laughing dog
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You've got the sign wrong.
Not really. After all, capital punishment is the ultimate form of protection of civilians.
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Jokes about prison rape on men? Not a fan.
- Thread starter Rhea
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Bomb#20
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Do you also judge your students' intelligence based on whether they agree with you?
Hmm, yes. Most of those so-common-it-isn't-news families who want their loved one's murderer executed are thinking about the potential future deaths of strangers, not the actual recent death of their loved one. Good theory.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
The Norwegian criminal justice system focuses on rehabilitation. I can't say for sure that it's far superior to American justice system because of the lack of retribution, but maybe in part. There are so many other variables...but clearly vast swaths of people find deterrence and rehabilitation the smarter option. This is not to say individual families of victims of murder do not want revenge, but not only are those people .00001% of the population, EVEN IF they were 99% of the population, it wouldn't mean retribution is best. Argumentum ad populum.
To add-- discussions about prison rape... non-violent sexual offenders have the lowest levels of recividism with attempted rehabilitation, therapy etc. Hoping that they get raped in prison as part of retribution by society would be counter-productive because it would further mess up their minds. Upon eventual release to society, they'd be an even greater risk to society.
More generically, all prison retributions are normalizing criminals operating outside the law. Societies that condone it are teaching criminals that you can get revenge just don't get caught. It's a hypocritical principle that promotes violence and doesn't work.
To add-- discussions about prison rape... non-violent sexual offenders have the lowest levels of recividism with attempted rehabilitation, therapy etc. Hoping that they get raped in prison as part of retribution by society would be counter-productive because it would further mess up their minds. Upon eventual release to society, they'd be an even greater risk to society.
More generically, all prison retributions are normalizing criminals operating outside the law. Societies that condone it are teaching criminals that you can get revenge just don't get caught. It's a hypocritical principle that promotes violence and doesn't work.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
Norway is a unique flower. They're like Saudi Arabia. But instead of "investing" the oil money on gold taps in all their 800 rooms of their palaces, they use it for stuff like this. It's also a very small population, most of who live in geographically isolated little islands. It's super boring, it's super protestant Christian. Norway is a paternal blanket of love that swadles the entire population. You can't take anything from Norway and apply to anywhere else.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
Rehabilitation and deterrence is superior to retribution. Condoning prison retribution is creating a system of revenge and hypocrisy. Besides that, the U.S. could be somewhat more like Norway, but the elite are too busy teaching the population to be divisive and to scapegoat each other while they make billions.
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
I know it's a bad word for them.
But retribution depends on intent. If A mocks B in order to punish B for his unethical behavior consisting in engaging in character assassination againt A, then that is just retribution. If A kills B in order to punish B for his unethical behavior consisting raping and murdering A's daughter, then that is just retribution (I'm always assuming evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). It might be unethical or not, depending on the circumstances (e.g., was there a legal system that could have realistically handled the retribution?), but whether it is retribution depends on the intent to do something bad to someone for what they did, not on its intensity.
As for my position, I actually support retributive not "restorative justice", in general. Of course, I can think of hypothetical scenarios in which the former would lead to worse outcomes (due to corruption, unjust laws and/or applications of them, etc.), so I'm not saying I would be in favor of retributive justice under any circumstances. But at least in principle, as long as there are sufficient guarantees that it is in fact a just system (not perfect, but generally), among other things. And when the retributive system is unjust and inflicts punishment that are not deserved, then I would in favor of reforming it, but not to replace with a non-retributive system, but rather, with a retributive system that is just. Of course, if that is not an available option, then I would have to choose between different sorts of injustice: either people committing serious crimes and never getting punished by the state in retribution, or innocent people being unjustly punished on a regular basis. I would take the former all other things equal, but I consider that the lesser of two evils, not a good system.
That does not mean I oppose compensation, of course, but I see that as a very different matter. For example, A and B engage in celebratory gunfire with the same weapon in a populated area, with the same information about population density, potential effects of bullets, etc. A's bullets land harmlessly. One of B's bullets hits C and sends her to the hospital. I think A and B deserve equal punishment, but B also owes C compensation (though B might not have the money to pay it but that's another matter), but that is a separate matter from that of the punishment they deserve. The compensation is not a punishment or part of it.
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DrZoidberg
Contributor
Social policy isn't a one-size fits all situation. Some things work well in some places and not in other places. In Norway everybody, in one way or another, works for Statoil. It gives the government pretty unique tools with which to control the population. USA just don't have these. In USA you can just go to another state and set up a new life. Or go to Mexico. Canada. It's a colonial world well adapted and well suited for a highly mobile population. Which creates both strengths and vulnerabilities.
