comment: >
  
  But what about wrong-thing-for-right-reasons scenarios where you get, like, the Jean Valjean dilemma of how stealing food for those in need is still bad in the eyes of the law because it's still stealing
context: Attempted murder charges are lighter so that even if someone starts a murder, they always have an incentive to not finish the murder. It's not great, but it theoritically reduces harm to victims. >
  
  Wouldn't that just mean that if you followed through with the attempt and failed you'd get a different punishment than if you changed your mind part way through? >
  
  No, because "changing your mind partway through" is also a failed attempt at murder. >
  
  
  Scenario A: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim survives with either minor injuries or none at all.
  Scenario B: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim is critically injured or is killed in the accident.
  In each scenario, the same exact crime or act is committed yet the punishment for each scenario will differ greatly depending on the outcome or result.
  The offender in scenario A likely receives probation and is required to complete community service hours, among other things.
  The offender in scenario B likely spends over a decade in prison. 
  
  The wider population tends to think in consequentialist terms, which is why we have phrases like "victimless crime". The problem is that if society were to always punish drunk driving with a decade in prison, regardless of the outcome, it would be widely perceived as being disproportionate if there were only minor injuries or no victim at all, and it would make the justice system seem indifferent and unnecessarily cruel.
  One could say that by driving under the influence, drivers freely decide to take part in a "lottery" with potential consequences (severe punishment) that they would receive IF they got into severe enough accidents. Through this lottery, many drivers are lucky enough to get away scot-free (or with minor punishments for DUI only), while some will be punished for killing/injuring someone. That's the risk they took. They could have also chosen to not get drunk, or to get a taxi.
  It's in the same sense that when a heavy smoker gets lung cancer we tend to blame their smoking habits, even though there are also many examples of people who smoked the same number (or more) of cigarettes throughout their lives and never get any lung cancer, and there are lifelong non-smokers who get lung cancer. >
  
  This point is valuable.
  It's worth considering why laws exist. There's nothing inherently immoral about drunk driving, for example. The prohibitions exist because of the harm that impaired driving can cause, so it follows that the response to a crime should match the harm caused, not an arbitrary number. >
  
  Take your example of drunk driving. If we make the punishments equal, you would either  1) give community service and probation to those who kill people with their cars, 2) imprison people for a decade for the first offense of drunk driving even when no harm was caused, or 3) create some suboptimal solution like 2 years in prison for everyone.
  1) is bad because light consequences would just encourage more people to drive drunk and kill more people. I don't think this needs anymore explanation.
  2) is bad because you are giving harsh punishment to people who actually didn't harm anyone. If you disagree with this, I think you need to clarify your beliefs about the purpose of punishment.
  3) is suboptimal because you are giving relatively lighter sentences to people who did the most harm and heavier sentences to people who did no harm. >
  
  
  2) is bad because you are giving harsh punishment to people who actually didn't harm anyone. If you disagree with this, I think you need to clarify your beliefs about the purpose of punishment.
  
  You're literally just saying that people deserve punishment for getting unlucky (or the converse, people deserving less punishment for getting lucky). How does this seem like a sensible system? >
  
  This notion of "unlucky" gets extremely complicated.  In OP's example of A and B, the driver hits two people.  But most likely, they were hit at different parts of the body at different velocities.  Moreover, we can change the scenarios in multiple different ways to make this absolutely convoluted.  
  A.  Driver hits person while intoxicated.  Person dies. 
  B.  Driver hits person while intoxicated.  Person is fine. 
  C.  Driver hits a stop sign that is right next to the person.  Person is fine. 
  D.  Driver hits a stop sign that is across the street from a person.  Person is fine. 
  If luck plays a big role, then does luck only counts after the impact with the person?  Why is that?  One can argue that scenarios C and D, the driver was also very lucky (especially scenario C).  So where do you draw the line on the equal level of punishment here? >
  
  
  If luck plays a big role, then does luck only counts after the impact with the person? Why is that? One can argue that scenarios C and D, the driver was also very lucky (especially scenario C). So where do you draw the line on the equal level of punishment here?
  
