is no injust damage and we do not need to prevent it (see imparative assistance). Likewise, an action by a moral subject implies that all its highly probably consequences are desired. For example, if Alonso enjoys shooting at his own car, then the consequence that the car is damaged is extremely likely. Hence we may assume that Alonso desired to destroy his car. Hence the damage does not constitute injust damage and we do not need to prevent it (see again imparative assistance). Furthermore, a state counts as desired if the person says that the state is desired (by the the Dixit-Principle, see lying).

As the notion of knowledge, the notion of desire is a mental notion. It is hard to define it convincingly. Therefore, this essay simply assumes that a person desires a state if certain conditions are given. Naturally, a person may also desire a state if these conditions are not given. For this essay, though, it is only important to define when we can be sure that a person desires something. It does not matter if the conditions do not catch all cases where people desire something.

Remarks: Watching pictures in shop windows, e.g., is not using intellectual property, because the picture is not moved into the personal sphere, but the personal sphere moves to the intellectual property. On the other hand, clicking on a link counts as using the intellectual property, because the document is moved into the personal sphere. For the document to be accepted as intellectual property, the user must be informed about the terms of usage before he clicks on the link.

Remarks: The compensation aims at making up for suffered damage. This includes all disadvantages entailed by the damage, be they before or after the resolution. The default definition suggests the following: First, the state without the damage has to be restored (e.g. for an injury, the injury has to be healed). Then, the victim has to be compensated for the duration of the damage. This value is estimated by the amount that would be necessary to have a third person undergo that damage (e.g. for an injury, one asks for how much money someone else would be willing to undergo the injury, provided that the healing costs are already paid). The compensation concerns all states following the original damage that are injust damage (consequential losses). Note that these losses may well continue beyond the timepoint of the resolution. These losses are computed as the difference of two closest reasonable courses of times, without involving the real course of time. This is because the compensation shall only comprise the "usual", predictable consequences of D. Consider some special cases:

• Compensation does not cover other injust damages.
  Example: Alonso's car is stolen. Alonso decides to walk instead of driving, falls into a drain and breaks his leg. This damage is not covered by the compensation for the car theft, because in reasonable courses of time, people do not suffer accidents (which fall under the definition of injust damages).
• Compensation covers consequential losses.
  Example: A machine in Alonso's factory is destroyed. Hence Alonso cannot use the machine for production. In contrast, he is assumed to use the machine in the closest reasonable course of time without the destruction. Hence the loss in productivity is covered by the compensation.
• Compensation does not cover unreasonable behavior.
  Example: A machine in Alonso's factory is destroyed. Alonso decides to cease production completely, although the remaining machines could continue production. In contrast, he is assumed to continue production with the remaining machines in the closest reasonable course of time despite the destruction. Hence this additional loss is not covered by compensation.
• Compensation covers contingent events.
  Example: A fire-extinguisher in Alonso's house is stolen. A fire breaks out and the house burns down.
  In the closest reasonable course of time without the theft, the fire would have broken out as well. However, in this course of time, Alonso would have extinguished the fire with the fire-extinguisher. Hence the compensation for the theft covers the house. That means: Whoever stole the fire extinguisher is liable for the destruction of the house.
  Example: Alonso's lotto coupon is stolen. In the lottey, it turns out that the lotto coupon would have won. Hence the compensation covers the lotto win.
  This may seem unfair. On the other hand, winning the lottery is the very purpose of the lotto coupon — exactly like extinguishing fires is the purpose of the fire-extinguisher. The value of a thing comprises the value of its use.

Remarks: Here, we reduce the three-valued logic to a two-valued logic: A state can be

• desired, as defined in "desire"
• detested, i.e. the person desires the contrary of the state
• neutral or unknown, i.e. we do not know whether the person desires or detests the state

This essay merges the last two cases to "undesired". If something is not explicitly desired, it counts as undesired. Hence by default, all damages are undesired. Furthermore, all damages to (non-human) animals are undesired, because animals are not capable of declaring. By the principle "You cannot commit an offence against yourself", any desired damage will be ignored by this moral framework.

Remarks: Injust damage is the kind of damage we want to prevent.

Remarks: A damage may be expected although the victim is undetermined. Imagine for instance that our rascal Alonso covers an open drain with cardboard. It is highly probable that someone will step on the cardboard and fall into the drain. Although it is unknown who will fall into the drain, the damage is expected. Its value boils down to the probability of anybody falling into the drain multiplied by the value of the injury.