In Norway the highest status is to be normal and be like everybody else. In USA people look up to extraordinary people. Getting rich from crime has a glamour in USA that it just doesn't have in Norway. No Norwegian woman is going to be impressed by your money. So that criminal incentive doesn't exist. If you want to get laid in Norway have a washboard stomach and show up on time to dates. You don't even need to pay for her dinner.
The cultural differences between the countries is too great for either to be able to learn anything from eachother regarding the criminal justice system IMHO. The two countries couldn't be more different.
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
I know that you are not one of them (I do not know what your position is). But in my reply to you (the one that prompted your question), I said that the central issues is that "they" are saying or implying that they do not deserve the punishment in the first place, and that tburden is on "them". I wasn't including you; that is why I did not say "you" are saying or implying, etc., or that the burden is on "you".ruby sparks said:
That aside, I am surprised that you would be surprised if they believed that. The quotes I provided seem very clear to me. For example, this post by Rhea. She says (bold added this time):
She has made it absolutely clear: " I don't believe that anyone ever "deserves" " punishment, and she gives an argument trying to back up her belief.Rhea said:
While Jarhyn used different words, they do seem pretty clear as well, even if slightly less explicit. I would recommend going through his posting history if you want to have more info about his views, but at least as far as I can tell based on reading many of his posts (and see also the example in my previous post), he believes that no one deserves punishment, and argues for that.
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
Yes, my point exactly. It's not that you can't derive 'ought' from 'is'. Rather, you can't (deductively) derive moral conclusions from premises not involving moral terms. But for that matter, you can't derive color conclusions from premises without color terms, and so on.ruby sparks said:
First, again it is okay to get an ought from an is in some cases (see my example above).ruby sparks said:
Second, if you say it is getting moral conclusions from non-moral premises, deductively, I am not doing that.
Third, if you say it is questionable to make moral assessments using non-moral information as part of the evidence, let us take a look.
Suppose one of my opponents makes a moral assessment. They claim or imply, for example, that to mete out retribution on a person for what they did is morally wrong. What do they base that assessment on? If it's non-moral information, is that questionable? If it's moral premises, then on what did they base their moral premises in the first place?
Here's the problem: either it is always questionable for anyone to make moral assessments, or it is not. If the former, why? If the latter, then those assessments cannot all be based on moral premises, because then the question is: what about those premises?
Why would you say that what I'm doing is questionable because of some 'ought'-'is' thing, but you do not say the same about the moral assessments of my opponents? What is the difference?
My position is this: it is both normal and generally proper to use one's own moral sense to make moral assessments, using information about different situations, behaviors, etc. It is also proper to use empirical information about what the human moral sense usually does, in order to make probabilistic assessments about moral matters - though of course, the human moral sense is fallible, but for that matter, we could do the same for color even though our color vision is fallible, etc.
But remember that you said "naturalistic fallacy" about what I was doing, and then went on to say that you "...can't say as I've seen anything much wrong with..." Jarhyn's posts. But why the difference? He is making moral judgments too. Sure, he is making all sorts of errors too, and that leads him to making false moral judgments, so there is a clear difference. But that is not my question here since you do not see that difference. My question here is: Why do you not think that he is doing something equally questionable?ruby sparks said:
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
Thanks, and sometimes that happens, but not this one. I may have been unclear a couple of times, but I absolutely clarified it repeatedly, and in excruciating detail - only to be ignored repeatedly. The error is not on my side. But you don't need to take my word for it. If you want to assess the matter for yourself, I would recommend the exchange between ruby sparks and me in the following thread:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS
I think that's the main one, though if you're interested, there are two more as far as I remember:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20647-RETRIBUTIVISM
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?19934-The-Great-Contradiction
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
Yes, that is obvious. And it was using as a means of attacking me, implying that what I had done was ridiculous, absurd, bad, or something like that. Do you actually not see the animosity in these threads, all over the place? People are attacking each other - not physically attacking, of course.
In this thread, that was a very mild attack, comparatively speaking. A much bigger one was the implication that it was reasonable to ask where I lived in order to avoid the area to remain safe.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I read that Norway had moved towards a more restorative/rehabilitative justice system before it profited from oil.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I did not see Jarhyn using the naturalistic fallacy.
Other than that, why am I not disagreeing with Jarhyn generally? I think Jarhyn and I would disagree quite a bit if we were debating, and often do.
But why am I debating with you here rather than with Jarhyn? I'm not exactly sure. I certainly can't engage with everyone for lack of time. I think my preference has to do with having tried to discuss it with you at great length in the past and having not warmed to your underlying retributive views, or perhaps it's just the feeling that you are being dogmatic about them. Maybe I think there is too much retribution in the world, and so I am more tolerant of those who aspire to there being less.
