Bleeding heart liberals

[DArtagnan]

What, me stealing money from my mom when I was nine?

There's no point in trying to get you to admit anything. So let's take the average citizen instead.

The average citizen is actively contributing to a society, where the way to go is to accumulate wealth, prestige, or power - more or less regardless of the costs involved for others.

Whether it be as a blind consumer paying much more than something is worth because he's got money to spend, corruption - small or large, exploiting or manipulating when trying to sell something, not protesting when he gets a million dollars a day working 8 hours when the person next to him gets a thousand dollars a month working 8 hours a day, and so on.

We're all a part of it.

Pointing fingers is pathetic unless you're actively working against it - or at the very least just not supporting it.

 

[Rithrandil]

There's no point in trying to get you to admit anything. So let's take the average citizen instead.

The average citizen is actively contributing to a society, where the way to go is to accumulate wealth, prestige, or power - more or less regardless of the costs involved for others.

Whether it be as a blind consumer paying much more than something is worth because he's got money to spend, corruption - small or large, exploiting or manipulating when trying to sell something, not protesting when he gets a million dollars a day working 8 hours when the person next to him gets a thousand dollars a month working 8 hours a day, and so on.

We're all a part of it.

Pointing fingers is pathetic unless you're actively working against it - or at the very least just not supporting it.

So I ask you for further clarification and your response is to insult me.

 

[Rithrandil]

Punishment has a purpose in being a theatre. It sends a message to rational people and gives closure to the victims. Part from that it serves no purpose.

No disagreement.

The "knowledge about right/wrong" is misleading. First problem is that few crimes are done in a rational condition. Many factors including stress disable capacity for rational thought, which research on the topic have shown numerous times. If you wish to reduce crime, work with these factors. A crime comitted is in its own a failure as no punishment can ever undo the harm.

This is typically why there are reduced sentences for crimes of passion or there are other mitigating factors: such as premeditation and what have you. The guy walking in on his wife cheating on him and killing her and her lover in a fit of blind rage is still a horrible crime, but it's more understandable than the guy who finds out and comes up with an elaborate plan to murder her and not get caught.

But there is also another issue. Right/wrong according to whom? Here's a difference between external pressure and internalized values. If society say this/that is wrong, the individual must also have a positive relationship with society in order to care. Many eho are for one reason or another rejected by society have no reason to care about what society thinks is right or wrong. External pressure means "you should follow the law, or else". Internalized values means something like "i do this because it's the right thing to do regardless whether or not I get punished for it".

Sure. I think it'd be great if everyone had internal values (and I'd prefer to work towards instilling them), but at the end of the day society can only punish based off of external pressures and I think that's what we're stuck with.

 

[dteowner]

Summing up your points, JemyM, you're saying that there can be no universal internalized values due to the whole relativist philosophy thing (which I actually broadly agree with, once you get past basics like society not condoning killing its own) but you're then saying that internalized values are far superior to external pressure. What am I missing here, since you've given this a little too much thought to overlook such a gaping chasm in your foundation?

 

[Ubereil]

That's the thing, justice isn't just about deterring future crime. It's also about holding people accountable for their actions.

Accountability takes energy and is thus bad in itself, though. It's a price paid, and like all prizes it needs to come with benefits to be worth it.

In your example there are no benefits to holding her accountable and thus it simply isn't worth it.

So what about a mafia hitman or an assassin? Are you saying they just don't "know" what they are doing is wrong or illegal? I think most of them just don't CARE.

IE they don't think it matters if they do right or wrong. IE they don't think not doing wrong is meaningful. IE they don't think doing wrong is actually wrong.

This, I believe, is what JemyM talks about when he says there's a difference between external pressure and internalized values. When I say "you know it's wrong" I mean you have an internal value that it's wrong. And while we're on the subject:

Sure. I think it'd be great if everyone had internal values (and I'd prefer to work towards instilling them), but at the end of the day society can only punish based off of external pressures and I think that's what we're stuck with.

