Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Steve3007]

BG, I think you will probably win our wager. Or, at best, I could hope for a draw.

viewtopic.php?p=285289#p285289

Based on the evidence of the above cited post, I think he'll dispute that what he's talking about is an "eye for an eye".

So, well played.

[GE Morton]

Morton -

Surely you cannot be saying there is no requirement for rehabilitation?

What I said was that citizens have no duty to pay for anyone's "rehabilitation." The convict may well be in need of rehabilitation, but if so, it is up to him to recognize that need, his responsibility to assess the effectiveness of the numerous approaches (most of which are minimally effective), to select a program, and to pay for it. The costs would be added to his restitution obligation.

If not you may as well execute everyone.

How does that follow?

[GE Morton]

I don’t think he is saying anything like “an eye for an eye”? Your quote shows that.

I question whether paying their debt to society is enough to teach them to behave in a more civil manner. In many it probably is, but not in all. And in the group that it isn’t enough I’d go as far to say that some are beyond rehabilitation.

The restitution model does not amount to "an eye for an eye." That is a version of the punishment model. The aim of the restitution model is to secure justice for the victim, by making him whole, to whatever extent is possible. No more pain or discomfort or restrictions of liberties are imposed upon the perpetrator than are necessary to accomplish that goal.

You're right that many inmates --- most, in fact --- are "beyond rehabilitation," at least, per any method now known. A rational justice system will also have an "habitual criminal" law which, after a certain number of convictions, imprisons the offender for life.

BTW, the restitution model does not require "paying one's debt to society." It requires paying one's debt to actual victims. Societies are not moral agents and no one can become indebted to them. "Paying one's debt to society" is a vacuous phrase that usually results in nothing being repaid to anyone.

[Steve3007]

I still say it sounds exactly like "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" - i.e. restricting compensation to the value of the loss. Restitution.

[Burning ghost]

Morton -

If people cannot be rehabilitated then they will repeat offend over and over. So complete ostricisation would, I imagine, mean execution. This is in the realms of the modern prison system because if the attitude is that people have to rehabilitate themselves completely whilst surrounded by other criminals I don’t see how this is doing anything other than feeding the problem and preventing any basic chance of rehabilitation.

A bit lke the US baseball game system - three strikes and you’re out.

When I said “paying debt to society” I was referring to what you said in regards to criminals paying the justice system back and those they’ve offended. I consider victims to be part of society, so I don’t think it is “vacuous”, but I’m not wedded to the term.

[Belindi]

But it's impossible to allocate blame except within the context of tradition and precedent.

I'm sorry, Belindi, but you've lost me. Alfie enters a convenience store, points a .38 at the clerk, says, "Give me all the money in the till." The incident is recorded on the store's camera. What problems do you have in assigning blame? What have "tradition and precedent" to do with making that judgment?

There is no perfect scales of justice by which we may be sure that a man or woman is entirely to blame.

I'm not sure what would count as a "perfect scale of justice," but there is no room for doubt about who is to blame for the hypothetical robbery just described. No one but Alfie is making the demand, no one but Alfie is holding the gun or making the threat. Hence Alfie is, per the available evidence, which is conclusive, entirely to blame. Who else would you suggest is (partially?) to blame?

You, nor the best judge and jury, are not God and so you cannot possibly know how good or how bad a person is.

I'm not interested in how good or bad a person is (I don't even know what that means). I'm only interested in who committed the crime, and the evidence in this case is quite clear.

Better to be practical and look to the common aim to prevent crime by removing the causes of crime as best we may.

Crime does not have "causes." Nor does any other voluntary human behavior. Behaviors have motives --- objectives the agent hopes to attain by committing the act. Humans are not deterministic machines, driven to rote performance of pre-programmed actions by external forces over which they have no control.

It's not possible to compensate for injuries except when money or goods can be returned. Crimes against the person cannot be compensated for as the traumas are ineradicable.

Of course it is possible. It is done all the time in wrongful death and other tort lawsuits. Compensation is not always full, but whatever the victim or his survivors receive is better than nothing.