Regarding Rhea, it seems to me that when she says she herself believes that no one deserves punishment, she is being far less adamant than you when you say otherwise. In her case it seems more of a personal opinion or preference than an attempted watertight case for moral universalism or moral realism.
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Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
Let me explain the problem again: you think what I'm doing is questionable because it allegedly derives moral assessments from non-moral information, at least in part. Is that not the case? What you seem to call the "naturalistic fallacy" (though the naturalistic fallacy, as I explained, is neither that nor a fallacy).
But then, how is Jarhyn not doing the same? Furthermore, how is not everyone who ever makes a moral assessment not doing the same?
Imagine someone makes a moral assessment by logically deriving it from premises that are also (at least some of them) moral assessments. Then, where do they derive the premises from? From other moral premises? Then how about those ones? As they do not make infinitely many assessments, even if there were (which they are not realistically) deriving every other moral assessment from some starting point moral premises, they would have at the base of all of their moral assessments some moral assessments (the premises) that they did not derive from moral premises. Then, where did they come from?
Either from non-moral ones (then, what you call the "naturalistic fallacy"), or else they just made an intuitive moral assessment using their own moral sense. But then they are using information about what their moral sense says to make moral assessments. How is that not what you call the "naturalistic fallacy", if making moral assessments on the basis of what my moral sense says, or on the basis of what the moral sense of the vast majority of humans says is the "naturalistic fallacy"?
Do you see the problem?
If I reckon that exacting retribution on a rapist in order to punish him is just, using as evidence that my moral sense yields that verdict, then it's objectionable by your claims, allegedly due to the 'naturalistic fallacy'.
If I reckon that exacting retribution on a rapist in order to punish him is just, using as evidence that the moral sense of nearly all humans yields that verdict, then it's objectionable by your claims, allegedly due to the 'naturalistic fallacy'.
If I reckon that exacting retribution on a rapist in order to punish him is just, using as evidence that the moral sense of nearly all humans yields that verdict and my own moral sense yields that verdict, then it's objectionable by your claims, allegedly due to the 'naturalistic fallacy'.
But if Jarhyn reckons that something is morally wrong, or morally right, or good, or bad, or whatever moral assessment, either using as evidence that his moral sense says so, or just someone else says so, or just because something else that is also not a moral statement, then it's not objectionable?
ruby sparks
Contributor
Ok, but still I don't see Jarhyn advancing his case in quite the way you do though. Your underlying position seems to me (based on previous discussions) to involve making an attempted argument for moral universalism and moral realism, in particular regarding your claims about retribution specifically. I think that's a step too far and imo dogmatic, inflexible and simplistic (possibly even unhelpful in a world where there is arguably too much focus on retribution and punishment at the expense of alternatives). So in other words, yes, perhaps both you and Jarhyn are using the is-ness (existence) of intuitions to get to oughts, but Jarhyn does not seem to me to be making the same sort of fundamental or universal claims about intuitions that you are. As to Rhea, she seems to be more expressing an opinion or a preference (or a personal belief or aspiration) than asserting a universal moral fact, as you do, very strongly, when we get right down to it.
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ruby sparks
Contributor
DrZoidberg
Contributor
Yes, they did it the same time everybody else in the west did, in the 1960'ies. USA was one of those. It went badly in most places. USA for example. It went well in Norway. We've already run the comparative experiment. In USA it lead to greatly increased crime and a rapidly expanding prison population. Which is why the experiment was abandoned.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
What are you basing this statement on?
ruby sparks
Contributor
Your usual level of undue pessimism combined with your preference for making blanket statements, sometimes without much apparent independent support.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Ok so before the oil profits, unlike what you said.
I am not sure if it was a decreased focus on punishment that led to the inflated prison population in the US.
For example:
"From the 1940s onward, public officials and policy makers at all levels of government—from federal to state to local—increasingly sought changes in judicial, policing, and prosecutorial behavior and in criminal justice policy and legislation. These changes ultimately resulted in major increases in the government’s capacity to pursue and punish lawbreakers and, beginning in the 1970s, in an escalation of sanctions for a wide range of crimes. Furthermore, criminal justice became a persistent rather than an intermittent issue in U.S. politics. To a degree unparalleled in U.S. history, politicians and public officials beginning in the 1960s regularly deployed criminal justice legislation and policies for expressive political purposes as they made “street crime”—both real and imagined—a major national, state, and local issue".
The Underlying Causes of Rising Incarceration: Crime, Politics, and Social Change
https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/6