We need the notion of expected damage to quantify how dangerous a behavior is.

Remarks: Severe damages are the ones that have to be prevented at all cost. Nobody can be expected to undergo severe damage, even if that could serve a higher purpose.

Remarks: Refundable assistance defines the circumstances in which someone who helps in an emergency case may expect to be compensated for his efforts. Usually, this applies to the case where a helper prevents a perpetrator from committing an offense. Since this essay focuses on the rights of the victim, it is legal to prevent an offense even though the perpetrator of that offense suffers more through the prevention than the victim would have suffered through the offense. This view is shared by the German Criminal Law, which distinguishes "Notwehr" (actions against the perpetrator) from "Notstand" (actions against other people).

Any reduction of the expected damage is valuable, no matter whether the damage is actually prevented in the real course of time.

The compensation for refundable assistance is the damage caused to the helper (see provocation of assistance). This includes any loss of property as well as the effort itself (which counts as obstruction) and any offenses committed by the helper.

The assistance should not cause more damage than the expected damage, i.e. the effort of the helper is bound from above by the reduction of the expected damage — unless the damage affects the perpetrator of the expected damage directly. This direct effect means that the perpetrator must be the immediate victim of the damage, if the damage caused by the assistance exceeds the expected damage. This definition is necessary because any damage caused by the assistance affects the perpetrator on the long run, since he has to refund the assistance. Severe damages count more than other types of damage. Severe damages among themselves are compared as usual. As a result, any assistance that prevents severe damage is adequate, as long as it does not cause more severe damage. If severe damage is used, its benefit must be immediate. It is not allowed to use severe damage to coerce somebody into doing something (torture is prohibited). The reason is that it may be impossible to determine whether the person can fulfill the demand or not. Torturing thus always bears the danger of injustly causing severe harm in vain.

Remarks: Imparative assistance defines the conditions under which assistance is not only refundable, but also mandatory (see the Principle of Universal Responsibility). Whoever sees a moral object in danger shall rush to help. However, we know that millions of people live in danger (they starve, they are persecuted or they suffer from illness). This is why there are so many restrictions to imparative assistance, in particular:

• Nobody can be forced to accept severe damage to help somebody.
• You have to help only if the victim can't do it for himself.
• You may expect your efforts to be refunded.

Perpetrators are not obliged to help in their own offenses, since this would result in a double penalty (first for the offense and then for denial of assistance). In certain cases the victim of an offense can be obliged to help himself, namely if he knows that the perpetrator is unaware of the damage he is causing (silent suffering). It is sufficient for the victim to tell the perpetrator about the damage he is causing. If the victim continues suffering and does not inform the perpetrator, the victim becomes partly responsible himself, committing a denial of assistance.
The assistance is an "obligatory purchase": The helping person is obliged to help and the victim is obliged to "buy" this assistance, i.e. to compensate the effort. If an offense is prevented, the wannabe-perpetrator will have to pay for the prevention.

Remarks: This definition comprises a wide range of property damages. For example, any transferral of property counts as damage. Thus, the compensations and penalties are damages (albeit not injust damages). Withholding property is also a property violation, because a moral object may become proprietor of a thing, but be denied access to the thing. Note that even each change of a thing is a damage to the proprietor. For example, using the Internet is a damage, because it changes the state of the servers of the Internet provider. However, using the Internt is usually not an injust damage , as it bases on a contract. The compensation for a property violation is, as the default definition suggests, giving back the thing and making up for the period of loss.

Remarks: Injury in this sense includes non-consentual sexual activity and sexual harassment. The compensation for an injury is, as the default definition suggests, the cost for healing and a compensation for the suffering.

Remarks: By defining trespassing in this general way, both walking on somebody else's territory and placing garbage on his territory count as damage. The compensation for a trespass is, as the default definition suggests, the removal of the entity.

Remarks: It is strange that a reciprocal insult makes the victim feel "healed" from the first insult. This is an "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth"-behavior. But since it works and since no consequences result, this essay subscribes to this solution. It is a convenient way to avoid the legal claim mechanism. The German Criminal Law shares a similar view. Note that this retaliating solution does not apply to other offenses such as theft or injury. If the victim of an insult does not reply by a reciprocal insult, the insult counts as an offense.

Note that pejorative statements count as insults only if they are not provably true. This essay follows the widely accepted opinion that in case of a resolution, the perpetrator has to prove the truth of the statement.

Note furthermore that the declaration does not need to be made to the victim to be an insult.

The compensation for an insult is revoking it in the presence of the listeners.