There's rehabilitation/reprogramming. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

I disagree. Punishment gives justice to victims.

Justice is a social construct. Thus victims might think they're given something concrete, but really, they're not.

I think we ought to look to ways to give victims closure besides hurting someone else. Especially since vengeance is a rather unreliable way to find closure.

And yes, justice is nothing but a pretty word for vengeance.

Even if it doesn't prevent a reoccurrence of the crime, what it does is give a measure of satisfaction to the victim that, as much as is possible, a wrong has been righted.

But nothing has been righted. If I deliberately break your leg, breaking my leg won't heal your leg. There will merely be one more broken leg in the world.

That pepole think something has been gained doesn't actually mean something has been gained. Sure, their satisfaction is worth something, but I don't believe encouraging vengeance is a very constructive thing for any society.

Without that, it invites people to deliver their own punishment against those that have wronged them, which leads to anarchy.

That depends on how we raise pepole. At the moment they're raised to believe in justice. If we instead start raising pepole to forgive that will change.

I'll also say, though, that if we ever DID live in a society where people *Weren't* punished for their actions (say if Dartagnan's 'justice for the victims is stupid' idea spread) and someone murdered my hypothetical friend/loved one, I'd go and kill them myself - and why shouldn't I? If society fails to secure justice for victims, they'll secure it for themselves.

You claim you think murder is wrong. But it goes to show, all you need is the right situation to think it's right.

(Which I guess is a really annoying comment, but nontheless true.)

Though I'm fairly certain a law system not focused on justice would find ways to avoid situations like the one you mentioned above. For instance, as I mention, teaching pepole to deal with loss in other ways than through punishment. And institutions in place to help pepole deal with it through other means than revenge.

Übereil, who wrote three different posts, pasted them together, only to have to cut half of it since most of the things had already been said

 

[Rithrandil]

Oh, don't get me wrong. My actions in the hypothetical would be wrong, but I'd still do them. I'd also turn myself in and do my time.

 

[Thrasher]

Justice is a human concept that's utterly flawed. I never said punishment is wrong, but the reason can be wrong.Justice is a social construct. Thus victims might think they're given something concrete, but really, they're not.

I think we ought to look to ways to give victims closure besides hurting someone else. Especially since vengeance is a rather unreliable way to find closure.

And yes, justice is nothing but a pretty word for vengeance.

I pretty much agree with this. Those claiming the need for "justice" are really those just seeking retribution and vengeance.

 

[dteowner]

I pretty much agree with this. Those claiming the need for "justice" are really those just seeking retribution and vengeance.

Why must the two be treated as distinct? I mean, why do y'all feel the need to look down your noses at retribution and vengeance? The intelligensia will celebrate "justice", then say that we equate justice and retribution, and then go all "ware the barbarians" about retribution. It forces them into all sorts of crazy logical contortions trying to maintain a dividing line between concepts that are functionally equivalent in the real world. I really don't get it. Retribution is just another type of consequence for unacceptable choices, and there's nothing wrong with it as long as it's not capricious.

 

[Thrasher]

Who is treating them distinctly? I am treating them as the same. That was my point.

And the other half of the equation, is whether retribution/justice/vengeance does anything to reduce crime, or solve any problems caused by the crime.

 

[Ubereil]

Why must the two be treated as distinct? I mean, why do y'all feel the need to look down your noses at retribution and vengeance?

I don't. Not more than I look down on criminals, anyway. Both do what they think is best, just like I do. The difference between me and those looking for retribution is that I know better.

(At least I think I do.)

As for why I dislike it, well, it's hurting someone else for your own "pleasure". It's cruel, and cruelty is poison to the soul. It blocks out empathy, which will lead to problems in other areas. It's also (as I said) an unreliable way to gain closure - what happens if you realize that killing the perpetrator didn't give you your wife back?