  'luck' applies to anything that is out of the person's reasonable control of knowledge of the situation. If the driver in D would've been the driver in C if the only difference was where the person was located, then of course there's no moral difference between the cases. 
  I don't disagree that it's complicated. If your contention is only with complications, we could trivially design a scenario to remove them. In two cases, a person runs a red light while driving drunk and runs directly into a school bus with windows that the driver couldn't see into. The accident is identical identical in both cases except in case A the bus was empty except for a powerful bodybuilder driver, who survived with minor injuries, and in case B the bus was full of 30 children who all died. My position is that these cases are trivially morally identical. If you disagree, then you disagree with the actual principle itself, not just because you think it can be complicated. >
  
  So it seems like you are saying that impact makes a big difference right?  But I would argue that the type of the impact that it has is somewhat within the aggressor's control.  Usually when you hit someone and they die, it happens at high velocity and strong impact.  This means that you didn't see them at all.  That is different type of an action compared to hitting someone and they come away with just minor injuries, that means the driver saw the victim and did his best to avoid the situation.  So you can theoretically concoct two different situations where everything is exactly the same except for the outcome of the victim, but in practice, it is NOT the same leading up to the impact, and that is the major reasons why the outcome was different in the first place.
  Also, run by the argument on why scenarios A, B, C, and D are not all morally equivalent in your mind. >
  
  Regarding the first point, yes I agree that it's complicated. That's why I'm trying to assume that those complications don't exist in the hypotheticals I use. If you agree that luck shouldn't play a part in a hypothetical where the actions are truly the same in every way but that it's not practical to enforce this in reality, that's very different than thinking that luck inherently should play a factor because x, y, or z. 
  
  Also, run by the argument on why scenarios A, B, C, and D are not all morally equivalent in your mind.
  
  Assuming the hypothetical constrains the only variable to be luck, they are all the same. If the driver in C or D wouldn't have hit a person who was in the same location as the stop sign or would've hit them differently then there would be a moral difference, of course, since the actions would be different. >
  
  But then this is a bad hypothetical example.  I would argue that the impact velocity of the car has a very correlation with the victim's well being.  And OP conveniently omitted this from the hypothetical by making it seem like the conditions were exactly the same.  But most likely, the dead person was hit by a much faster moving car while the uninjured person was hit by a much slower moving car.  That is physics 101.  So these two scenarios are not likely the same in practice. >
  
  But I'm asking you what you would say if the scenarios are the same from the driver's perspective. >
  
  The scenarios are not the same because they are intertwined with the driver behaviors which are never the same.  There are different actions that the driver could do while trying to avoid (or not avoid) the accidents.  And these correlate with the amount of damage done to the victim.  It is up to you to tease out all these different factors and to dole out appropriate level of punishments based on the speed of the car, deceleration of the car near impact, the change in the direction of the vehicle near impact, etc, which makes effectively each one of these accidents non-identical.  It is not up to me because this is not the type of change in the law that I support. >
  
  I already gave you a very simple hypothetical in which the driver behaviors are exactly the same. I'll repeat it. 
  
  In two cases, a person runs a red light while driving drunk and runs directly into a school bus with windows that the driver couldn't see into. The accident is identical identical in both cases except in case A the bus was empty except for a powerful bodybuilder driver, who survived with minor injuries, and in case B the bus was full of 30 children who all died.
  
  Do you think that the driver in scenario A is morally different or deserves different punishment than the driver in B? >
  
  I think you are actually saying criminals should be punished for the act they do irrespective of outcome. As others have pointed out, outcomes are part of what changes the “crime charged” as you put it. 
  In that case, you would charge/punish a person who gets drunk, drives, and speeds the same as you would
  Someone who gets drunk, drives, crashes into a mini van and kills a family of four.  The “act” the defendant did was drive drunk in both situations.  
  That would be a system I’d not advocate for. But if you think that’s justice, cool.  The “logic” is that the criminal justice system doesn’t just focus on the defendant. It looks at the victim and society as a whole. >
  
  How does it seem illogical?
  Say someone punched your dad in the throat, and he got a bruise.  What sort of sentence do you think they should get?
  Now say someone punched your dad in the throat, collapsed his windpipe, and he died.  Now what kind of sentence do you think they should get?
  I can't think of a logical reason to treat those two situations as equally bad. >
  
  Because the person did the same thing in both cases and the outcomes are only different because of luck. >
  
  If we want to be pedantic and consider absolutely everything else staying the same, it's impossible to hit someone in exactly the same way and yet have 2 different outcomes. One punch might land in a more sensitive area and cause the windpipe to collapse, another in a more rugged area of the throat and cause a mere bruise. If we go into it that much, it's not luck, they are two different types of punches. It's not luck. It's actively choosing to punch someone and accepting whatever consequence your punch will have depending on where it lands and how hard it lands.
  If we somehow chalk it to luck that you can't precisely (to sub-milimeter level) control where your punch lands, we can extend it to absolutely everything humans do and absolve us of responsibility, because it's all luck-based. >
  
