They (metaphors) don't necessarily shape the way you think but they will shape someone learning how to think from others via context.
Ie
how everybody learns most social information.
How often have you looked up a word or a concept in a dictionary or encyclopedia that you picked up from other people.
That's a trained skill. You were taught to do that. For all others you look to other people, and if they are using terrible metaphors it's easy to learn things wrong.
It's not good enough to go "Oh I know well enough to tell that there's more than just the metaphor." and just blindly assume everybody can do that.
That's really rather massively naive and you should stop assuming things like that. Like now. Stop it. I can see you doing it. Stop that.
I think my point is exactly the opposite -- that this stuff is so ingrained that it needs to be made explicit and taught to people. I didn't just go "Oh I know well enough to tell that this is just a metaphor" one day -- I myself used the moral accounting mode of reasoning all the time before realizing (from someone, in a book, making it explicit to me) that I was using metaphorical language.
That moral reasoning didn't happen out of the blue, you learnt that from others as you grew up. The only reason it feels ingrained is because it got cemented as you grew up, and so your developing brain systems became modelled on it.
This is getting confusing because one of us is assuming there will be a point where we can go "Oh look this is the guy who started the metaphor lets stone him"
When what I'm saying is that the "wheel goes round and round."
So I can perfectly agree with your point about retraining as well as keeping to my earlier point.
(Also to be clear I'm not arguing against you)
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Again, this is probably my fault for using too many terms without clear delineation, but the problem for me is that we get trapped into modes of reasoning that clearly stem from metaphor, and that these modes of reasoning are not inherent to our morality. We don't literally accrue moral debts -- such a concept is clearly metaphorical.
Why don't you think we accrue moral debt, or, their opposite, moral desert?
Why do you conclude that it is a metaphor that is tricking us, rather than a simple statement of how things work?
It didn't seem to me that the OP's point was to provide a blueprint for a completely new criminal system. The point was to discuss the U.S.' complete philosophical neglect of any rehabilitative function in favor of punishment.
Since this has turned into a death penalty thead in my absence ill be brief. I doubt anyone will disagree that our current system could use a complete overhaul. However attempting to rehabilitate people is by no means a guarantee they will not recommit the same crimes. Much like with mental institutions where people learn to game the system, say what the counselor wants to hear, and eventually get released no more sane than they were when they entered. Now one could pose an argument with mental institutions that by being able to game the system one has demonstrated an ability to at least fake normal, and might therefor have a chance in normal society. In the case of criminals however, being able to game the system only returns them to where they can recommit crimes sooner until someone catches on that they are not really reforming, just acting.
With violent sex offenders I personally feel that we currently lack the ability to rehabilitate them to a sufficient degree
Based on what, exactly?[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]
Recidivism rates. Although given the various reasons people commit murder/rape I found it amusing that any form of rehabilitation would likely function better on murders than on violent sexual offenders. Hell in cases of manslaughter therapy might be exactly what they need.
The idea that the death penalty increases murders doesn't make sense...but the fact that you find essentially the same murder rate or higher obviously shows that it doesn't have the deterrent effect that it is often argued it does.
Yeah that's what I take from it.
You can't argue that it increases it from those graphs.
Yeah, those graphs show that when there are more capital crimes, there are more capital sentences. Can I get a big ol' DURrrRRr?
Punishment in our justice system is very much a deterrent. Capital punishment isn't, with my favorite theory being because it is such a tiny uncommon fraction of punishments, even for capital offenses. As Levitt said, if you put to death anyone found guilty of a gun crime, you'd see a huge drop in gun crime in this country. Much more so than if you outlawed guns.
The idea that the death penalty increases murders doesn't make sense...but the fact that you find essentially the same murder rate or higher obviously shows that it doesn't have the deterrent effect that it is often argued it does.
Yeah that's what I take from it.
You can't argue that it increases it from those graphs.
Yeah, those graphs show that when there are more capital crimes, there are more capital sentences. Can I get a big ol' DURrrRRr?
Punishment in our justice system is very much a deterrent. Capital punishment isn't, with my favorite theory being because it is such a tiny uncommon fraction of punishments, even for capital offenses. As Levitt said, if you put to death anyone found guilty of a gun crime, you'd see a huge drop in gun crime in this country. Much more so than if you outlawed guns.
You'd also see a spike in the number of gun murders however, as suddenly the point of not killing witnesses disappears.
The idea that the death penalty increases murders doesn't make sense...but the fact that you find essentially the same murder rate or higher obviously shows that it doesn't have the deterrent effect that it is often argued it does.
Yeah that's what I take from it.
You can't argue that it increases it from those graphs.
Yeah, those graphs show that when there are more capital crimes, there are more capital sentences. Can I get a big ol' DURrrRRr?
The ones I posted?
Not quite, because it compares the states that have ZERO capital sentances. As in, not allowed at all.
