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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And of course, you haven't addressed the people who don't care if the DP is a deterrant (like me). |
If it does not serve as a deterrent then it has no useful purpose, or at least no useful purpose the law should take account of.
I made basically the same point in another thread, but it applies here too. Retributivism, apart from being moronic, is a religious conception of justice. It has no place in a society where the church and state are separated.
It's easy to see why. Unless it is appealing to the simple emotion of revenge (which is merely a feeling and not a moral justification for any kind of action, any more than any other extreme emotion), retributivism is philosophically bankrupt. It imagines us to imagine a great ledger in the sky in which each foul deed is listed along with it's appropriate punishment. Of course there is no such thing and the punishments are those imposed by human beings, either to satisfy their lust for revenge or cruelty; or to deter criminal behaviour.
The only attempt I have ever seen to justify retributivism was by a Kantian who argued that by performing any act, a moral agent justifies the same act being performed on him. This was then used to justify a form of "an eye for an eye" retributivism.
Of course it's a fiction because any other person who then administers the punishment incurs the same chain of reasoning and should also be punished and so on. Of course the right try to mask this error by saying that people working for the state are somehow different, but they never quite explain how, which just shows how full of **** they are. The Kantian Categorical Imperative is at most a logical device for testing moral principles. It is not a punishment determining mechanism.
In the absence of that failure, retributivism simply has no legs to stand on other than primitive emotionalism and religious doctrine. Neither of these has a place in the laws of a secular state, and therefore neither does retributivism. And without retributivism, the death penalty must rely on only consequentialist justifications and that means deterrence. Since it fails that test, it is an unwarranted legal device - a relic from a barbaric age, when people still burned witches and other heretics.
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Capt Dizle
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I used to be for the death penalty but then when DNA testing came along and folks started being cleared (just saw a case on TV tonight of a guy who was convicted when I was a teen and just today was released) I had to change my mind.
The fact is that the system puts too many innocent people behind bars. So I don't support it.
But if that were my kid I would shoot the bastard and hope I got it right.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
Of course the right try to mask this error by saying that people working for the state are somehow different |
They ARE different. The state is society's arbiter and can do things individuals cannot do. It can take lives on behalf of the people. There is no fallacy there. |
Yes there is. It's called "begging the question". You've offered no reason why the state is magically allowed to do this. Just because the state is an abstract entity to which we attribute legal powers, does not entail anything about those powers themselves. And it's still ordinary people who have to do the killing, or if you want to regard the state as a person, it too may not kill.
quote:
Retribution is one of the four accepted purposes of punishment in the criminal law (so it is strange that you say only one person has ever tried to justify retrubution). |
Of course it is accepted. But then again, so was burning women for being witches at one time. I couldn't care less what law professors have to say. Their province is the law as it is written, and not metaethics or applied ethics. I still can't make head or tail of what is supposed to justify retribution, other than our primitive sense of revenge.
quote:
The argument is that the offender deserves his punishment because the offender is a moral agent who has earned punishment by his crime. Of course it restricts punishment to those making moral, willing choices. |
Yes, I know. But it doesn't tell us what that punishment should be unless you make it the same as the crime (which is really dumb). And it's not clear how the offender "earns" it unless we imagine something like the giant ledger in the sky, or an equally imaginary pair of scales, or what is most likely, that it is a projection and justification of our primitive emotion of revenge. Retributivists can say this as much as they like, but it doesn't really mean anything at all.
Every child learns early in life that smacking someone if they smack you is a stupid, dangerous and ineffective way of solving disputes. It's a pity people don't carry that lesson into the justice system.
quote:
This isn't just for DP. Every punishment has retributive effect to some extent. All four purposes of punishment (deterrance, retributism, incapacitation, and rehabilitation). People who go off on retributism don't realize how much of the criminal law is based off of it, and there is nothing wrong with that. |
I know. Isn't it astonishing how much of the law is based on ignorance and religious savagery?. 
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Everyone says this, but hardly anyone ever does it. Wouldn't it be a disaster if everyone did. |
Sometimes one does. I am an ex-con who got ten years for shooting at the local cops when they hassled me. You want to mess with my kid. Take a chance.
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Capt Dizle
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Are you folks saying this happened because this girl was dressed wrong?
