IANAL, but I believe that the doctrine of mens rea is different from what is suggested here, and the difference has application to the larger context.
The mens rea is simply the intention to have done the actus reus, the illegal act. If, for example, a company director puts their signature to a set of false accounts, knowing they are false, then there is mens rea. It will cut no ice in court for them to profess that “my goodness, I didn’t know that was illegal!”, or “oh, but surely that wasn’t really fraud”, or “but it was for a vital cause!”
What matters is that they did the thing, intending to do the thing.
I suggest minting a new word, for people who have the effects of malicious behavior
I thought that “toxic” was the usual word these days.
IANAL either but I do know that certain crimes explicitly do hinge on the perpetrator’s knowledge that what they did was illegal, not just that they intended to do it. This isn’t common but does apply to some areas with complex legislation like tax evasion and campaign finance. As a high-profile example, Trump Jr. was deemed “too dumb to prosecute” for campaign finance violations.
More generally, there are multiple levels of mens rea. Some crimes require no intent to prosecute (“strict liability”). For those that do, they can be categorized into four levels of increasing severity: acting negligently, acting recklessly, acting knowingly, and acting purposefully. This list is not universal though it is representative. Some US states refer to express/implied “malice”.
I understand So8res to be saying that we can treat toxic behavior on a strict liability basis without deciding what level of knowledge and intent to assign the offender.
I think “toxic” is more narrow: it hints at indirect, social, and emotional damage, and does not work well as term in situations that are just pragmatic in nature.
IANAL, but I believe that the doctrine of mens rea is different from what is suggested here, and the difference has application to the larger context.
The mens rea is simply the intention to have done the actus reus, the illegal act. If, for example, a company director puts their signature to a set of false accounts, knowing they are false, then there is mens rea. It will cut no ice in court for them to profess that “my goodness, I didn’t know that was illegal!”, or “oh, but surely that wasn’t really fraud”, or “but it was for a vital cause!”
What matters is that they did the thing, intending to do the thing.
I thought that “toxic” was the usual word these days.
IANAL either but I do know that certain crimes explicitly do hinge on the perpetrator’s knowledge that what they did was illegal, not just that they intended to do it. This isn’t common but does apply to some areas with complex legislation like tax evasion and campaign finance. As a high-profile example, Trump Jr. was deemed “too dumb to prosecute” for campaign finance violations.
More generally, there are multiple levels of mens rea. Some crimes require no intent to prosecute (“strict liability”). For those that do, they can be categorized into four levels of increasing severity: acting negligently, acting recklessly, acting knowingly, and acting purposefully. This list is not universal though it is representative. Some US states refer to express/implied “malice”.
I understand So8res to be saying that we can treat toxic behavior on a strict liability basis without deciding what level of knowledge and intent to assign the offender.
I think “toxic” is more narrow: it hints at indirect, social, and emotional damage, and does not work well as term in situations that are just pragmatic in nature.