The logical reason why capital punishment COULD increase murder rates is because it reduces the percieved value of human life. If the state is allowed to end human life, then that sends a message that there exists an area where it is morally okay to end human life (and people run with their own interpretations), whereas if you ban capital punishment, it sends the message that it is NEVER okay to take a human life.
Look at a guy like Cade, who is arguing that we should allow innocent people to die in order to streamline the capital punishment system, and cut costs. That sort of thinking is a result of a perception of a cheapened value of human life.
Could yes, but that's not the reason not to do it. The reason not to do it is because it clearly doesn't have a deterrent effect of any particular value or usefulness.
It didn't seem to me that the OP's point was to provide a blueprint for a completely new criminal system. The point was to discuss the U.S.' complete philosophical neglect of any rehabilitative function in favor of punishment.
Since this has turned into a death penalty thead in my absence ill be brief. I doubt anyone will disagree that our current system could use a complete overhaul. However attempting to rehabilitate people is by no means a guarantee they will not recommit the same crimes. Much like with mental institutions where people learn to game the system, say what the counselor wants to hear, and eventually get released no more sane than they were when they entered. Now one could pose an argument with mental institutions that by being able to game the system one has demonstrated an ability to at least fake normal, and might therefor have a chance in normal society. In the case of criminals however, being able to game the system only returns them to where they can recommit crimes sooner until someone catches on that they are not really reforming, just acting.
Where is there any evidence that there is some sort of wide ranging effort for people to complete treatment programs in bad faith? Where is there even any evidence that people in mental institutions engage in widespread gaming of the system? Besides which, the system doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be better than the status quo. All evidence (this for example) points to a well tailored treatment program reducing recidivism over incarceration. I mean, no doubt we would set the bar higher for what entails rehabilitation in cases like murder and rape, but I have yet to see any compelling evidence that the risks of a treatment based approach are too great.
Recidivism rates. Although given the various reasons people commit murder/rape I found it amusing that any form of rehabilitation would likely function better on murders than on violent sexual offenders. Hell in cases of manslaughter therapy might be exactly what they need.
The recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower. From the Bureau of Justice website;
"Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense –– 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders. "
So not sure where you got the idea that they were somehow worse off. And this is in a system that makes effectively no effort to actually prevent recidivism.
Could yes, but that's not the reason not to do it. The reason not to do it is because it clearly doesn't have a deterrent effect of any particular value or usefulness.
they are both reasons.
If it were to be proven that capital punishment INCREASES crime rates, I'd think that would be a better reason to get rid of it than just "it doesn't do anything".
You need to prove a negative impact of a thing to justify the cost of changing it.
Most people would rather not have a government that just does things at random, until it's proven that they aren't useful.
Also the "cost" of stopping is actually a net positive, taken on it's own.
You're preaching to the choir, man.
I'm just pointing out that there IS a cost associated with changing the system, and in order to justify it, from a policy angel, you have to essentially have figures for a net cost benefit analysis.
You and I both know which way the figures will go, but without exact numbers, there are some folks who will not be convinced.
Could yes, but that's not the reason not to do it. The reason not to do it is because it clearly doesn't have a deterrent effect of any particular value or usefulness.
they are both reasons.
If it were to be proven that capital punishment INCREASES crime rates, I'd think that would be a better reason to get rid of it than just "it doesn't do anything".
You need to prove a negative impact of a thing to justify the cost of changing it.
A negative impact like:
The fact that we're killing people?
Or the fact that plenty of innocent people have probably been executed?
Could yes, but that's not the reason not to do it. The reason not to do it is because it clearly doesn't have a deterrent effect of any particular value or usefulness.
they are both reasons.
If it were to be proven that capital punishment INCREASES crime rates, I'd think that would be a better reason to get rid of it than just "it doesn't do anything".
You need to prove a negative impact of a thing to justify the cost of changing it.
A negative impact like:
The fact that we're killing people?
Or the fact that plenty of innocent people have probably been executed?
Because those are two pretty big negatives.
I'm an economist. I don't do emotional reactions.
Read my above posts. I honestly believe that capital punishment is detrimental to our society, and has large costs both monetary and non-monetary.
I also recogize that it is difficult to get the exact non-monetary numbers, and without those, it is near-impossible to convince CP supporters.
There is no fundamental "need" to punish criminals, any more than there is a fundamental "need" for men to commit rape to reproduce.
I think there is; it's just less accessible because it's a social need, one that exists on the scale of a community, rather than a biological one which manifests itself in terms of the individual. But since we're social animals who live in groups we're bound by fundamental social needs as well as biological ones, and this turns out to be one of them. Before we invest ourselves in a society - before we sign on to its social contract - we require from that society certain guarantees, and a good faith attempt at something we'll recognize as justice turns out to be one of them. I don't think people are capable of accepting a system wherein our only collective concern for someone who does us some horrendus injury is to rehabilitate him and return him to society, or failing that to make his life sentence as comfortable as possible, and I don't even think we'd be better off if we were capable of accpeting that. There are good reasons why we shouldn't accept such a system, since it would tend to erode the powerful social stigma against violent crime.
