Quote from: Fjordbit on October 29, 2012, 08:03:05 PM

Quote from: punningclan on October 29, 2012, 06:32:39 PM

Mary was causing harm whether she accepted that or not

I'm pretty sure it was the typhoid and not Mary that was causing harm. This is a pretty important distinction because I don't see Mary as having violated the NAP.

I believe you can argue that she was violating people's rights. You're responsible for your properties. If your dog escapes and hurt the neighbor's son, you're responsible. If your car loses its breaks all of the sudden, while parked, and end up running over some one, you're still responsible, even if you were not driving it. If your factory or nuclear plant leaks pollution and hurt people living nearby, you're responsible. And so on.

Mary was responsible for her body. Her body was the transporting a lethal disease. She could be deemed responsible.

I know a real case of a disgusting man who knew he had AIDS, and still would convince his sexual partners to drop the condom, obviously lying about his health situation. He managed to contaminate multiple women on the course of the years, on purpose. I mean, he wanted to infect the highest number of women possible. I consider this man is an intentional murderer - a serial killer if you will. And yet, there's no law or any recourse his victims could use to punish him.

All that said, I find the scenario presented by Murphy in his article more reasonable than a scenario in which victims would prosecute those who transmitted them the disease. For a start, it's hard to determine who gave you the disease. But yeah, if this second approach start being applied, insurances would probably cover your legal costs if you infect people. In such cases, these insurances would have an interest in isolating you from society once you get a transmittable disease, in order to reduce their expanses. Such quarantine could be foresee in your contract with the insurer, making it no longer coercive. There you have it, another potential solution to the problem. Wink

Both solutions may coexist.