  Outcome is the only objective measure. In your example #1, I think you are arguing that the individual in Scenario A should be punished as severely as the individual in scenario B, but under your premise isn’t it equally valid to argue that the individual in Scenario B should get off with community service because all they did was drive drunk and it was just bad luck they wound up killing someone? How do you dispute that argument if outcome doesn’t matter?
  Does your “it’s the act, not the outcome” argument only apply to crimes? For e.g., person A went to class every day, took notes, handed in all the assignments and took all the tests, but they didn’t grasp the material, their work was incoherent, and they did poorly on the tests. Do they get the same grade as person B who also went to class every day, took notes, turned in all the assignments, and took all the tests, but did well on the tests and did stellar work on the assignments?
  If accountability doesn’t follow outcomes, then you introduce speculation and unintended incentives and any hope of objectivity goes away, which is not what you want in the legal system. >
  
  
  person A went to class every day
  
  How is this relevant? The goal of grades is to assess people's knowledge/abilities/results, not to reward the amount of effort they put in (teachers may choose to encourage "stupid" students who are willing to do the work when the grade is a formality but you're not gonna get your neurosurgeon qualifications just because you worked very hard). 
  The idea of laws is to discourage certain harmful behaviors. Drunk driving is known to be dangerous exactly because it increases the chance of killing someone. Yes, most of the time you'll probably get lucky and not run over anyone but you're showing a disregard for people's lives all the same. Whether or not someone jumps in front of your car is completely out of your control. What's more, someone regularly driving drunk and getting lucky keeps showing they're above the law and don't give a fuck about others. It's not a single lapse of judgement at this point, it's a conscious decision to repeatedly get into situations that lead to drunk driving. Yet, a person who happened to get into an accident at their first and only such fuckup should be punished more severely according to you. I don't see how this makes sense. I also think this option encourages breaking the rules because "it won't happen to me", whereas a punishment based on intent and not outcome would be more effective. No point in risking it if you'll get 5-10 years when caught even if you're 100% convinced of your amazing reflexes in the classic drunk fashion
  This same goal-oriented argument worked to explain the other situation in the op. Preventing murders is more important. Punishing violent acts that put people's lives in risk in the same way as murder just encourages "finishing the job" so some compromise needs to exist >
  
  I can’t tell which way you are arguing. In the first example you appear to be saying the person pulled over for a DUI and didn’t cause an accident should be punished similarly to a person who did, yet in the second example you are saying the person who stabbed and didn’t kill someone should be treated differently otherwise they may as well have finished the job.
  “Intent” is always a tricky factor because it effectively requires mind reading. How do you prove intent? 
  Outcome is biased toward objectivity. Accountability, plus and minus, should be based on outcomes. In the drunk driving example, you can still use outcome to justify a severe punishment because there’s clear data showing the outcome of impaired driving is hugely increased risk of causing harm to someone and the punishment should be in line with the danger. Still, the outcome being caught driving drunk and posing the risk IS different than the outcome of driving drunk and killing someone, so the punishments should be different.
  Example 2 shows how trying to factor intent gets messy. If you stab someone 20 times, they survive, and there’s some “proof” that you were trying to kill them, does that carry a harsher penalty than if you stab someone 20 times, they die, and you can somehow prove that you weren’t trying to kill them? You have to start with the outcome: the latter is homicide, the former is attempted homicide. 
  Another dumb analogy: Two sales people, putting in the same hours, making the same number of sales calls. They both have the same intent and really want to sell a lot of product, and both trying hard. One is good at it and closes a lot of sales. The other isn’t and barely closes any. Do they both get paid the same, because their intent is the same, and their effort is the same? No. You reward results, otherwise incentives are wrong. Same with crime.  You punish results, otherwise it creates unintended incentives. >
  
  Awesome, thank you! >
  
  np! >
  
  You'll find that depending on the jurisdiction you're in this may already be true to some extent. There is tremendous leeway in the justice system in most places to account for the specific circumstances of the crime...either charging a lesser crime more harshly or a worse crime more leniently. It may come down to the judge or prosecutor. While this doesn't guarantee fairness, it does allow flexibility.
  Minimum sentencing laws and such are the real problem since it does create a very rigid outcomes-based methodology to sentencing. >
  
  
  Scenario A: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim survives with either minor injuries or none at all.
  Scenario B: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim is critically injured or is killed in the accident.
  In each scenario, the same exact crime or act is committed yet the punishment for each scenario will differ greatly depending on the outcome or result.
  