We divorce the concepts of right and wrong with their associated punishments quite easily.
It's apparent to me that we don't. The premise that it's right to punish criminals is pretty firmly ingrained in our social practice, part of the lessons learned from the thousands of years of social experience that are the source of all our ideas of right and wrong. I recognize that intellectuals say they can divorce those concepts, in theory. But to paraphrase Marx, the relationship between philosophy and the study of the real world is akin to the relationship between masturbation and sexual love.
It's fundamentally backwards to say that "because we punish people for doing something, we know that thing is bad," which is exactly the argument you're constructing.
There's nothing especially backward about that; it's a fairly accurate picture of the manner in which any culture raises and socializes its citizens to become productive members. Punishment viscerally reinforces our social understanding that crime is bad. It's not the reason it's bad; crime is bad because of the effects it has, and we would be unable to live in society if we did not have some protection from those effects. But if that was enough to prevent crime and its consequences, government and laws would never have become necessary. It turns out we need some kind of authority in place to bring the consequences of crime home to us in a more direct and observable way, to amplify them and prevent the social collapse that would be the real consequence of crime if it was left unchecked.
punishment (beyond rehabilitative purposes) racism, and rape are ALL on the same level.
You're going dangerously close to the genetic fallacy there. Even if it's true that two things have the same or similar origins, that doesn't imply that those things are the same thing, or that they have the same level of value or usefulness in the modern world. Lots of things are born of instinct, including the desire to care for our young, but that doesn't imply that they're bad. They are good, or bad, independantly of their origins.
Nope! We really don't. Fuck, little kids have to be taught to be afraid of wild animals, or long drops. Hell there's a good argument that sex is learned. So uh, you're wrong here.
Nope! We really don't. Fuck, little kids have to be taught to be afraid of wild animals, or long drops. Hell there's a good argument that sex is learned. So uh, you're wrong here.
no, you are
the truth, as in all things, lie somewhere in the middle. Few traits are ALL nature or ALL nurture. Even our physical appearances have elements that don't come solely from our DNA (finger-prints, body mass.)
Humans have insticts. pointing out certain instincts that aren't there doesn't mean that no instincts at all are there.
sex being learned is absurd, by the way. we wouldn't exist as a species if the reproductive instinct wasn't there. I imagine that whoever formulated this argument was working from the puritanical notion that sex is dirty and evil.
Well for one, being convicted of a crime and sent through the criminal system is never going to be considered a "good" outcome. It isn't like you're going to be sent to a free country club for a couple months, under anyone's preferred system.
Also, doesn't your "good action -> good result, bad action -> bad result formulation" necessarily collapse to eye for an eye justice? Your perfect "fair" system would seem to be one that punishes criminals in direct proportion to whatever crime they committed.
but now we are just quibbling about the price to be paid, not the actual system that should be used. regardless of what we believe is actually "fair" punishment for a light / medium / heavy crime, as long as you believe there should be "punishment" of some kind, then you subscribe to moral accounting.
Perhaps you are kinder and believe that crime x should be punished by x - 100 whereas i believe crime x should be punished by x exactly. that's just a matter of degrees. we still both subscribe to moral accounting.
in other words, i say an eye for an eye is fair. you say an eye for a 3 year sentence is fair.
I'm attempting to illustrate that your "fair" system of punishments necessarily takes you to a place you don't want to go. If you're also a proponent of eye for an eye justice, then I guess I can't call you inconsistent because you do actually want to go there.
i definitely feel like we are far too lenient on criminals (if that sheds any more light on my position). that being said, i accept the rule of democracy and believe that my own personal stance on an issue does not outweigh the stance of the majority.
i personally support much, much, much harsher sentences for criminals because i hold up the ideal of fairness over that of well-being (especially when it comes to the well-being of criminals).
sex being learned is absurd, by the way. we wouldn't exist as a species if the reproductive instinct wasn't there. I imagine that whoever formulated this argument was working from the puritanical notion that sex is dirty and evil.
Sex is an instinct, yes. Rape as an instinct? Not so much. The will to reproduce and the will to tear clothes off and rape are completely different.
It's more of a ... dysfunction and I wouldn't argue it's genetic in the slightest. Hence mating rituals and courtship. I'm not to well versed on ape mating rituals, but I'm not sure rape is present, or even common, in other primates.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The thing is that many people are not consequentialist in outlook, and retributive punishment is often used as an intuition pump to get people to agree that consequentialism is wrong. Because, really, didn't Hitler deserve a punch in the face? Although I myself do not believe in retributive punishment, I don't think the best strategy is to argue for it by starting by assuming consequentialism. Instead, you'd be better off showing consequentialism itself to be correct.