Now, that is plain stupid.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:33
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quote:
You've offered no reason why the state is magically allowed to do this. Just because the state is an abstract entity to which we attribute legal powers, does not entail anything about those powers themselves. And it's still ordinary people who have to do the killing, or if you want to regard the state as a person, it too may not kill. |
The state is 'magically' allowed to do this because it's the power broker. It's the entity which decides what rights we do and do not get. If it wishes to give itself the power to kill, it can do so. Ordinary people may have to do the killing, but they are acting on behalf of the state, not as individual principles, so they are not morally at fault for the state sanctioned killing.
quote:
And it's not clear how the offender "earns" it unless we imagine something like the giant ledger in the sky, or an equally imaginary pair of scales, or what is most likely, that it is a projection and justification of our primitive emotion of revenge. |
If every person is a moral actor then when he violates the moral code of the society, he naturally deserves a punishment. He has 'earned' his punishment because of his violation of the code and the need to atone for that. Theory goes that at the end of punishment (if there is an end), the person becomes once again is whole (every crime has chipped away his moral character), because he has payed back his crime to the society. If the crime is so heinous, the payback to society may be his life itself.
And what is wrong with revenge anyway? It is funny, people have become so wrapped up in 'logic' they forget humanity is an emotional animal and primitive urges are not always evil.
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Not this crime in particular, but you have to wonder what the effect of sexualizing children will be in general. |
Well, when I came up it was a scandal for a woman to wear pants. Now we are suprised if they wear panties. Yes, it is sickening to see kids like that. I think that the country has went to hell in a handbasket.
Personally, I think we need to put the Bible and the paddle back in schools and hire only those teachers who are willing to use them.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
The state is 'magically' allowed to do this because it's the power broker. It's the entity which decides what rights we do and do not get. If it wishes to give itself the power to kill, it can do so. |
The State is not morally justified in doing anything, nor does it "decide" which moral rights people have, or what is right or wrong. Sure, they can make the DP legal, but you could make murder legal too.
quote:
Ordinary people may have to do the killing, but they are acting on behalf of the state, not as individual principles, so they are not morally at fault for the state sanctioned killing. |
Again, I find this quite magical. You've just repeated your initial claim. Could you explain to me how they are not at fault without saying the same thing?
quote:
If every person is a moral actor then when he violates the moral code of the society, he naturally deserves a punishment. |
Naturally? What if the moral code of that society is to present yourself for rape by smelly old men? Would I be morally blameworthy for refusing to do it, and should I be punished?
quote:
He has 'earned' his punishment because of his violation of the code and the need to atone for that. |
Atone? That just sounds like the magic scales to me.
quote:
Theory goes that at the end of punishment (if there is an end), the person becomes once again is whole (every crime has chipped away his moral character), |
Now that is bizarre. I don't see how this elaborate attempt at a metaphor has anything to do with the facts. I ask for clarification and I get the opposite.
quote:
because he has payed back his crime to the society. If the crime is so heinous, the payback to society may be his life itself. |
So if I steal 50 bucks, I should give 50 bucks back. Sounds like an excellent deal to me, if I can get away with it one out of every five times. Oh... you think the punishment should be more? Why? - deterrence obviously.
And the criminal doesn't owe anything to society, only to certain individuals whom he may have wronged. There is no such thing as society, as your friends are so fond of pointing out.
And this talk of debt is again, a weird kind of metaphor that doesn't seem to indicate anything concrete.
quote:
And what is wrong with revenge anyway? It is funny, people have become so wrapped up in 'logic' they forget humanity is an emotional animal and primitive urges are not always evil. |
That's an easy one. If it is permissible to act on any emotion I have, then whenever I see a woman I want to ****, I am entitled to just grab her and **** her - in the subway if need be.
If you think that is wrong, then you have to provide a reason as to why it is OK to act on some emotions and not others.
More tomorrow...
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Oncle Boris
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Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:33
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Imran-
You could always try to apply the DP to any crime. After all, unless the deterrence effect is disproven, the DP is justified, right?
Hell- you can't even prove the deterrence effect of the most extreme form of punishment, and you are defending the statu quo? In fact, while I give it to you that there doesn't seem to be any causality, there is strong evidence that countries with no DP are much more peaceful. This, at worse, should warrant an immediate moratory.
Let's sort through different criminals:
-the serial killer, who's a serial killer by definition. Those guys have DEFECTIVE brains, no joke. They don't care about the DP.
-Organized crime. Its inherent dangers are already large enough that DP is only a minor deterrent. Do you think a 16 years old weighting in the decision of selling drugs will think about the eventual murders circumstances will bind him to? Do you think the mafia and the Hell's Angels would stop their activity in non-DP countries if the capital punishment was re-enacted?
-Impulsive homicide. As the name implies, the occasional murder from the bum fight gone awry, or the desperate man seeking revenge for his divorce.
-Last category. The planned, non-impulsive homicide, that has nothing to do with organized crime. To what percentage of all murders does it amount?
And BTW, your argument about the State sucked. Was the Nuremberg trial unfair because the convincted had acted on behalf of the state?
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07-02-2004 12:41
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