  See, this scenario is massively flawed. If one chooses to become impaired, then their actions afterwards have to be treated as purposeful. 
  Driving a car impaired and hitting someone is a serious offence and should be treated as such, but driving a car impaired and killing someone is just short of murder.
  You can't treat both of these as just driving offences when one has a killing involved.  That is just illogical >
  
  I agree. I don’t get how someone who tried to murder someone and the person lives gets a lighter sentence than a person who does the exact same crime but the victim dies. 
  
  
  It is like rewarding the person for not being successful. 
  
  
  Both killers had the same intent so the crime is the same. Successful outcomes are inconsequential to the intent and act itself. 
  
  
  I do want to say that someone stealing a $50 item and someone stealing a $5,000 item isn’t the same. While the intent is the same to steal, the value should be considered to a point. >
  
  
  It is like rewarding the person for not being successful
  
  I don't know if giving someone a lighter sentence would be considered a reward, it's still a punishment. 
  I can think of a few reasons why it works as is, if someone were to drive drunk, they would probably feel much more inclined to attempt to drive safely and avoid speeding or driving recklessly, knowing that has a higher chance of causing an accident which would result in a much harsher punishment.
  And in the case of murder you might attack someone out of rage with the intent to kill, but stop yourself out of fear of the punishment being much harsher. If you knew it'd be the same punishment, you'd already be in too deep and might as well kill them, since it won't change your punishment.
  Luck is definitely a factor but there are many other factors at play. >
  
  You haven’t given a lot of argument about why this should be the case beyond “it’s illogical.” If you do something which can be shown to factually and legally cause an outcome, you should be responsible for that outcome. I’d rather live in a world where our legal system is flexible, rather than one which punishes everyone the same regardless of outcome. Reality is hardly one size fits all and our legal system should reflect that. >
  
  i agree with you. reality also includes luck and randomness, things that are out of control. if a drunk driver kills somebody, luck is also to blame , this person happened to be at the wrong place the wrong time. but it is a thing , so it has its own value , if there are victims or not >
  
  You’re outlining different crimes in each scenario.
  Example 1: the cause is the same (DUI), but the chargeable offenses are not. Scenario B would be DUI and, at a minimum, manslaughter. 
  Example 2: Scenario A is some variety of assault/battery with a lethal weapon. Scenario B is murder. 
  You’re comparing apples and oranges. >
  
  your argument is how the law is defined, not how it should be, as the OP is trying to argue. >
  
  You don’t want punishments to vary based on the outcome? You don’t see a difference in punishment for someone who steals millions vs someone who steals ten dollars? There is a difference in harm done, thus a difference in punishment.
  Or take murder vs attempted murder, why shouldn’t that be treated differently? Attempting to kill someone and actually killing someone are two very different crimes in terms of actual arm caused.
  I had this discussion here like two years ago with someone who suggested that you should get the death penalty for rape. I understand where they are, they might know a rape victim and want more harsh punishment, but what happens when rape and a rape followed by a murder are punished the same? What are we trying to provide an incentive for? We want there to be a reason for a criminal to to bring a gun, because a gun means more time. We want a rapist to not kill the victim, because killing them means life and maybe the death penalty on the table.
  Remove the outcome being a part of it and you are giving too light of a sentence to everyone, too heavy a sentence to everyone, and maybe causing much more serious crimes to cover up lesser crimes. Because once you are into the death penalty now the question is why leave a living witness? >
  
  
  You don’t see a difference in punishment for someone who steals millions vs someone who steals ten dollars?
  
  Terrible example. Let's not act like the act that goes into stealing millions of dollars is even remotely like what it takes to steal ten bucks. 
  You're talking tons of planning, large scale criminal acts, compared to grabbing a ten out of someone's wallet 
  
  There is a difference in harm done, thus a difference in punishment.
  
  In that example the difference lies in the crime itself, the actions needed to steal millions of dollars are inherently unequal to what it takes to steal ten dollars. You've done more wrong to steal a million.
  
  Or take murder vs attempted murder, why shouldn’t that be treated differently? Attempting to kill someone and actually killing someone are two very different crimes in terms of actual arm caused.
  