Well, admittedly my argument rather hinges on the idea that all morality is consequentialist, whether the people who practice it are aware of that/admit to it or not. All forms of morality aim to increase well-being, just certain experiences of well-being are prioritized, and become metaphors for morality, like wealth, and give rise to strict moral reasoning. Yes, people generally focus on only their particular brand of morality, and its particular methods of moral reasoning and its prescribed norms and practices, but just because a morality's practitioners often forget the ultimate purpose behind a morality doesn't mean the morality was any less constructed on that basis.
If our language, metaphors, and modes of reasoning about morality all stem from experiential well-being, it makes sense, I think, to categorize morality as the pursuit or promotion of well-being, maximally. This core is what underlies all moralities.
and i think this is your big problem. not all of us are utilitarians. many of us specifically reject utilitarian thought, which means unfortunately that we end up talking past each other on this topic.
i mean, if you are talking to a bunch of utilitarians on how to apply utilitarianism to the criminal justice system, then i think the approach and the assumtions you make are fine. but in light of the fact that we dont subscribe to your moral system, i think it is hard for us to play by your rules.
So why has psychological nativism and empiricism entirely replaced innate ideas then champ? I’d also like to see the literature you have supporting the existence of these instincts in humans. I’ll grant some extremely basic ones exist, but not in any kind of meaningful behaviour – and especially not ones which include complex behaviours such as revenge.
Like I said above innocent people get locked away in jail all the time, some already do get executed I'm sure time from time. Not much we can do to prevent that for the most part, do we simply let out everyone out of the prison because some might be falsely convicted? No. Why keep housing criminals when a good portion just reoffend, molest, kill or be hazardous to society overall. Why keep paying that cost, it's pointless.
Keeping them confined as animals is hardly any more civillized than executing them and only cost valuable resources and manpower that could be put to better use like feeding the poor or building shelters for those who can not afford homes. I rather see money go towards such things than housing the ills of society.
Because we don't have perfect information, and we don't know who will re-offend and who won't. If we follow your logic out, we should just execute everyone who commits a crime, because they're all irredeemable and will just re-offend.
please dont confuse me with supporting cade's absolutist stance here, but even though i dont agree with his stance, i think it can be stated in a more reasonable way.
for example:
the number of innocents that have been mistakenly executed or convicted = x
vs.
the number of innocents have been killed or injured by recidivist criminal behavior = y
if y > x, then cade's position is not totally unreasonable. if x > y then it is totally unreasonable.
that being said, i am willing to wager a large amount of money that y is significantly greater than x.
Okay let me throw a hypothetical out. Your wife was murdered, and you come home and find her. You embrace her dead body. The criminal who did this was so good he left no evidence. You found out the other day she was planning to divorce you and you had a heated argument with your wife. Maybe the cops were called, maybe not. You've been moody at your job and your performance had declined and your boss noticed. Your wife just got murdered and the only DNA is yours. The killer used a kitchen knife from your kitchen.
The prosecution makes up a huge story about how you were emotionally distraught about the upcoming possibility of divorce and yadda yadda. You get convicted of premeditated murder of your wife in the first degree. You get sentenced to death row. You didn't kill her.
Think it's okay then? Granted it's a really situational hypothetical, but any system where they can be any doubt just fucks people over. Really fucking bad. It's better if you just lock them up and throw away the keys.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
sex being learned is absurd, by the way. we wouldn't exist as a species if the reproductive instinct wasn't there. I imagine that whoever formulated this argument was working from the puritanical notion that sex is dirty and evil.
Sex is an instinct, yes. Rape as an instinct? Not so much. The will to reproduce and the will to tear clothes off and rape are completely different.
It's more of a ... dysfunction and I wouldn't argue it's genetic in the slightest. Hence mating rituals and courtship. I'm not to well versed on ape mating rituals, but I'm not sure rape is present, or even common, in other primates.
Also, rape isn't even about sex. It's about power and control.
Also, rape isn't even about sex. It's about power and control.
Rape is about power and control, but it's also, partly, about sex. At the very least sex is the mechanism through which the rapist asserts his control over the victim. I don't think you can really remove sex from our understanding of the crime of rape, and it's never been quite clear to me why people are sometimes anxious to do that. I get that power and control are the problems with rape, the things that run it afoul of the law and make it so offensive to us, but this sometimes gets translated as "rape has nothing to do with sex" which is not a true statement.
sex being learned is absurd, by the way. we wouldn't exist as a species if the reproductive instinct wasn't there. I imagine that whoever formulated this argument was working from the puritanical notion that sex is dirty and evil.
Sex is an instinct, yes. Rape as an instinct? Not so much. The will to reproduce and the will to tear clothes off and rape are completely different.
