SPECIAL NOTE:
The reader will only be able to understand the purpose and meaning of this annotation and its relationship to the Natural Social Contract (NSC), if s/he has first read the Introduction section of the NSC and its explanatory and elucidating annotation.
1) It cannot be stressed enough that the manner most supportive of the Social Meta-Needs by which to settle a situation where one person accidentally (whether negligently or totally innocently) Responsibly Harms another is for the Guilty Freeman to willingly and spontaneously, even without requested, admit such Guilt and to Complete Restitution as quickly as possible. When this is done there is total achievement of justice; the Freeman who caused the Harm learns an important practical lesson from hir mistake1; hir Equity Relationship with the Freeman s/he has Harmed remains Intact; and hir record of accountability (part of hir Personal Social Characteristics which is so important for hir ability to optimally InterAct Socially with other Freemen) is maintained. When such immediate and full Restitution is not Performed, but instead the situation becomes an UnSettled Dispute with Restitution InComplete as it progresses through the more and more egregious stages from Charges being made, to a Trial and finally to a Restitution Requirement, the Equity Relationship of the Disputants is Broken (and remains so until Restitution is Complete) and their accountability and/or judgment becomes more and more suspect. This is why the details of all these Processes are Required to be Published for all to see and ultimately judge by Social Preferencing of one or both Disputants.
2) Another view of the Social meaning and effect of a Restitution Agreement (as opposed to a Restitution Requirement resulting from the Determination of a Trial) is that the Actual Violator, in effect, has purchased the Value of the Harm s/he has done from the Actual Victim. Of course, the Exchange is negative (in sum, to the extent any such summing between individuals is meaningful) because of the Value that is lost by the Violator (although it is possible that some highly quirky people might actually get some strange sort of Happiness out of causing Harm to others, so much so that they would be willing to pay for all the Harm done). However, for more rational people it appears that any Exchange will always cause an immediate increase in the Happiness of all parties, whereas any InterAction not Permitted by all Involved parties will always cause an immediate decrease in Happiness of at least one of the parties Involved. Of course, since long term consequences can always turn out differently than one thought they would, it is always possible that an Exchange can ultimately decrease the Lifetime Happiness of all Involved parties and that an UnPermitted InterAction can increase the lifetime Happiness of all parties and that any Freeman who did not give prior Permission can afterwards even be glad that s/he was Compelled.
Note that a Restitution Agreement may even include Stipulations that the Actual Violator Will not take specified Available Actions. However, since these Stipulations are completely Permitted by the Actual Violator rather than the result of any Compulsion or even the Determination of a Trial, they are no different than any other similarly "restrictive" Stipulations of a Valid Contract.
3) It is clear that there are Violations the Effects of which are Damage or Injury, including death, for which it is fundamentally impossible to restore the Lifetime Happiness of the Harmed Freeman to that which it would have been if the Violation Event had not occurred.2 The reader should carefully note the meaning and importance of the phrase "fundamentally impossible". Violations that could be fully Restituted if the Violator had the resources to do so are still considered to be Restitutable Violations and are not included within the Category of UnRestitutable Violations because it is always possible that the Violator could still obtain the necessary resources at some time in the future. Thus, the essence of UnRestitutable Violations is that the justice of full restoration of the Harmed innocent can never be fulfilled. On the other hand, since this judgment is once again a subjective Evaluation by the Harmed Freeman, it is subject to alteration and therefore, it is always possible that a Violation that is initially deemed to be UnRestitutable may, in time, become Restitutable and finally be Completed (Restituted). Thus, it appears that there is no objective definition of an UnRestitutable Violation except in the case of the death of the Harmed Freeman (if s/he wanted to remain alive), since only then is there no possibility that the Harm will become Restitutable.
1. It is my contention that the cases of accidental Harm where there is not some degree of negligence on the part of the person Effectively Causing the Harm are extremely rare. Note that by negligent I mean that it was possible for hir to have prevented the Harmful Event that s/he Effectively Caused.
2. The meta-physical reason for this fundamental impossibility is related to the concept of entropy in physics. Globally, there is always a loss of information, an increase in disorder and a decrease in differences between one area of space and another in the direction of positive time. A good way of understanding this in practical terms is from the phrase: "one cannot unring a bell".
