Eve and the Serpent: A Rational Choice to Err |
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Authors: | Sidney W A Dekker |
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Institution: | (1) TFHS, Lund University, Drottningvagen 5, Ljungbyhed, 260 70, Sweden |
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Abstract: | In dealing with inexplicable disaster, like the untimely death of a child in a hospital, we increasingly turn to the justice
system for accountability and retribution. While seemingly sensible, criminalizing human error has a range of negative consequences.
But it does offer “good” narratives of failure as the result of human fault—even at the cost of guilt. Such narratives allow
us to pinpoint a cause: people made a rational choice to err and should be punished. This allows us to imagine ourselves in
control over random, meaningless events. This paper traces Judeo–Christian roots of such regulative ideals in Western moral
thinking, by examining the Genesis account of Eve and the Serpent, and St. Augustine’s interpretation of it.
Sidney Dekker (Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1996) is currently Professor of human factors and system safety at Lund University
in Sweden, and specializes in human error and reactions to failure. |
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Keywords: | Human error Sin Eve Serpent |
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