It's more of a ... dysfunction and I wouldn't argue it's genetic in the slightest. Hence mating rituals and courtship. I'm not to well versed on ape mating rituals, but I'm not sure rape is present, or even common, in other primates.
Also, rape isn't even about sex. It's about power and control.
sometimes
and sometimes rape is the manifestation of the inborn urge to spread one's genetic material if there is no other outlet.
The former is more common that the latter because we, as a species, have learned to curb out instincts.
We divorce the concepts of right and wrong with their associated punishments quite easily.
It's apparent to me that we don't. The premise that it's right to punish criminals is pretty firmly ingrained in our social practice, part of the lessons learned from the thousands of years of social experience that are the source of all our ideas of right and wrong. I recognize that intellectuals say they can divorce those concepts, in theory. But to paraphrase Marx, the relationship between philosophy and the study of the real world is akin to the relationship between masturbation and sexual love.
We frequently let lower-level criminals off with sentences that fall far below what would be called "punishment"; for various petty crimes it's eminently possible to walk away with a completely rehabilitative sentence, or (effectively) no sentence at all. This hasn't eroded the social stigma against those petty crimes, near as I can tell. We can make the leap at these low levels and see that "punishing" these criminals winds up not being productive for anyone, and I don't see that there's a qualitative distinction between that and higher level, or violent, crimes.
It's fundamentally backwards to say that "because we punish people for doing something, we know that thing is bad," which is exactly the argument you're constructing.
There's nothing especially backward about that; it's a fairly accurate picture of the manner in which any culture raises and socializes its citizens to become productive members. Punishment viscerally reinforces our social understanding that crime is bad. It's not the reason it's bad; crime is bad because of the effects it has, and we would be unable to live in society if we did not have some protection from those effects. But if that was enough to prevent crime and its consequences, government and laws would never have become necessary. It turns out we need some kind of authority in place to bring the consequences of crime home to us in a more direct and observable way, to amplify them and prevent the social collapse that would be the real consequence of crime if it was left unchecked.
I don't see any evidence that we need our social understanding reinforced via punishment. Countries without the United States' draconian criminal penalties aren't experiencing more crime than we do. Society definitely needs an authority that can prosecute crimes; the idea that we need it to use punishment as a teaching tool isn't one I see being supported.
on preview: oh god let's not get on the weird hypothetical train
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Ugh, seriously, evolutionary biology is at best akin to just so stories. At worst its racist, sexist, ethnocentric, misanthropic bullocks. You’ll be hard pressed to find a respected scientist who supports it.
Whether all of it IS genetic, or all of it IS social, for this conversation the result is the same:
It is something the majority of society can eventually overcome, just like racism, just like homophobia, just like sexism. The urge to get revenge isn't some insurmountable wall, anymore than those things are.
Ugh, seriously, evolutionary biology is at best akin to just so stories. At worst its racist, sexist, ethnocentric, misanthropic bullocks. You’ll be hard pressed to find a respected scientist who supports it.
We frequently let lower-level criminals off with sentences that fall far below what would be called "punishment"; for various petty crimes it's eminently possible to walk away with a completely rehabilitative sentence, or (effectively) no sentence at all. This hasn't eroded the social stigma against those petty crimes, near as I can tell. We can make the leap at these low levels and see that "punishing" these criminals winds up not being productive for anyone, and I don't see that there's a qualitative distinction between that and higher level, or violent, crimes.
Even if the difference between jaywalking and homicide is just a difference of degrees, I think it's fairly clear that the quantitive difference is large enough that it triggers a qualitatively different response from society. The test is only whether it works, not whether it's internally consistent according to this or that idealistic analysis. As I've been saying, the revenge impulse is real and has value, but it's not the only concern that shapes our justice system, nor should it be. A whole set of other practical concerns have been brought into dialogue with it, concerns about the character of our government, and these might indeed mediate our response to certain very minor crimes away from punishment and entirely toward rehabilitation. But in the end those crimes just don't provoke the same sense of social vulnerability, don't attack the assumption of coexistence on which we depend in order to have a society, so stigmatizing them turns out to be not nearly as important an exercise. We can't afford to approach murder or rape the same way.
I don't see any evidence that we need our social understanding reinforced via punishment. Countries without the United States' draconian criminal penalties aren't experiencing more crime than we do. Society definitely needs an authority that can prosecute crimes; the idea that we need it to use punishment as a teaching tool isn't one I see being supported.
There are a whole host of reasons why those countries might be experiencing crime rates lower than ours, though for the sake of this discussion I'll allow that one of those reasons might, indeed, be a more enlightened or effective justice system. But even if it is, when they pass sentence against a murderer or rapist they still do so, at least partly, on the premise that the criminal will then suffer some hardship in response to the crime he committed, whether that takes the form of restricted freedom or loss of other liberties or what have you. That their setences are more lenient than ours does not suggest that the revenge impulse is not an inextricable part of their justice system; it just suggests that they've struck a different - and, quite possibly, better - balance between that impulse and the other organizational needs of that system. The criminal still has to pay the penalty, even in those more lenient societies, and if he didn't the public investment in the system would disappear.
i hold up the ideal of fairness over that of well-being
Why? To what end?
