Suppose a bakery is about to close for the night, but there is one customer remaining. This customer wants a cake. The shop has 100 cakes in stock, but one of the cakes is rotten and can cause illness. The baker has closely examined each cake and has found that it's impossible to determine which cake is rotten. He determines that it's extremely unlikely that he will sell the rotten cake, so he decides to sell one cake to the customer.

Unfortunately, the man unknowingly sells the rotten cake and the customer gets very ill. Should the baker not be held (at least partially) accountable for the man's sickness? The baker says he didn't want to sell the rotten cake, and that it was extremely unlikely that it would be sold (only 1%). Therefore, he says, he should not be held accountable for what happens to the customer. Is the baker right?

Now, a more general question: does probability invalidate accountability? In other words, should a person's accountability of certain consequences be diminished solely because it was unlikely that the consequences would develop?

Note: the baker did not tell the customer that he had a rotten cake. Though he also didn't tell the customer that he didn't have a rotten cake.

Bad title to draw attention.

Go write your ethics paper yourself Jay.

In this case, the selling of the cake affects an individual that ate the rotten cake so they should be punished. Crimes against bigger entities such as corporations are less of an evil as they do not hurt one person directly. This case clearly hurts one individual.

This is possibly the great console failure anolagy I've ever seen. Bravo to you sir.

You bring up a great point. By logic alone, probability should not affect accountability. Unfortunately, especially for most electronics, small failure rate is universally accepted as the norm. Should it be accepted? No. But, nonetheless the consumer does accept it.

Actually, this wasn't meant to be an analogy for electronics. It involves something else, something we may or may not agree with. I haven't seen enough of your posts, but I'm going to assume you would disagree with me since most men probably do.

The knowledge of the rotten cake places blame on the baker. He is at fault and fully accountable. There are no acceptable standard for selling rotten baked goods. There is however a guarntee of quality of the good sold as advertised. The blame is shifted to the baker due to his knowledge of the rotten cake. Cake is a food product and held to a standard as safe to eat

What if I were to say I'm not a man?

But seriously tell me. My curiousity is literally exploding right now.

If you're fucking a girl and the condom breaks, even though there was only a 1 percent chance of it breaking, should you still be held accountable for the child if the woman chooses not to get an abortion? That was his point.

It depends on the risk. Airlines operate based on a probability of failure, just a very low one, same with everything else. Doesn't mean they're not accountable. The level of accountability depends on the consequences involved.

Risk of death, probability very low, accountability very high.
Risk of harmless defect, probability high, accountability low.

Food poisoning is a serious issue which will get your business closed.

You can argue about if it would be a requirement to list the risks involved up front. I think only the medicinal field is required to do so.

Well that one is easy. It's your child, end of story. If one chooses not to have an abortion, the other is still responsible for the life of the child.

The baker is surely at fault in this scenario, he knowingly sold a possibly rotten cake to the customer that expected a non rotten cake. Percentages don't free you from accountability for your actions.

If the baker let the customer know that the cake could have been rotten and the customer still bought the cake, then it is the customer's fault because the customer knew what they were buying.