The intelligensia will celebrate "justice", then say that we equate justice and retribution, and then go all "ware the barbarians" about retribution. It forces them into all sorts of crazy logical contortions trying to maintain a dividing line between concepts that are functionally equivalent in the real world.

I actually agree with you.

I do my best not to use justice as a word, by the way. I don't think has any explanatory value.

Retribution is just another type of consequence for unacceptable choices, and there's nothing wrong with it as long as it's not capricious.

Retribution is an artificial consequence, created by humans. Artificial consequences doesn't have any value in itself, and negative artificial consequences is something we ought to apply with care. Because if nothing positive is gained we're merely shooting ourselves in the foot.

As for choices being unacceptable - nothing is unacceptable as long as the circumstances are right. Genocide included (though the circumstances for that being the best choice avaliable are specific to the point of absurdity).

Übereil

 

[dteowner]

Who is treating them distinctly? I am treating them as the same. That was my point.

And the other half of the equation, is whether retribution/justice/vengeance does anything to reduce crime, or solve any problems caused by the crime.

Gonna talk in "you" and generalizations for simplicity. Don't see that it invalidates the point in any way, so hopefully we can skip the fact that it technically invokes a few impressive latin phrases that JemyM can supply quite promptly. Anyhoo...

You want justice. You say it's necessary for a functioning society. All true. You also tend to picture justice with a white hat and clothe it in all sorts of beautiful philosophy. Trips my practicality alarm, but there's no reason to quibble.

You say justice equals retribution. OK, I'm good with that, too. Even moreso than you, it appears. So, aside from a little unease with the idealism in step one, we're pretty much in step.

You say that retribution is empty, and you (probably better to specify "some of y'all" here so we don't get bogged down with the inevitable fuzziness of my "monolithic you") generally treat retribution as a lesser, barbaric response. You say that retribution has no place in justice. We can't sully the halo of justice with the monkey poo of retribution.

Ummm, I thought they were the same thing?

Now perhaps the disconnect lies in terminology. Maybe "justice" in step 1 is some textbook concept while "justice" in step 2 refers to society's implementation. I don't know. It just seems to me that the boil-down of the whole thing is
A=divine
A=B
B=shit
and clearly that just doesn't quite work out. For my part, I don't understand the vilification of retribution so in my case B=perfectly fine and the math holds up.

 

[blatantninja]

Accountability takes energy and is thus bad in itself, though. It's a price paid, and like all prizes it needs to come with benefits to be worth it.

In your example there are no benefits to holding her accountable and thus it simply isn't worth it.

It helps to maintain order rather than encouraging people to seek their own justice.

 

[Thrasher]

Gonna talk in "you" and generalizations for simplicity. Don't see that it invalidates the point in any way, so hopefully we can skip the fact that it technically invokes a few impressive latin phrases that JemyM can supply quite promptly. Anyhoo…

You want justice. You say it's necessary for a functioning society. All true. You also tend to picture justice with a white hat and clothe it in all sorts of beautiful philosophy. Trips my practicality alarm, but there's no reason to quibble.

You say justice equals retribution. OK, I'm good with that, too. Even moreso than you, it appears. So, aside from a little unease with the idealism in step one, we're pretty much in step.

You say that retribution is empty, and you (probably better to specify "some of y'all" here so we don't get bogged down with the inevitable fuzziness of my "monolithic you") generally treat retribution as a lesser, barbaric response. You say that retribution has no place in justice. We can't sully the halo of justice with the monkey poo of retribution.

Ummm, I thought they were the same thing?

Now perhaps the disconnect lies in terminology. Maybe "justice" in step 1 is some textbook concept while "justice" in step 2 refers to society's implementation. I don't know. It just seems to me that the boil-down of the whole thing is
A=divine
A=B
B=shit
and clearly that just doesn't quite work out. For my part, I don't understand the vilification of retribution so in my case B=perfectly fine and the math holds up.

DTE, that made no sense to me. The bottom line that I toe to, (you can point fingers to others as you want), is that justice is no different than retribution/vengeance with a sugar coating.

