The sane version of the bear that coughed (the legal concept of causation distinguishes between the causa causans and the causa sine qua non. Miss Keith doesn't, and she treats both the bear (sine qua non) and the man who caused the death in China (causa causans) as equally culpable.
Foley's responsible for the accident in a causa causans way because he wouldn't have had Nicola on the helm (and having an inexperienced person on the helm unsupervised in thick fog close to rocks is risky in itself) if he hadn't kidnapped her and he also wouldn't have the constraints he has about keeping an eye on Ginty and Peter. He's broken the chain between innocent ("if I'd not kept Jim late at the office he'd not have been on the train that crashed") and culpable.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Putting Talisman on the rocks
Date: 2014-06-30 06:47 pm (UTC)Foley's responsible for the accident in a causa causans way because he wouldn't have had Nicola on the helm (and having an inexperienced person on the helm unsupervised in thick fog close to rocks is risky in itself) if he hadn't kidnapped her and he also wouldn't have the constraints he has about keeping an eye on Ginty and Peter. He's broken the chain between innocent ("if I'd not kept Jim late at the office he'd not have been on the train that crashed") and culpable.