I wrote "except within the context of tradition and precedent". You are right as regards law but the question "does society need prisons?" must be answered with an eye to changing inefficient legal methods of crime prevention. Crime does indeed have causes, and voluntary behaviour is also caused. Crime is a social problem and all social problems however intractable they be have causes.

Indeed humans are not deterministic machines. The more a man is well informed and the more able he is to exercise his critical faculty the less he is controlled by passions and unthinking or immoral reactions.As you will be aware, not all men have equal opportunities to develop their intellects and moral sense.

[LuckyR]

Point 2 is absurd, serving no purpose - it is the vengeance you have already described as "emotional"

Huh? Are you claiming that justice consists in, or is identical with, vengeance? Justice consists in securing to each person what he is due, by virtue of his actions. Securing justice for crime victims requires making good their losses and compensating for their injuries, as far as possible. Vengeance consists in inflicting comparable (or greater) loss or pain on the criminal --- which serves no rational purpose; it does nothing to repair the damages done.

Well, the main difference between justice and vengeance is that one is performed by a sanctioned arm of the state and the other is meted out by individuals without supervision/oversight.

[ThomasHobbes]

yes, and "that" is so risible you find it hard to bring yourself to defend it!
LOL

So far no defense is needed, since no attack has been made. Juvenile quips and ad hominems don't qualify.

Do you have some substantive criticism?

Absurd and laughable ideas are self critical.

[GE Morton]

I still say it sounds exactly like "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" - i.e. restricting compensation to the value of the loss. Restitution.

We may be interpreting that old adage differently. I took it to mean that if someone knocks out your tooth, you may knock out one of his teeth. The restitution model would require your assailant to pay your dental bill for an implant, plus compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages,if any, etc.

[GE Morton]

Morton -

If people cannot be rehabilitated then they will repeat offend over and over.

Yes. they will. And do. The 5-year recidivism rate for inmates released from state prisons in the US is 76%. Most of those have participated in some sort of "rehabilitation" program.

So complete ostricisation would, I imagine, mean execution.

I still fail to see how you reach that conclusion. Habitual offenders would be imprisoned for life, but required to work to earn their keep (even after any restitution obligation has been satisfied). They could also opt to have their citizenship revoked and be deported, if any country would agree to take them.

This is in the realms of the modern prison system because if the attitude is that people have to rehabilitate themselves completely whilst surrounded by other criminals I don’t see how this is doing anything other than feeding the problem and preventing any basic chance of rehabilitation.

If the "rehabilitation" program is conducted in the prison they will be surrounded by other criminals no matter who is paying the bills. The "basic chance" of rehabilitation is small to begin with. It might prove to be greater if the inmate is paying the bill --- it would indicate that he accepts responsibility for himself and his choices and is willing to try something different.

When I said “paying debt to society” I was referring to what you said in regards to criminals paying the justice system back and those they’ve offended. I consider victims to be part of society, so I don’t think it is “vacuous”, but I’m not wedded to the term.

That phrase has become a dogma recited by convicts and their advocates: "I did my time; I've paid my debt to society." In fact, they've paid nothing to anyone. They didn't "owe society" anything; their debt was to the victims of their crimes.

[GE Morton]

Well, the main difference between justice and vengeance is that one is performed by a sanctioned arm of the state and the other is meted out by individuals without supervision/oversight.

Well, you seem to have invented your own definitions of those two terms.

[GE Morton]

I wrote "except within the context of tradition and precedent". You are right as regards law but the question "does society need prisons?" must be answered with an eye to changing inefficient legal methods of crime prevention. Crime does indeed have causes, and voluntary behaviour is also caused. Crime is a social problem and all social problems however intractable they be have causes.

You may be equating correlation with causation. In any case, human behavior does not have causes in the sense of "cause" understood in the sciences. In physics and other sciences, for A to be a cause of B, B must always follow A, ceteris paribus. E.g., if a hydrogen and oxygen mixture is heated to a certain temperature the mixture will always ignite, forming water vapor. Raising the temperature of that mixture (by, say, tossing a lighted match into it) is the cause of the resulting fire.