Remarks: Kind requests (i.e. incitements that start with "please" and that entail damage only to the addressee) shall not count as incitements. This is because the word "please" shall imply voluntariness (as the French "s'il vous plait"). If the damage is done voluntarily and if it affects the actor only, then the damage is not injust.

Note that the victim of an incitement is not the listener, but the suggested victim of the damage. Thus, an incitement is very similar to an insult. If the listener follows the incitement, he will be fully responsible for his actions, as the incitement does not free him from the obligation to think about the moral value of his actions.

As for insults, the compensation for an incitement consists of revoking the incitement in the presence of the listeners.

Remarks: obstruction includes imprisonment as well as locking up a person by owning areas surrounding that person's area. Also, participating in a resolution counts as obstruction. The compensation for obstruction means freeing the actor and giving him the possibility to do again what he could not do. This includes e.g. the refunding of missed concert tickets etc.. The definition of compensation makes sure that the victim cannot claim compensation for several simultaneous activities.

Obstruction raises the question of whether livestock may be kept, because keeping the animals means locking them up. Admittedly, it is disputable whether mankind shall keep livestock at all, given that one could in principle live without animal products. For pragmatic reasons, however, this essay allows keeping and eating livestock (see Food Killing). The essay limits itself to asking farmers to keep their livestock in a reasonable environment and asking customers to buy products that have been produced without harming animals. The idea is that if the livestock is kept in a nearly natural environment, the damage to them should be minimal. Furthermore, the damage should be weighted against the use for mankind.

Remarks: The threat itself is damage, because it causes considerable emotional stress to the victim. Often, threats are bound to certain requests, like for instance in extortion. In this case, the threat itself counts as damage, independent of whether the victim obeys the perpetrator's conditions or not. Furthermore, the threat counts as a declaration , i.e. the victim may assume that the perpetrator fulfills the threat (by the Dixit-Principle, see lying). Hence, if the victim obeys the perpetrator and does as he requests, the victim performs refundable assistance to rescue himself. Thus, the victim will get a compensation for all damage he suffered while following the perpetrator's request. This may be direct damage (like giving money to the blackmailer) as well as indirect damage (like committing an offense and having to pay the compensation). However, while following the perpetrator's request, the victim shall not cause damage that is greater than the damage he is threatened with. In this case, the victim is expected to disobey and to suffer the damage he is threatened with. The definition of refundable assistance makes sure that this does not apply for severe damage.

If the victim does not obey the perpetrator and the perpetrator makes his threat come true, the perpetrator will be held responsible for both the threat itself and the actual damage caused to the victim (as covered by the other definitions).

The compensation for a threat means revoking the threat and making up for the distress.

Remarks: Killing seems to be one of the most obvious offenses, yet its justification is tricky: If somebody is killed without suffering, then the damage to the victim is not obvious. How does the value of the state of being dead compare to the value of life? If the person believed in paradise, his death may even improve his state. However, from its secular point of view, this essay assumes death to be a damage. If the victim was a human, the compensation and apology are paid to the victim (and get transferred to the heirs immediately by means of the will). If the victim was no human, these values go to a charity. The idea is to "make up" for the death of an animal by raising another one of the same kin. Thereby, the "damage" done to the environment by the loss of an animal shall be compensated. This valuation mirrors approximately our understanding of bad killings and tolerable killings: Killing a fly is not as bad as killing a cat, because it takes more effort to raise a cat than to raise a fly. Furthermore, killing animals of a rare species (like whales) is very bad, because it is very difficult to raise another one of their kin. It may even be impossible. In this case, the compensation would be infinitely large and has to be limited reasonably.

The German Criminal Law does not punish killings of animals unless it provokes public anger. Apart from the fact that it is a pity that killing animals usually does not provoke public anger, the killing itself should be punished regardless of the public reaction. Due to the distinction of humans and animals, special laws in the criminal law are needed to protect endangered species.

Note that killing oneself is a desired damage and hence not injust. People are allowed to commit suicide. This does not apply if they kill themselves to evade their duties. For example, if someone has children, he is expected to care for them (because he is responsible for them, s.b.). If he tried to kill himself and would thus leave the children to starve, the suicide would cause damage to outsiders and is hence to be prevented. [Thanks to Jennifer for pointing this out.]

See the next definition, Food Killing, for an exception to the general prohibition of killing.