  The OPs examples relate to doing the exact same thing but getting different punishments solely from dumb luck. Stab someone in the leg and they live vs if they die. Drunk car crash. The actions are the same in those examples, so they think the punishment should be the same too. 
  
  I had this discussion here like two years ago with someone who suggested that you should get the death penalty for rape
  
  This is a decent example so I won't argue it >
  
  The act is stealing. The OP makes more disparate examples than this. Is stealing a terrible car worth $500 a different act to stealing one of the cars in the world worth $10 million? Getting in and driving away? I would say it isn’t.
  You have done more wrong, thus punishment is indeed different.
  Luck or no luck, sometimes a crime fails to cause the same harm, and harm is a part of punishment. Harm is actually the basis of our legal system, as standing is required to bring something to court. 
  Someone has to have been harmed in some way, no standing, no case before the court. 
  If you stab someone in the leg, you actually get different charges depending on the outcome. Assault with a deadly weapon, and murder or attempted murder. The many different parts of a crime are often charged differently depending on how the crime ends up taking place, the actual harm done.
  I guess the worst example is mandatory minimums, something with good intentions but terrible results. In order to try and stop certain people from not being punished where toward were, standard minimums were introduced, and this ended up causing people to be over punished for minor crimes. Like who thought anyone should get a life sentence on a small-ish weed charge? That was three strikes and you’re out, but it is the same sort of thing to me, mindlessly assigning punishment absent consideration of the crime committed. It is bad. >
  
  I'm sorry OP but your argument sounds like "but I didn't mean to"... Which sounds like my kids and I punish my kids based on the outcome of their behavior as well because not meaning to cause harm doesn't matter and they need to learn that from a young age.
  If I go around saying shitty stuff and then say "I'm just blunt" and I end up hurting a bunch of people my intention doesn't matter compared to the outcome. 
  It's... Maturity to recognize that what you actually achieved good or bad matters more than what you meant to do. >
  
  I think you’re missing the point here. I’m saying that bad behavior should be punished fairly REGARDLESS of the outcome. >
  
  The criminal justice system is already a farce but what you're suggesting isn't fair. It would only make things worse.
  Your intentions don't matter. You didn't mean to kill anyone, you just drove drunk? You knew you were taking the risk of killing someone though because everyone knows that. So it's no excuse. 
  You didn't kill someone but you're going to prison as if you're a murderer? Also wrong.
  It's... Not fair. You can't make it fair the way you're suggesting.
  Judges can and do take extenuating circumstances into account. 
  Let's say... You'd gotten drunk and the guy in your second scenario stabbed you ran out and took your phone or your phone was dead. You get into your car to drive yourself to the hospital or to a gas station to use their phone, whatever, and hit and kill someone?
  Judges can absolutely use their discretion (outside certain mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines but we won't open that can of worms.) >
  
  So do you not charge a killer with some sort of homicide or do you charge people who aren't killers with those charges? >
  
  But that's already how laws are.
  In your first example Scenario A the person will be charged with driving under the influence, reckless driving, some sort of personal injury charge, etc.
  In Scenario B they will be charged with all of the above plus vehicular manslaughter/second degree murder or whatever is appropriate.
  You're describing scenarios in which multiple different crimes are simultaneously being committed. >
  
  In the first scenario killing someone while driving drunk is vehicular homicide and therefore not the same crime as drunk driving >
  
  So imagine scenario A where someone backs into a parking spot without looking and hits no one, policeman spots them and gives them a ticket for reckless driving.
  Scenario B someone backs into the parking without looking and runs over a child killing them.  Should they also get a ticket for reckless driving? >
  
  The problem with your stabbing example is that murder and assault/attempted murder are two different crimes with two very different outcomes. >
  
  
  In each scenario, the same exact crime or act is committed yet the punishment for each scenario will differ greatly depending on the outcome or result.
  
  Completely false.  In each "Scenario B" additional and more serious felonies were committed (involuntary manslaughter, murder, etc) hence the additional charges and additional punishment.  It is completely logical. >
  
  But many crimes are defined by the outcome.  Murder is defined by if the person died or not. I can stab someone all I want but if somehow they don’t die, I haven’t committed murder.
  DUI is a unique case because we have a fairly objective testing method to regulate who can safely drive because the bigger goal is preventing the harm, not just punishing the harm.  Most laws don’t apply this way. >
  
  The point of making consequences a factor is that there's still an incentive to stand down and accept the lesser charge before you cause more harm. For example, if an attempted murderer is on the hook for murder, there's no disincentive against reloading until he succeeds.