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3/15/2016 4:56 pm  #31


Re: Scholastic Natural Law

The question of deserts is more complex than I can handle at the moment, but I do want to respond to one valid objection.

brian_g wrote:

There was a time when I didn't care for the notion of retributive justice.  It seems to me that criminal justice should be about protecting society and rehabilitating the criminal.  Here is what convinced me otherwise.  If we punish someone, not because they deserve it, but because it would benefit society, then it isn't really necessary that the person be guilty.  It's conceivable that punishing an innocent person might actually benefit and protect society.  (Check out the movie Minority Report)  It's also conceivable that we could rehabilitate people before they committed crimes and that would be a benefit to society.  So, if we only punish people not because they deserve it, but because there is some good consequences, we could justify punishing innocent people, which is absurd.  By contrast, if someone already deserves to be punished, it would not be wrong to use that punishment to protect society, to deter other criminals, and to rehabilitate the criminal.

(1) "To benefit society" is a nebulous, vague goal. "To prevent future injustice" isn't. 

(2) The whole point is that I'm trying to do away with retribution, so to assume my idea of justice but then to reintroduce "punishment" through a backdoor is to not have my idea lead to a reductio.

(3) If we assume that the question of what to do with the perpetrator is a matter of preventing future injustice, then how is preventing a murderer from committing his crime different from our modern program of suicide prevention? We calculate if some person is likely to commit suicide, intervene by putting him under psychological care and, if necessary, giving him drugs, and let him go when the risk is gone. And guess what? The general consensus is that both the attempted suicide victim and society are better off for the intervention.

Let's go back to the Minority Report example. The precogs aren't really oracles, but rather counterfactual simulators, because if they were oracles, then the prediction would happen regardless of what course of choice were taken. But the problem is that they reintroduce punishment for no reason. Why punish the precriminal? Why not take the necessary precautions to ensure that the risk has passed and let him go when he's no longer likely to be a criminal? Punishing a precriminal makes good drama, but the premise of the movie is too illogical.

Last edited by Tomislav Ostojich (3/15/2016 4:58 pm)

 

3/16/2016 11:44 am  #32


Re: Scholastic Natural Law

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

(1) "To benefit society" is a nebulous, vague goal. "To prevent future injustice" isn't. 

(2) The whole point is that I'm trying to do away with retribution, so to assume my idea of justice but then to reintroduce "punishment" through a backdoor is to not have my idea lead to a reductio.

Shall we then construe injustice as violation of the rights of another? That is, I treat you unjustly when I fail to respect your rights. I don't think that's a complete definition of injustice but it's a start (I actually think a fuller account will have to include deserts: I treat you unjustly when I fail to respect your rights or fail to treat you as you deserve to be treated). If we take this view, just punishment (as opposed to merely "efficacious" punishment) restricts the rights of the guilty in a manner proportional to the extent that he violated the rights of another.

Something along these lines is suggested in the "rectificatory" theory of punishment, see http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/adler_reg.html.

 

3/16/2016 4:50 pm  #33


Re: Scholastic Natural Law

dingodile wrote:

Shall we then construe injustice as violation of the rights of another? That is, I treat you unjustly when I fail to respect your rights

No, because rights talk is shorthand for a more difficult account. Your rights and duties (everybody forgets about duties) are nothing but the sum total of those things, whatever they may be, that you may, maynot, and must do and which you may, maynot, and must suffer.

To tell me that injustice is a violation of rights is to say nothing but 'injustice is to do something contrary to the set of things one may do.' It's not quite 'doing injustice is doing injustice', but it's vacuous.

Unless by "rights" you just mean your codified legal rights (or some idealized version, as in the UN declaration) but it should be clear that such an account would be either question begging or grossly conventionalist about justice.


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
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It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
 

3/17/2016 6:21 am  #34


Re: Scholastic Natural Law

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

(3) If we assume that the question of what to do with the perpetrator is a matter of preventing future injustice, then how is preventing a murderer from committing his crime different from our modern program of suicide prevention?

This perhaps a naive question but how do we apply this to situation specific and thus unrepeatable crimes? Take for example a man who kill his wife's rapist - practically, the murder here's continued freedom is not likely to lead to future injustice any more than any other. What grounds are there for implementing preventative strictures in his case?

Last edited by DanielCC (3/17/2016 6:22 am)

 

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