Reply #226: I never said "culpability does not equal excusable" - That really doesn't make sense to me... [View All]

[whopis01]

I said that saying someone is less culpable is equivalent to partially excusing them. If they are less culpable that means that they are less to blame for the incident. That means that they are being partially excused from blame in the incident.

It is my opinion that if someone chooses to get drunk then they should be help equally as responsible for their actions as if they had been sober.

Would you reduce their punishment relative to how drunk they were at the time? Should a man who rapes a woman when his BAC is .05% get a lesser sentence than someone who's BAC is .10%? Should the punishment be a continuous function based on BAC - maybe something like (X Years) * (1 - BAC)? The drunker you are, the less you are punished? Or is it a step function where someone with a BAC of 0 to 0.049% gets one sentence and someone with 0.05% or higher gets another?

I'm not trying to be snarky here (I certainly was in my first response to you, but not now). I am really trying to understand and clarify what you are saying. If you view being drunk as a culpability reducing factor, do you take degree into consideration?