What good is fairness if everyone is dead (which is the only way to actually achieve TRUE fairness)?
im not sure what the last sentence means, but i can answer at least the first two questions.
firstly, i value ideals moreso than i value states of being. well-being is mutable, subjective, often temporary. what made me unhappy yesterday may make me happy today. another man's pain may be my pleasure. the inherent concept of fairness is unchanging (although the specifics may change and be context dependent).
secondly, i value fairness more than well-being because i do not believe well-being necessarily creates a good society or individual whereas i believe fairness and a sense of justice does.
i understand that my answer is vague. i hope you can indulge me by allowing me to use an example:
i have an uncle who inherited an incredible amount of assets and money. he has never worked a single day in his life (unless you count those days where he goes to collect money). he is in some sense, the epitome of "well-being" (at least financially speaking). he is happy, he never wants for anything. he is somewhat spoiled, but he is not harmful. he does not decrease the well-being of others. he has expensive hobbies, he spends a lot money. as a caveat, i acknowledge of course that not all individuals would develop in the same way as my uncle, even under identical circumstances.
he's happy with his life and im sure he doesnt give a shit what i think. that's fine and great for him. but i have to admit, i do not respect him. i do not look up to him or find him worthy of emulation. i do not think society would be better if everyone were identical to him. i think he's just okay. he has never known any real suffering and so he has developed in a certain way which i do not personally like. he has never had to strive for anything. he has never really known any kind of failure because he has never had to be tested. i see him as the ultimate result of a life full of well-being and i kind of think of him almost as a meaningless existence.
on the other hand, if we imagine a man who's life is epitomized by fairness, who has earned every penny and who has paid back every debt. He helps those who help him and hurts those who hurt him. this is the kind of man i admire and respect.
now again, i acknowledge that this is not a perfect example or metaphor but i hope it provides at least some kind of useful information.
Okay let me throw a hypothetical out. Your wife was murdered, and you come home and find her. You embrace her dead body. The criminal who did this was so good he left no evidence. You found out the other day she was planning to divorce you and you had a heated argument with your wife. Maybe the cops were called, maybe not. You've been moody at your job and your performance had declined and your boss noticed. Your wife just got murdered and the only DNA is yours. The killer used a kitchen knife from your kitchen.
The prosecution makes up a huge story about how you were emotionally distraught about the upcoming possibility of divorce and yadda yadda. You get convicted of premeditated murder of your wife in the first degree. You get sentenced to death row. You didn't kill her.
Think it's okay then? Granted it's a really situational hypothetical, but any system where they can be any doubt just fucks people over. Really fucking bad. It's better if you just lock them up and throw away the keys.
i think cp advocates (including myself) all acknowledge that the system is not perfect. but how would you respond to the statement that more innocents are killed by recidivist criminals than by the cp system?
Posts
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
That moral reasoning didn't happen out of the blue, you learnt that from others as you grew up. The only reason it feels ingrained is because it got cemented as you grew up, and so your developing brain systems became modelled on it.
This is getting confusing because one of us is assuming there will be a point where we can go "Oh look this is the guy who started the metaphor lets stone him"
When what I'm saying is that the "wheel goes round and round."
So I can perfectly agree with your point about retraining as well as keeping to my earlier point.
(Also to be clear I'm not arguing against you)
Why don't you think we accrue moral debt, or, their opposite, moral desert?
Why do you conclude that it is a metaphor that is tricking us, rather than a simple statement of how things work?
Since this has turned into a death penalty thead in my absence ill be brief. I doubt anyone will disagree that our current system could use a complete overhaul. However attempting to rehabilitate people is by no means a guarantee they will not recommit the same crimes. Much like with mental institutions where people learn to game the system, say what the counselor wants to hear, and eventually get released no more sane than they were when they entered. Now one could pose an argument with mental institutions that by being able to game the system one has demonstrated an ability to at least fake normal, and might therefor have a chance in normal society. In the case of criminals however, being able to game the system only returns them to where they can recommit crimes sooner until someone catches on that they are not really reforming, just acting.
Based on what, exactly?[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]
Recidivism rates. Although given the various reasons people commit murder/rape I found it amusing that any form of rehabilitation would likely function better on murders than on violent sexual offenders. Hell in cases of manslaughter therapy might be exactly what they need.
Punishment in our justice system is very much a deterrent. Capital punishment isn't, with my favorite theory being because it is such a tiny uncommon fraction of punishments, even for capital offenses. As Levitt said, if you put to death anyone found guilty of a gun crime, you'd see a huge drop in gun crime in this country. Much more so than if you outlawed guns.