Remarks: This definition targets at humans, because animals are no moral subjects. It is well known that humans could survive without killing animals. This essay sympathises with the vegetarian cause. However, it would be unfeasable at the current point of human development to treat food killings as killings. In the future, the exceptional treatment of food killings may be removed.
By being a special case of killing, food killing is still technically a damage. Note that food killing also covers plants. Food killing applies only if the compensation is small. This entails, e.g., that you may not kill members of a rare species. Food killing excuses the killing itself, but it does not excuse the detention of animals (see the remarks at obstruction).

Remarks: This law implies that the parents have to finance their child's education until the child can work. This right of education shows once again the high responsibility that results from having a child. It is necessary to state that the parents are the perpetrators, because the bad state itself is caused both by the child and the parents.

Remarks: Disturbance is an offense that cannot be quantified easily. Strictly speaking, talking to somebody is already a disturbance. However, its compensation (the default value) is neglectable. More serious disturbances (such as making penetrant noise or stinking) do cause damage. If the victim moves consciously towards the source of the sensation, the sensation is not a disturbance. This includes e.g. someone going to a rock concert.

The German Criminal Law states that making penetrant noise is a crime — although, sadly, this does not apply to vehicles, which contribute most of the noise in our environment.

The compensation for disturbance means ending the disturbance and making up for the suffering.

Remarks: This definition targets at de facto secrets, i.e. at information that is subject to the exclusive control of a human or a group of humans. The idea is that people shall protect whatever knowledge they want nobody to know. It is irrelevant what this knowledge is about. It is also irrelevant whether the person knows the secret himself or not (e.g. someone may not know whether he carries HIV or not, but he is entitled to prevent anybody from finding it out). It is not necessary that the perpetrator uses the information for himself to commit this offense. Information that is publicly availabe cannot be the subject of a privacy violation, because otherwise a thief, e.g., would commit a privacy violation by getting to know the victim's haircolor.

Sometimes people tell their secrets to other persons. These secrets are not protected by this law on privacy violation. If the person tells the listener afterwards not to disseminate the secret, this request has no legal value . Instead, the person should ask the listener to promise to keep silent. It is even better to ask the listener before telling the secret. A prototypical promise is "I promise that, shall I ever tell somebody your secrets, I will compensate this as if it was a privacy violation. I will be freed from this promise if you break your promise to keep silent about my secrets". This sounds like a retaliation law, but this mutual dependency is one of the strongest guaranties for keeping secrets.

Note that if a privacy violation is necessary to unveil an offense, the privacy violation may be commited. It will be compensated by the perpetrator of the offense as refundable assistance. This entails that perpetrators of offenses are not protected against privacy violations concerning their own offenses.

The compensation for a privacy violation means destroying the information and informing all people to whom the information has been transferred.

Remarks: According to the Principle of Universal Responsibility, everybody has to prevent damage. If a victim suffers a damage and some other person does not help, then the victim can claim compensation from the bystander. On one hand, it seems strange that the victim shall receive compensation just because somebody watched the damage. There is not more damage just because someone watches. On the other hand, denial of assistance has to be punished and it seems best to have the victim profit from it.
The compensation increases with the damage. It decreases with the effort that is required for the assistance. It also decreases if the helper did provide some kind of assistance, but not the full required assistance.
In general, a victim can never be obliged to provide imparative assistance to himself, because he cannot commit an offense against himself. However, if the victim knows that the perpetrator is unaware of the damage he causes, he has to notify him (see silent suffering).
Note that, by the above definition, denial of assistance includes cognisance.

Remarks: Everyday damage includes e.g. killing small animals by stepping on them or eating stuff for which animals suffered. It is proposed that everybody make a regular contribution to a charity to make up at least symbolically for everyday damage.

Remarks: The provocation of assistance assures that whoever prevented a damage receives a compensation. If the prevented damage was an offense, the helper will receive compensation from the perpetrator. Otherwise the helper will receive compensation from the victim. This is assured by the definition of "perpetrator of a damage". Note that if somebody causes more damage than necessary to prevent a threatening damage, only the necessary damage is refunded.

Provocation of assistance is not modular in the sense of the Principle of Modularity. I.e. if victim and perpetrator differ, the helper can demand compensation not from the victim but from the perpetrator. This is because the victim may be unknown, see the remarks at "expected damage".