And it's not clear it serves any purpose beyond revenge.

 

[dteowner]

The difference between me and those looking for retribution is that I know better.

I believe this would be perfect evidence of the attitude toward retribution that I referenced. Not making any statements about right, wrong, or indifferent--just documenting that it's there.

As for why I dislike it, well, it's hurting someone else for your own "pleasure". It's cruel, and cruelty is poison to the soul. It blocks out empathy, which will lead to problems in other areas.

If you're going to avoid human constructs (see below), why do you invoke the human construct of empathy? Further, if we accept empathy into the discussion, how do you impose empathy on a situation where there is none? It's not like a rapist considers the empathic implications of his actions before he does them, so why must you consider them after the fact? You're imposing a framework on a situation where that framework, by definition, has been discarded and invalidated.

I actually agree with you.

No comment, just thought this deserved highlighting for future abuse.

Retribution is an artificial consequence, created by humans. Artificial consequences doesn't have any value in itself, and negative artificial consequences is something we ought to apply with care. Because if nothing positive is gained we're merely shooting ourselves in the foot.

Justice is an artificial construct created by humans as well. Why accept one and invest it with value, but not the other?

As for choices being unacceptable - nothing is unacceptable as long as the circumstances are right. Genocide included (though the circumstances for that being the best choice avaliable are specific to the point of absurdity).

As much as I rail against the whole relativist thing, it's unavoidable, particularly when we talk about choices and circumstances. Seems to me that the primary role of society is to develop a framework that everyone within the society agrees to follow, even if it's a passive agreement based solely on what dirt you're standing on at the time. Basically, everyone agrees to eliminate the relativistic nature of certain actions. Then, because we're smart monkeys and understand that unusual circumstances DO exist, we leave a little wiggle room within the framework so we can "get the answer we want". Thus, self defense becomes a valid excuse for choices that normally are unacceptable. Thus (to bring this train all the way back around), certain 17 year olds can be tried as adults and get life sentences.

 

[dteowner]

DTE, that made no sense to me. The bottom line that I toe to, (you can point fingers to others as you want), is that justice is no different than retribution/vengeance with a sugar coating.

And it's not clear it serves any purpose beyond revenge.

I don't really know how to restate it any simpler. But, going with your comment, why have a court system at all? It's just a vehicle for doling out revenge, right? (that's not intended to be obnoxious, BTW)

 

[JemyM]

Sure. I think it'd be great if everyone had internal values (and I'd prefer to work towards instilling them), but at the end of the day society can only punish based off of external pressures and I think that's what we're stuck with.

What you need to work on is integration and community. And this is actually one of the times I would promote churches since at least they offer open doors, which I do not believe many secular communities does.

However, there's a team called K.A.M.P. (means "fight") in Gothenburg (2nd largest city in Sweden) who see gangs as small businesses that recruit unemployed people to work for them. These gangs are in competition with society in who can give their employees the best offer. Gangs offer unemployed a job, friends, a paycheck etc while society have offered them nothing.

So what K.A.M.P. does is to represent the society, give gangmembers a better offer than the gang, just like a business would headhunt employees from the competition. K.A.M.P. offer support, reliable friendship, a second chance, education, safehouses, therapists and a lot of other stuff, more than the gangs can afford. Many of the "recruited" ex-gangmembers now recruits other gangmembers back to the "good side".

 

[JemyM]

Summing up your points, JemyM, you're saying that there can be no universal internalized values due to the whole relativist philosophy thing (which I actually broadly agree with, once you get past basics like society not condoning killing its own) but you're then saying that internalized values are far superior to external pressure. What am I missing here, since you've given this a little too much thought to overlook such a gaping chasm in your foundation?

There can be universal internalized values, in theory. You just need to make sure that each and every person on the planet learn things to make them feel that it's natural to do the good thing without external pressure.

That utopia have some problems ofcourse. One key problem is that people are different so the lecture have to be adapted to the individual. Also it must ring true, can't promote good values then treat the individual as crap.