For anything A to be considered a cause of B, it must be possible to predict B, given A, with a high degree of confidence.

There is no human behavior that reliably and predictably follows from any alleged "cause." For example, while being abused or neglected as a child, or being raised by a poor, single parent in a "bad" neighborhood, or attending a poor school, etc., may be correlated with criminal behavior, they cannot be causes of that behavior --- simply because thousands of other people with similar background factors do not become criminals.

Indeed humans are not deterministic machines. The more a man is well informed and the more able he is to exercise his critical faculty the less he is controlled by passions and unthinking or immoral reactions.As you will be aware, not all men have equal opportunities to develop their intellects and moral sense.

That last sentence is true. But many who had no greater opportunities do not become criminals. Hence that difference in opportunities cannot be the cause of the criminal behavior.

[Burning ghost]

Morton -

It’s a tough question for sure. I have only looked into this isseu (prisons and rehabilitation) from an obscure angle. I am unsure what would be the best means of “rehabilitation” other than what you’ve already outlined. I’ve met a few people who’ve been in and out of prison before and they referred to them as being more like criminal training camps - some feel bad about what they did to others, but they are not ashamed. To them they were dealt a **** hand and did what they did to survive.

We cam but hope one day a better program can be put into place to help those that benefit from it and not those who won’t.

[Steve3007]

We may be interpreting that old adage differently. I took it to mean that if someone knocks out your tooth, you may knock out one of his teeth. The restitution model would require your assailant to pay your dental bill for an implant, plus compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages,if any, etc.

Yes, we do seem to be interpreting it differently, and I see your point. I was focusing on the equality aspect of that adage ("one for one") while neglecting the fact that (as you've pointed out) knocking someone else's teeth out doesn't bring my teeth back! But making them pay for my dental work comes closer to doing so. Although, of course, it still doesn't quite. Dentures are no substitute for the real thing. Which leads to a problem of how to assess the extent to which one action can be deemed to be equivalent in value to a different form of action. If someone has simply stolen some money, with no sentimental value and no other trauma or loss inflicted on the victim, then it's easy. But I'd say that situation would be the exception.

[Belindi]

I wrote "except within the context of tradition and precedent". You are right as regards law but the question "does society need prisons?" must be answered with an eye to changing inefficient legal methods of crime prevention. Crime does indeed have causes, and voluntary behaviour is also caused. Crime is a social problem and all social problems however intractable they be have causes.

You may be equating correlation with causation. In any case, human behavior does not have causes in the sense of "cause" understood in the sciences. In physics and other sciences, for A to be a cause of B, B must always follow A, ceteris paribus. E.g., if a hydrogen and oxygen mixture is heated to a certain temperature the mixture will always ignite, forming water vapor. Raising the temperature of that mixture (by, say, tossing a lighted match into it) is the cause of the resulting fire.

For anything A to be considered a cause of B, it must be possible to predict B, given A, with a high degree of confidence.

There is no human behavior that reliably and predictably follows from any alleged "cause." For example, while being abused or neglected as a child, or being raised by a poor, single parent in a "bad" neighborhood, or attending a poor school, etc., may be correlated with criminal behavior, they cannot be causes of that behavior --- simply because thousands of other people with similar background factors do not become criminals.

Indeed humans are not deterministic machines. The more a man is well informed and the more able he is to exercise his critical faculty the less he is controlled by passions and unthinking or immoral reactions.As you will be aware, not all men have equal opportunities to develop their intellects and moral sense.

That last sentence is true. But many who had no greater opportunities do not become criminals. Hence that difference in opportunities cannot be the cause of the criminal behavior.

While it's true that it's not a simple matter to establish the psychological causes of crimes , that is what decent people have to do so that both justice and effectiveness may be best served. I suspect that you yourself may lack psychological expertise.