Strictly speaking, I do not think that wanting retribution is unreasonable. Two very common reasons people want retribution is because their personal sense of pride is offended or because they want to defend their society or their family's honor, and both of these are very reasonable ends. But I do not think that they're laudable.

Second, you should know that it's "the phenomenon of retribution." "Phenomena" is the plural of "phenomenon." Most people don't know this.

Third, you make a cogent point. Outside of turning it into a psychological problem, I don't know how to handle the phenomenon of retribution and why people feel satisfaction from it. But I feel that if it isn't psychological, then I have to concede that it is objectively rational (i.e. not simply a part of a hypothetical imperative) and therefore subject to an objective rational standard that we're all bound to, but that's precisely what I'm having trouble believing in.

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

More importantly, justice, under my definition, would have nothing whatsoever to do with the perpetrator of the crime. What to do with the criminal is purely a matter of preventing future injustice..

I think some would object that this fails to capture some of our pre-philosophical intuitions about justice e.g. that it a matter between two parties. People tend to believe that justice should have a penaltative/corrective aspect for the wrong-doer (in the case of the death penalty one can object that this cannot in principle have a corrective aspect, an objection I myself would agree with). The principle of proportionality is also in place to limit the extent of the State's punishment - for instance if we decide the criminal's fate merely  social considerations it might lead a person’s receiving a far harsher penalty than it would be considered just to vet out on the retributive account.

What sort of moral considerations do hold come into play when a State decides a criminal's fate in the interests of preventing further injustice? Are there additional intrinsic factors that would prevent a State 'making an example of someone' as a way of discouraging others e.g. cutting a hand off a petty-thief or having a murderer hung, drawn and quartered in public?

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

Third, you make a cogent point. Outside of turning it into a psychological problem, I don't know how to handle the phenomenon of retribution and why people feel satisfaction from it. But I feel that if it isn't psychological, then I have to concede that it is objectively rational (i.e. not simply a part of a hypothetical imperative) and therefore subject to an objective rational standard that we're all bound to, but that's precisely what I'm having trouble believing in.

I don't think turning it into a psychological issue alone helps us determine its rightness or wrongness without looking to other considerations. One might say that we have strongly felt but fallible intuitions about proportionality which are the basis of retributive desires (that's to take it in a sense of logical priority - of course psychologically we normally 'feel' the retributive urge before even thinking about proportionality). There is nothing immediately incoherant about taking proportionality, and by extent the retributive aspect, as one of the main tenants in an ethical account without taking it as the sole one.

Last edited by DanielCC (3/15/2016 7:21 am)

Timocrates wrote:

Well, no. A bodily augmentation can be made to correct a natural defect (e.g. getting braces for your teeth as a child). To augment something presupposes that something's being and continuing to be; what bothers me with Transhumanism is the fact that they want to become either something like computers or angels.
 

Re bodily augmentation, yes but what about enhancing a natural capacity? (I don't think its irrational given our nature to want to increase our capacity for sight for instance). We do this all the time with external tools, so why does it become immoral to do it with intrinsic ones proving they don't cause damage in other ways. Given my sight example above I don't think we would disagree that it would be immoral to, say, where contact lenses which triple one's normal visual capacity - yet if that's so why would be immoral to undergo an operation to achieve the same capacity?

Striving to be something 'beyond' a person may be wrong or incoherent (I'm more inclined towards the later) but I don't think it's wrong to want to be a better person. Do not all beings strive in as far as they are able to be like God? The desire to be like God is the desire to emulate a perfect being, whilst the Trans-Humanist is an ultimately endless (as in no final goal) search for power for the sake of obtaining more power and so on forever. The former is an ultimate moral imperative whilst the latter is a paradox: a moral imperative to no end.
 

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

Third, you make a cogent point. Outside of turning it into a psychological problem, I don't know how to handle the phenomenon of retribution and why people feel satisfaction from it. But I feel that if it isn't psychological, then I have to concede that it is objectively rational (i.e. not simply a part of a hypothetical imperative) and therefore subject to an objective rational standard that we're all bound to, but that's precisely what I'm having trouble believing in.

It's not limited to retribution, though, is it? The general concept of desert, as in treating people as they deserve to be treated, raises the same set of questions. A person can deserve praise and reward as well as condemnation and punishment. And generally speaking, what a person deserves, whether positive or negative, depends on what the person has done. I wouldn't claim that all moral obligations are about desert, but surely some are. So the question is, Is desert simply a psychological impulse? If I say that someone deserves our gratitude, am I simply saying that this is how I expect people to feel? That doesn't sound right to me. But if I'm saying that we should feel gratitude, I've re-introduced a prescriptive element and the claim isn't merely psychological anymore.

I think the "disturbance in the force" is actually a way of saying there's an objective moral order, and when we act in a way that does not conform to it, there is indeed a kind of real disequilibrium that exists until something is done to restore it to equilibrium. That "something" can be punishment, or restoration, or forgiveness, or some combination of the three.

This has been a perennial issue for Christianity, hasn't it? Did Jesus actually have to be crucified "for the forgiveness of sins"? Couldn't God just forgive sins without that horrendous occurrence? Why does the writer of Hebrews say "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins"? (Heb 9:22) It's noteworthy that the first part, which is about purification in the Levitical system of sacrifices, is distinct from the second part, dealing with forgiveness. There are no Levitical sacrifice provisions for forgiveness.

Moral realism requires us to take seriously the existence of a real moral order that isn't just a set of psychological responses to various acts. It's akin to mathematical realism, according to which mathematical truths are "out there" to be discovered, rather than invented. It's hard to deal with moral realism because it doesn't really fit into naturalism. It's just as hard for some philosophers to accept mathematical/logical realism, for the same reason.
 

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. 

Exactly. And for me, this was one of the (many) reductios of Utilitarianism as a general account of moral obligation. The Principle of Utility knows nothing of desert. The guilt of the punished party is a non-essential detail; the only thing that matters is that utility is maximized. That may coincide with punishing the guilty, but it also may not. And when the identity of the guilty remains unknown, the Principle of Utility may well favor punishing an innocent person, especially if that person can be made to appear guilty. Many, many such scapegoating scenarios have been offered against Utilitarianism.