> If someone dies on the operating table because the surgeon accidentally nicks an artery that's different from them actively trying to kill someone. The act is identical, only the intent is different.
In one case, there was a crime, in the other there wasn't.
> Circumstances, which can only affect the punishment, not the judgment that a crime has taken place. But I already said this.
The circumstances which change the crime committed. Not just punishment.
I shouldn't have made my original claim without thinking about the fact that there really are crimes that are defined by what is in a person's mind, apart from their actions. One thought, acceptable. Another thought, crime. Thought crime.
So I was being naive and you are right. And George Orwell was right.
I, uh, don't know about that, but I will say that thought and intent are not the same.
Thinking about murdering someone and not taking any action to that effect, then actually killing that person; VS taking action to do it, strike me as different.
It's possible that they are legally the same, but I doubt the court can do much to prove thought without a confession.
> I, uh, don't know about that, but I will say that thought and intent are not the same.
True, but it's to some extent splitting hairs, because intent is often (but not always) constructed from thoughts.
> Thinking about murdering someone and not taking any action to that effect, then actually killing that person; VS taking action to do it, strike me as different.
Most courtroom battles on these issues revolve around trying to reconstruct intent based on things that actually happened and that can be presented as testimony. Premeditation, for example -- the difference between degrees of murder in many states -- might be inferred by a person's actions leading up to a crime, and afterward.
> It's possible that they are legally the same, but I doubt the court can do much to prove thought without a confession.
It's commonplace for prosecutions to proceed on the basis of a record of actions that are used to infer thoughts and intents.
> If someone dies on the operating table because the surgeon accidentally nicks an artery that's different from them actively trying to kill someone. The act is identical, only the intent is different.
In one case, there was a crime, in the other there wasn't.
> Circumstances, which can only affect the punishment, not the judgment that a crime has taken place. But I already said this.
The circumstances which change the crime committed. Not just punishment.