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