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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6043086" data-attributes="member: 42582">"Gross negligence" does not boil down to intentional. It boils down to degree of disregard to the risks of harming others that one creates. It's about culpability.And I don't think that "gross violation of the code" boils down to intention either. It boils down to degree of disregard for the courtesy, honour etc due to others. It's about culpability too. In the case of the paladin's code intention is one dimension of culpability, but not the only one and not always the determinative one.In the case of negligence, culpability can be seen as a function of the degree of risk (severity of harm, likelihood of its realisation) and the degree of knowledge of it (or the degree of culpability for ignorance). It's not about intention to cause those risks, nor about desiring to cause those risks (whether or not you meant to hurt someone, or even whether or not you meant to create a risk, is irrelevent to whether or not you acted with gross negligence), nor about whether the negligent action was istelf voluntary or involuntary.That's why throwing a brick from a building is grossly negligent (high risk, high degree of knowledge), but failing to adequately anchor your pile of bricks may not be (lower risk), especialy if the reason for the inadequate anchor is that there is a chance, unknown to you, that birds perching on your bricks will dislodge your anchor (lower risk again, and lower degree of knowledge in a field where ignorance may be excusable - maybe they're a newly introduced species of bird). That's also why it won't be a defence to an accusation of gross negligence that you had a look and thought no one was down below - your gross negligence isn't imputed based on your desire or otherwise to scone people with your brick, but upon your duty to have regard to the sorts of risk that brick-dropping creates.In the case of violations of the code, culpability seems a function of knowledge of the circumstances (is the cup poisoned) plus conformity of the behaviour with the demands of the code (passing someone a drink is polite, spitting in their face is not) plus having regard to the implications of the code (loyalty and humility should make you aware that any apparent pauper may be the prince in disguise) plus the force of external circumstance (an impromptu groin kick is clearly a violation, but if a one-off response in extremis strikes me as reasonably low on the culpability scale - in that context, it's simply not all that contemptuous).</blockquote>

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