All analogies are going to have inconsistencies. What's important is whether or not the inconsistencies disrupt the purpose of the point. In my case, I was making the point that "A person should be responsibile for the consequences of his/her actions if, while performing the actions, he/she was aware of those consequences; the likelihood of those consequences developing should not be a factor." The analogy demonstrates this point. You are right that it does not show that both parties were aware of the circumstances, but that is not the point.

1. What does this have to do with the man being held accountable? Accidents should only invalidate responsibility when the parties were not aware of the possibility of such accidents. In the case of protected sex, it is well documented that condoms break sometimes (I think 2% of the time). If a man knows this, and decides to go through with the risk anyway, why does that somehow nullify him of accepting responsibility for his actions?

2. I agree

3. Just because the woman gets to make the final decision for the child, that doesn't somehow rid the man of responsibility; because it was the man's donation of sperm which contributed to the pregnancy in the first place. When a man has sex (protected or not), he knows that the woman could get pregnant, and he knows that the woman could decide to keep the child. As such, having sex means the man is taking a informed risk.

Everyone should be responsible for any consequences of any informed risks they choose to take. Do you not agree with this?

No.

The baker didn't even do his best to ensure the safety of his customers.

In the pregnancy case 1% chance means the girl wasn't using other preconceptive methods, so assuming no lying he should be responsible of the kid.

It would be a sad world if the baker wouldnt be held accountable

Damn cant edit now. The condom example is not valid, because the condom has a warning sign

No. The customer is paying for a 'good' product, and that's what he/she should get. Also, both sides didn't know about the risks, in which case you obviously can't move the responsibility to the customer. Someone has to be responsible, and it can't be the customer if he/she didn't know.

Most countries would consider one to be objectively blamed on the basis of consumer protection. This goes on to encompass not only consumer relations per se but also transportation and engineering.

Basically if the business concerns ends and not means, blame is objective instead of subjective. So lawyers and physicians are usually exempt of objective blame. Plastic surgery is a topic of hot debate.

Criminal responsibilty on the other hand is always subjective. To think otherwise would be... well... dictatorial.

Also, to answer the posts above, nowadays parental responsibility is slowly moving from objective only to both objective and subjective. You can be charged with spousal support even if the child isn't yours, if there were reasons to believe so, or you were the sole provider. So: as a man you are screwed either way.

Don't even try to bring it to court, if you live on a developed country - you are going to lose.

Yes, he should be held accountable.

If the baker knew that one of the cakes was going to cause serious illness, and willingly sold a cake without determining that it was not the cake with the problem, then he should go to jail.

Note that the keys here are serious illness and knowledge. If the baker didn't know that one of the cakes was bad, then it's a different situation. If it just might not taste as good, then it's a different situation. It's the combination of serious illness and baker knowledge that brings about the problem.

Note that there were multiple "outs".

Option 1: Baker informs the customer of the situation, customer knowingly accepts the risk or rejects it. If the customer rejects it, then it's a bit of lost business, may harm his further business as the customer informs others... but not as badly as if the customer falls seriously ill.

Option 2: Baker starts performing checks of the cakes. Knowing only one is affected, the baker starts "destroying" cakes, in search of the bad one (this assumes that there is a way to identify the cake, but the check destroys the cake). With a 1% chance of each cake being the bad one, the baker has a reasonable chance of only destroying half of his inventory or less. But the Baker saves face and probably protects future business.

I see that some have observed that this is an analogy to sex and condoms. There are a few key differences.

1. The man cannot know that he has an imperfect condom - that is, it's not that he knows that there's one weak condom in his batch of 100, only that there's a 1% chance that the condom he has might break. Assuming the woman (or gay partner) is also aware of this, it fails to be an analogy both in terms of the man's knowledge and the other person's knowledge.

2. There is no transaction taking place - that is, the man is not making a financial gain or otherwise gaining anything that is being traded for something knowingly possibly-defective.

3. The man did not manufacture the condom as the baker manufactured the cake (presumably).

This alters the situation enough that the morality and the responsibility should be different. In my view, if both sexual partners know that the condom could break, and both choose to go ahead with the sexual activity, then the responsibility should be exactly the same as if both choose to have sexual activity without a condom.

Note that an exact situation mirroring the Baker analogy would be medicinal drugs... if the laws didn't state that warnings must be put on them indicating possible side-effects, etc, but it was known that serious illness occurs in 1% of patients who use the drug, then selling the drug without such a warning would be a breach of responsibility akin to the Baker possibly selling an infected cake. This is why laws are in place requiring those warnings.

Need to clear up some confusion here ... are we saying that women have no private property rights (the first property they aquire being their own bodies)?

Or ... are we saying that the child's body is not the woman's body? Well, that is obvious, but it is also irrelevant. An embryo does not have rights ... just as sperm and eggs do not have rights even though, under proper conditions, they could be used to potentially form a new life.

Scientifically and biologically, a group of cells is not an independent lifeform with a developing capacity to reason. It does not have rights ... rights are the freedoms to perform actions. A woman who undergoes abortion is not violating the rights of the child, the child is simply incapable of performing independent action/ living outside of the mother's constant biological support until a certain point near the end of pregnancy (or birth to be most accurate).

To not allow a woman to determine what happens with her body would be to violate her own right to life. There can not be a right to violate the rights of others ... that invalidates the entire concept.