The ones I posted?
Not quite, because it compares the states that have ZERO capital sentances. As in, not allowed at all.
The logical reason why capital punishment COULD increase murder rates is because it reduces the percieved value of human life. If the state is allowed to end human life, then that sends a message that there exists an area where it is morally okay to end human life (and people run with their own interpretations), whereas if you ban capital punishment, it sends the message that it is NEVER okay to take a human life.
Look at a guy like Cade, who is arguing that we should allow innocent people to die in order to streamline the capital punishment system, and cut costs. That sort of thinking is a result of a perception of a cheapened value of human life.
Where is there any evidence that there is some sort of wide ranging effort for people to complete treatment programs in bad faith? Where is there even any evidence that people in mental institutions engage in widespread gaming of the system? Besides which, the system doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be better than the status quo. All evidence (this for example) points to a well tailored treatment program reducing recidivism over incarceration. I mean, no doubt we would set the bar higher for what entails rehabilitation in cases like murder and rape, but I have yet to see any compelling evidence that the risks of a treatment based approach are too great.
The recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower. From the Bureau of Justice website;
"Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense –– 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders. "
So not sure where you got the idea that they were somehow worse off. And this is in a system that makes effectively no effort to actually prevent recidivism.
they are both reasons.
If it were to be proven that capital punishment INCREASES crime rates, I'd think that would be a better reason to get rid of it than just "it doesn't do anything".
You need to prove a negative impact of a thing to justify the cost of changing it.
Also the "cost" of stopping is actually a net positive, taken on it's own.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
You're preaching to the choir, man.
I'm just pointing out that there IS a cost associated with changing the system, and in order to justify it, from a policy angel, you have to essentially have figures for a net cost benefit analysis.
You and I both know which way the figures will go, but without exact numbers, there are some folks who will not be convinced.
A negative impact like:
The fact that we're killing people?
Or the fact that plenty of innocent people have probably been executed?
Because those are two pretty big negatives.
I'm an economist. I don't do emotional reactions.
Read my above posts. I honestly believe that capital punishment is detrimental to our society, and has large costs both monetary and non-monetary.
I also recogize that it is difficult to get the exact non-monetary numbers, and without those, it is near-impossible to convince CP supporters.
It's apparent to me that we don't. The premise that it's right to punish criminals is pretty firmly ingrained in our social practice, part of the lessons learned from the thousands of years of social experience that are the source of all our ideas of right and wrong. I recognize that intellectuals say they can divorce those concepts, in theory. But to paraphrase Marx, the relationship between philosophy and the study of the real world is akin to the relationship between masturbation and sexual love.
There's nothing especially backward about that; it's a fairly accurate picture of the manner in which any culture raises and socializes its citizens to become productive members. Punishment viscerally reinforces our social understanding that crime is bad. It's not the reason it's bad; crime is bad because of the effects it has, and we would be unable to live in society if we did not have some protection from those effects. But if that was enough to prevent crime and its consequences, government and laws would never have become necessary. It turns out we need some kind of authority in place to bring the consequences of crime home to us in a more direct and observable way, to amplify them and prevent the social collapse that would be the real consequence of crime if it was left unchecked.
punishment (beyond rehabilitative purposes) racism, and rape are ALL on the same level.
Nah, we're pretty much born a tabula rasa.
No, we have inborn instincts. Otherwise we would not survive.
Some instincts, like the one to care for our young, are viewed as positive. Some, like xenophobia, are viewed as negative.
no, you are
the truth, as in all things, lie somewhere in the middle. Few traits are ALL nature or ALL nurture. Even our physical appearances have elements that don't come solely from our DNA (finger-prints, body mass.)
Humans have insticts. pointing out certain instincts that aren't there doesn't mean that no instincts at all are there.
i definitely feel like we are far too lenient on criminals (if that sheds any more light on my position). that being said, i accept the rule of democracy and believe that my own personal stance on an issue does not outweigh the stance of the majority.
i personally support much, much, much harsher sentences for criminals because i hold up the ideal of fairness over that of well-being (especially when it comes to the well-being of criminals).
Why? To what end?
What good is fairness if everyone is dead (which is the only way to actually achieve TRUE fairness)?
Sex is an instinct, yes. Rape as an instinct? Not so much. The will to reproduce and the will to tear clothes off and rape are completely different.
