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I hope someone will confirm or correct this, but my understanding is that preventative law outlaws some freedom in order to prevent it from being misused. I say this because an objective threat to individual rights is an actual step toward force. As such, outlawing it is not merely preventative. Contrast outlawing terrorist plotting with a curfew. Terrorist plotting is an objective threat. Teenagers being out late at night is not; and so, if it is it outlawed on the basis that they might commit crimes at that time, then that is preventative law and is unjust. In the case of drunk driving, or reckless endangerment, that is also an objective threat. And so, it should be outlawed, but would not fall under (what I understand to be) preventative law. I think that texting while driving would also be an objective threat and that should be outlawed as well. 1
It's usually an error to make laws too concrete-bound. Driving while texting is dangerous because it distracts the attention of the driver. If we explicitly outlaw texting, why not all the other concrete distracting activities in which drivers can engage? Shaving, reading the newspaper, putting on makeup, changing clothes, having sex -- the list would be endless. Law should identify objective threats in conceptual terms. If driving while distracted poses an objective threat, the law should be written in those terms. "Regulatory agencies deal in preventive law, law that treats men as guilty in advance, requiring them to satisfy the government that they will not bring about a certain result, in the absence of any specific evidence that they will do so. Thus, businesses have to satisfy the FDA that they will not sell adulterated food and drugs, satisfy the SEC that they will not "take advantage of" investors, satisfy the FTC that they will not "attempt to monopolize," satisfy the EPA that they will not "injure the environment," satisfy the EEOC that they will not "discriminate" in hiring..." Dr. Binswanger "If we explicitly outlaw texting, why not all the other concrete distracting activities in which drivers can engage?" Because not all the other concrete distracting activities are common enough to bother. As you say, the list would be endless.
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A rational government outlaws both the actual exercise of force, and the threat of force. Driving drunk is not in and of itself an exercise of force, but it is a threat. Therefore, it is totally appropriate for the government to outlaw drunk driving. Driving while drunk is the exact equivalent of firing a gun into a crowd of people. It may not actually happen to hit anyone, but that's only a happy accident. It doesn't matter if the roads are privately-owned or public, driving drunk is a threat to innocent people, so it is illegal for just the same reason as shooting a gun into a crowd is illegal. Never mind whether the shooter targeted a particular individual, he did something objectively threatening to the people in that crowd. It's a separate issue to ask how much alcohol counts as "drunk," and I do think our current system is fairly paranoid about it. The concept, though, of drunk driving is an entirely legitimate one. |
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To get clear on this question, ask the following: "Are there any good reasons for driving drunk?" Contrast this with "Are there any good reasons for carrying a pistol?" The second question is at least debatable. The first question is not. Given this, and the fact that drunk drivers collide with and kill many people each year, it would be foolish not to outlaw driving drunk. The law exists, fundamentally, to protect people from physical harm from others. Driving drunk is an objective threat. It's effectively a form of assault on everyone one drives near. Carrying a gun isn't an objective threat until you draw the gun and point it at someone. Where there is an objective threat, the law should intervene. People cannot live while being threatened. 1
Drunk driving is and should be illegal, not in the same manner as merely wearing a gun in public place as is current law in many places, but in the same manner as shooting one's gun in a random direction while in that public place. DD is an objective threat because, as Deejf pointed out, it constitutes a form of reckless endangerment. The fault-element lies in putting oneself in charge of a good that is potentially dangerous to a significant degree while knowingly having a sense of spatial and reactive judgement that has become impaired beyond a reasonable level. Agree. What JJMcVey said. All of this is under the presumption of current ownership of roads i.e. state owned, tax funded road systems. Private roads on the other hand can prohibit any or no activity upon them, contractually agreed upon to those that wish to use them. No it doesn't. Owners of property who allow public access should be able to rely on reasonable expectations of general lawfulness as a term of that access, and only deviating as they expressly stipulate as their own judgement finds fit. It would be a different matter altogether if the law were to forbid such express deviation, which is in principle perpetrated today with restrictions on ability to rely on waivers etc.
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Can you clarify what you mean by preventative law? I could see some arguments that outlawing murder, or anything else, is a preventative measure.
I think it falls under initiation of force or, closer to the mark, reckless endangerment. Purposely impairing one's judgement and reaction time, and then commandeering a ton of metal and glass and propelling them at fatal speeds is definitely an initiation of force.
I agree with considering it as reckless endangerment. Perhaps more germain for Objectivism would be to ask, what is the role of a government in controlling drunk (or otherwise impaired) driving?
Drunk driving is a lack of selfishness.
Would this be a government problem in a laissez faire society? If roads were privately owned the prohibition, if any, on drinking and driving would be contractual between the road company and the driver.
If there was no such provision, everyone who used those roads would have known that anyone on those roads could be drunk and they might not have any recourse should they be injured by a drunk driver.
However, if the road company stipulated a .05 blood alcohol level and a driver broke that rule then the driver could be sued and/or taken to court to face charges under whatever law applies.
Rules of property use as not sufficient for all matters. It shouldn't be a requirement on owners to itemise every single blessed thing in concrete detail as to what users can and cannot do. They should be able to rest on the existence of reasonable law that, as Kyle notes, specify conceptual principles under which various potentialities will fall.
Owners should only be required to expressly depart from general law as far as their particular needs allow and as they judge fit, eg waivers for "assault" in a martial arts dojo, looser or stricter DUI rules, and so on.