Remarks: Suppose Alonso covers a drain with cardboard. Minutes later, poor Bertram comes, steps on the cardboard and falls into the drain. The usual criterion to shift the burden of damage from Bertram to the Alonso is the (bad) intention of Alonso. However, this bad intention may be hard to prove (Alonso may just have littered the cardboard around). This is why the offense of "bad surprise" does not rely on intentions, but on the probability instead. It protects ordinary people from unusual events that they do not have to take into account. In the above example, nobody has to take into account that someone covers a drain with cardboard. In contrast, the Alonso has to take into account that someone might walk on the cardboard. Hence Alonso is guilty.

This rule also proves quite useful for minor cases. Suppose, e.g., that Alonso eats some jam and does not close the top of the jar properly. Bertram comes and takes the jar by the top, the jar falls down and crashes. Here, the state that a jam-jar is not closed properly is less common than somebody taking it. Hence it was Alonso's fault.

Conveniently, conventions may be used to establish a high probability. For example, it is a convention in Germany to drive on the right-hand side of the road. Thus, anybody who uses the left hand side performs an uncommon action and can be held responsible for eventual damage.

Remarks: Complicity applies if two agents commit offenses that combine to one great offense. For example, assume that Alonso gives a poison to Cedrick. Later, Bertrand also gives a poison to Cedrick. Although each of the poisons would cause only stomach-ache, the poisons combine and Cedrick dies. By the Principle of Modularity, Bertrand will be charged with killing. Afterwards, Bertrand will sue Alonso for complicity to make him pay his share.

The compensation of complicity is computed as follows: Be IA the indirect agent. Be d(IA) the compensation for the hypothetical damage caused by IA alone. Be DA the direct agent. Be d(DA) the compensation for the hypothetical damage caused by DA alone. Be D the compensation and apology for the actual damage. Then the compensation of complicity is D*d(IA)/(d(IA)+d(DA)). This is the compensation that the direct agent DA may expect from the indirect agent IA.

Note that the joint damage D may well exceed the sum of the respective hypothetical damages! It is necessary to treat complicity apart from bad surprise, because bad surprise relies on the probabilities of the actions, which would not make sense for complicity. Furthermore, bad surprise cannot allow proportional sharing of the damage (potential division by zero), whereas complicity relies on proportional sharing on principle.

Remarks: Protecting trust in declarations is one of the core issues of this essay. Any declared statement can be taken as true without questioning it (the Dixit-Principle). By the Principle of Modularity, one may rely on any statement and also tell it to others without being responsible for the truth of the statement. The one responsible for a false declaration is the person who first created it. This may seem cruel, but note that it is easy to avoid responsibility by saying "I think that...".

Breaking a contract and breaking a promise are simply special cases of lying.

Joking and story-telling shall not count as lying. Since it is difficult to tell, though, when a statement shall be considered a joke, statements shall be taken seriously be default. It is easy to make them be recognized as jokes by making the respective gestures or by putting a smiley.

Remarks: Let's assume that, through provocation of assistance, lying, bad surprise or complicity, Alonso makes Bertram cause damage to Cedrick. By the Principle of Modularity, Cedrick will receive compensation and apology directly from BertramP,B,C,L. Bertram will not receive a penaltyP,B,L. In a second resolution, Alonso will pay as compensation to Bertram all costs that occurred to BertramP,B,L. In addition, Alonso will pay an apology to BertramB,L. Furthermore, Alonso will be subjected to a penaltyB,C,L. (Superscripts indicate to which indirect damages the sentences apply.)

Remarks: This essay distinguishes between the perpetrator of a damage and the one who is responsible. This distinction is necessary because the victim of the damage usually cannot turn to the perpetrator for compensation claims, if the perpetrator is mentally disabled or a child. By default, the victim is the perpetrator. If somebody else is responsible for the victim, this entails that this person becomes responsible for the damage. Assume for example that a child starves. There is no direct agent for this damage. Hence the child himself is the perpetrator. Since the child's parents are responsible for all damages of which the child is the perpetrator, the parents are responsible for the starving.

Remarks: child raising is a complex issue, which bears an enormeous responsibility for the future of the child. This essay trusts in the following balance of powers between a child and his parents:

• Powers of the parents:
  As children are moral objects, the parents may not cause damage to the child (in particular, they may not punish him physically). However, the parents usually have a high influence on the child — by their education, by their forming of the child's conscience, by "soft punishments" and by rewards. It is assumed that these factors of "soft influence" provide sufficient means for keeping the child on the track. Sadly, external factors may admittedly destroy the parents' influence. This highlights the risk and the high responsibility that parents assume.
• Powers of the child:
  The parents are responsible for all damage caused by the child. Since in the sense of this essay, this includes any suffering by the child, the parents have a great responsibility here. This responsibility ensures that the parents will put much effort in forming the child's understanding of good and wrong.