It's more of a ... dysfunction and I wouldn't argue it's genetic in the slightest. Hence mating rituals and courtship. I'm not to well versed on ape mating rituals, but I'm not sure rape is present, or even common, in other primates.
and i think this is your big problem. not all of us are utilitarians. many of us specifically reject utilitarian thought, which means unfortunately that we end up talking past each other on this topic.
i mean, if you are talking to a bunch of utilitarians on how to apply utilitarianism to the criminal justice system, then i think the approach and the assumtions you make are fine. but in light of the fact that we dont subscribe to your moral system, i think it is hard for us to play by your rules.
please dont confuse me with supporting cade's absolutist stance here, but even though i dont agree with his stance, i think it can be stated in a more reasonable way.
for example:
the number of innocents that have been mistakenly executed or convicted = x
vs.
the number of innocents have been killed or injured by recidivist criminal behavior = y
if y > x, then cade's position is not totally unreasonable. if x > y then it is totally unreasonable.
that being said, i am willing to wager a large amount of money that y is significantly greater than x.
The prosecution makes up a huge story about how you were emotionally distraught about the upcoming possibility of divorce and yadda yadda. You get convicted of premeditated murder of your wife in the first degree. You get sentenced to death row. You didn't kill her.
Think it's okay then? Granted it's a really situational hypothetical, but any system where they can be any doubt just fucks people over. Really fucking bad. It's better if you just lock them up and throw away the keys.
sometimes
and sometimes rape is the manifestation of the inborn urge to spread one's genetic material if there is no other outlet.
The former is more common that the latter because we, as a species, have learned to curb out instincts.
We frequently let lower-level criminals off with sentences that fall far below what would be called "punishment"; for various petty crimes it's eminently possible to walk away with a completely rehabilitative sentence, or (effectively) no sentence at all. This hasn't eroded the social stigma against those petty crimes, near as I can tell. We can make the leap at these low levels and see that "punishing" these criminals winds up not being productive for anyone, and I don't see that there's a qualitative distinction between that and higher level, or violent, crimes.
I don't see any evidence that we need our social understanding reinforced via punishment. Countries without the United States' draconian criminal penalties aren't experiencing more crime than we do. Society definitely needs an authority that can prosecute crimes; the idea that we need it to use punishment as a teaching tool isn't one I see being supported.
on preview: oh god let's not get on the weird hypothetical train
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
no, it's still completely unreasonable
edit: also, how can you claim to reject utilitarian thought, and still come up with the setup you you just found "not totally unreasonable"?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It is something the majority of society can eventually overcome, just like racism, just like homophobia, just like sexism. The urge to get revenge isn't some insurmountable wall, anymore than those things are.
So, you're a creationist?
There are a whole host of reasons why those countries might be experiencing crime rates lower than ours, though for the sake of this discussion I'll allow that one of those reasons might, indeed, be a more enlightened or effective justice system. But even if it is, when they pass sentence against a murderer or rapist they still do so, at least partly, on the premise that the criminal will then suffer some hardship in response to the crime he committed, whether that takes the form of restricted freedom or loss of other liberties or what have you. That their setences are more lenient than ours does not suggest that the revenge impulse is not an inextricable part of their justice system; it just suggests that they've struck a different - and, quite possibly, better - balance between that impulse and the other organizational needs of that system. The criminal still has to pay the penalty, even in those more lenient societies, and if he didn't the public investment in the system would disappear.
im not sure what the last sentence means, but i can answer at least the first two questions.
firstly, i value ideals moreso than i value states of being. well-being is mutable, subjective, often temporary. what made me unhappy yesterday may make me happy today. another man's pain may be my pleasure. the inherent concept of fairness is unchanging (although the specifics may change and be context dependent).
secondly, i value fairness more than well-being because i do not believe well-being necessarily creates a good society or individual whereas i believe fairness and a sense of justice does.
i understand that my answer is vague. i hope you can indulge me by allowing me to use an example:
i have an uncle who inherited an incredible amount of assets and money. he has never worked a single day in his life (unless you count those days where he goes to collect money). he is in some sense, the epitome of "well-being" (at least financially speaking). he is happy, he never wants for anything. he is somewhat spoiled, but he is not harmful. he does not decrease the well-being of others. he has expensive hobbies, he spends a lot money. as a caveat, i acknowledge of course that not all individuals would develop in the same way as my uncle, even under identical circumstances.
he's happy with his life and im sure he doesnt give a shit what i think. that's fine and great for him. but i have to admit, i do not respect him. i do not look up to him or find him worthy of emulation. i do not think society would be better if everyone were identical to him. i think he's just okay. he has never known any real suffering and so he has developed in a certain way which i do not personally like. he has never had to strive for anything. he has never really known any kind of failure because he has never had to be tested. i see him as the ultimate result of a life full of well-being and i kind of think of him almost as a meaningless existence.
on the other hand, if we imagine a man who's life is epitomized by fairness, who has earned every penny and who has paid back every debt. He helps those who help him and hurts those who hurt him. this is the kind of man i admire and respect.
now again, i acknowledge that this is not a perfect example or metaphor but i hope it provides at least some kind of useful information.
i think cp advocates (including myself) all acknowledge that the system is not perfect. but how would you respond to the statement that more innocents are killed by recidivist criminals than by the cp system?