When I speak about the difference between external pressure and integrated values I am actually using a psychological model called SDT. (Self Determination Theory). This is used to promote healthy behavior by making someone do something out of their own free will like it was natural to them. SDT works on three levels;
1. Autonomy
2. Power
3. Relatedness

In autonomy you move a value in this order:
a) External pressure (forcing the person to do something with punishment/reward)
b) Internal pressure (the person now do it by themselves, although unwillingly)
c) Identified value (the person now recognize that something is good and/or beneficial)
d) Internalized value (the person now follows the value like it's natural to them)

You wish to reach d here. You wish for someone to feel that they act in a way because it's the most natural thing to do.

Power means that power to do the good thing. Education, access to tools (like enough money etc).

Relatedness means that the person do not do by themselves, they have support and people to assist them if they need.

 

[Thrasher]

I don't really know how to restate it any simpler. But, going with your comment, why have a court system at all? It's just a vehicle for doling out revenge, right? (that's not intended to be obnoxious, BTW)

Remember we are talking about justice/revenge/retribution here. NOT protecting society. You continue to conflate them incorrectly.

If you want to change the subject, that is fine by me but it doesn't get around the argument that justice is the same as retribution and vengeance.

Protection of society is a valid reason for court systems. Perps should be locked away who pose a danger to society and individuals, not for so-called "justice".

 

[Ubereil]

It helps to maintain order rather than encouraging people to seek their own justice.

I'll give you that it's probably a necesary evil for the time being. But with education that's good enough we will be able to do away with it without any major consequences.

I believe this would be perfect evidence of the attitude toward retribution that I referenced.

Yeah, I don't think retribution is a good idea. Thus I think I know better than those who do. This is quite trivial an observation, really. It's true for anything where we think some idea is better than some other idea.

If you're going to avoid human constructs (see below), why do you invoke the human construct of empathy?

I'm not going to avoid human constructs. Some constructs are quite beneficial to us.

Further, if we accept empathy into the discussion, how do you impose empathy on a situation where there is none?

For the same reason we do so in other situations - it leads to happier individuals.

It's not like a rapist considers the empathic implications of his actions before he does them, so why must you consider them after the fact?

Because we're not rapists. That the rapist did the wrong thing doesn't mean we should too.

You're imposing a framework on a situation where that framework, by definition, has been discarded and invalidated.

It's only by definition if you define it like that. Which I don't.

Justice is an artificial construct created by humans as well. Why accept one and invest it with value, but not the other?

As I said, I try not to use justice at all. So the answer is that I don't.

As much as I rail against the whole relativist thing, it's unavoidable, particularly when we talk about choices and circumstances. Seems to me that the primary role of society is to develop a framework that everyone within the society agrees to follow, even if it's a passive agreement based solely on what dirt you're standing on at the time. Basically, everyone agrees to eliminate the relativistic nature of certain actions. Then, because we're smart monkeys and understand that unusual circumstances DO exist, we leave a little wiggle room within the framework so we can "get the answer we want". Thus, self defense becomes a valid excuse for choices that normally are unacceptable.

The question isn't so much law as how to get pepole to comply with it. The whole "just apply consequences for not doing so" doctrine hasn't worked all that well throughout the years…

Anyway, since I believe the main problem is the lack of internal values that goes along with society's values that's where the focus should be placed. Fix that and you've gotten the criminal to never re-offend. Easy in theory, more difficult in practise.

Still more effective than this whole "just apply consequences" doctrine, though.

Thus (to bring this train all the way back around), certain 17 year olds can be tried as adults and get life sentences.

Well, my main concern is the "life" part, not the "17 year old" part. Though I think punishments should be mild at first, so it would be all but impossible for a 17 year old to rack up enough repeated offences to qualify for a long penalty anyway.

Übereil

 

[DArtagnan]

So I ask you for further clarification and your response is to insult me.

A combination of clarification and what you consider an insult, sure