This essay does allow homosexual couples — simply because no damage is done to outsiders. However, as soon as the couple has a child, the situation changes: This essay is of the opinion that the combination of a male and a female role-model is the best for the development of a child. If one of them misses, this is seen as damaging for the child's development. Hence this essay prohibits homosexual couples from adopting children away from their parents. This is ensured by treating a transferral of responsibility as an offense.

If both parents are absent or incapable of fulfilling their duties, we have find others who can take care of the child (e.g. step parents or charities). This includes again homosexual couples. This is because this essay is of the opinion that even though homosexual couples cannot provide role models for both genders, they may still provide better care for the child (in terms of the ratio of caretakers to children) than a charity. What counts is the interest of the child.

Remarks: Of course, there are animals which nobody is responsible for. Note that it does not say "the one who owns the animal", because animals cannot be owned. Pets can be kept, but not locked up (or only under natural circumstances, see obstruction).

Remarks: There may be multiple responsibles. In most cases, the responsible person will simply be the perpetrator himself.

Note that the above notion of responsibility penalizes incest: Incest tends to induce congenital defects, i.e. injuries, the victim of which is the child. If this happens, these defects are to be compensated by the child's parents. The penalization of incest is purely damage-dependent and not religiously motivated.

Remarks: Not all injust damages are offenses, consider for example earth quakes, damages caused by animals or damages caused by the victim himself.

Remarks: By default, the jury can just consist of the responsible for the offense and the victim.

Remarks: The apology shall make up for the suffering of the victim. Even if the compensation undoes the damage, the very fact of being a victim shall also be compensated, depending on the actual (psychological) impact on the victim.

There is no apology for provocation of assistance, because helping people in need is assumed to be a civic duty by this essay. There is no apology for complicity because the indirect agent is not morally worse than the direct agent.

Remarks: By making the penalty proportional to the probability of damage, the jury can take into account the assumed intention of the responsible: If the responsible could not foresee the damage, the penalty may be zero. The penalty may also be zero if the compensation and apology already put such a high burden on the responsible that he is unlikely to commit the offense again.

The penalty shall include all fruits that the perpetrator harvested from the offense. These fruits do not go to the victim (because the victim is compensated by the compensation and shall not benefit from the perpetrator's diligence) and they cannot remain with the perpetrator (because this would encourage him to commit the offense again). Hence they go, with the remainder of the penalty, to a charity.

Remarks: The lawyer will be given the apology in order to motivate him to represent the victim. We need a lawyer for the victim because the victim may not be a moral subject and may not have a responsible. The victim may also have died in the meantime. We do not need a lawyer for the perpetrator, because by definition, the perpetrator has a responsible in an offense.

Remarks: By this definition, perpetrators and victims shall be encouraged to solve the problem on their own. Note that "resolving the offense" is left undefined. If both the victim and the perpetrator agree, it its irrelevant what they agree on. Only if they do not find a solution, a resolution has to take place.

It is unfortunate that if the perpetrator and the victim agree on a compensation, the perpetrator evades the penalty. The penalty is an important source of income for the charities and it also prevents the perpetrator from repeating the deed. However, the liberal principles of this essay prohibit a resolution for a case that is already solved.

Remarks: As always, people involved in the resolution can be charged with lying if they make false or incomplete statements, which may trigger revisiting the resolution.

In general, all necessary efforts by investigators (including offenses) and all necessary efforts by the lawyer and the victim (including prior, failed searches for the responsible) are to be refunded by the responsible. In case of doubt, another resolution is necessary on this issue. Note that the jury does not get paid.

Since this essay relies on the Principle of Modularity, indirect damages entail two resolutions instead of a single one (e.g. bad surprise). This modularity ensures that the victim can turn to a single responsible for his claims (instead of having to resolve the problem of shifted responsibility). Furthermore, the principle ensures that the direct agent of the damage (e.g. the victim of a bad surprise) works together with the jury, even if he will not be made responsible in the end. Nevertheless, it may be reasonable to join two resolutions, if the offenses are related.

The lawyer will get the apology upon conviction, any person involved in the search for the responsible will be refunded, the jury promised to act to the best of their capabilities and the suspect will want to proof his innocence. Hence, all people involved should have an interest in a speady resolution. If the victim proves uncooperative, the case is dismissed (see No sulking). If a suspected responsible proves consistently uncooperative, it may be assumed that he is the responsible.