Hope you rot in hell!!!!!

[Dis]

**** like this pisses me off.

men are so evil. I don't understand why women put up with men. There has to be someway to pacify the male population. Because I'm sick of stories like these.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

And of course, you haven't addressed the people who don't care if the DP is a deterrant (like me).

If it does not serve as a deterrent then it has no useful purpose, or at least no useful purpose the law should take account of.

I made basically the same point in another thread, but it applies here too. Retributivism, apart from being moronic, is a religious conception of justice. It has no place in a society where the church and state are separated.

It's easy to see why. Unless it is appealing to the simple emotion of revenge (which is merely a feeling and not a moral justification for any kind of action, any more than any other extreme emotion), retributivism is philosophically bankrupt. It imagines us to imagine a great ledger in the sky in which each foul deed is listed along with it's appropriate punishment. Of course there is no such thing and the punishments are those imposed by human beings, either to satisfy their lust for revenge or cruelty; or to deter criminal behaviour.

The only attempt I have ever seen to justify retributivism was by a Kantian who argued that by performing any act, a moral agent justifies the same act being performed on him. This was then used to justify a form of "an eye for an eye" retributivism.

Of course it's a fiction because any other person who then administers the punishment incurs the same chain of reasoning and should also be punished and so on. Of course the right try to mask this error by saying that people working for the state are somehow different, but they never quite explain how, which just shows how full of **** they are. The Kantian Categorical Imperative is at most a logical device for testing moral principles. It is not a punishment determining mechanism.

In the absence of that failure, retributivism simply has no legs to stand on other than primitive emotionalism and religious doctrine. Neither of these has a place in the laws of a secular state, and therefore neither does retributivism. And without retributivism, the death penalty must rely on only consequentialist justifications and that means deterrence. Since it fails that test, it is an unwarranted legal device - a relic from a barbaric age, when people still burned witches and other heretics.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
It is never acceptable to take a life for outrage or vengeance.

Right on. It is hard to see how any sane person could believe that it was.

Do we measure the amount of veangance by the anger the victim feels? What then of those people who are excessively temperamental?

[Capt Dizle]

I used to be for the death penalty but then when DNA testing came along and folks started being cleared (just saw a case on TV tonight of a guy who was convicted when I was a teen and just today was released) I had to change my mind.

The fact is that the system puts too many innocent people behind bars. So I don't support it.

But if that were my kid I would shoot the bastard and hope I got it right.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course the right try to mask this error by saying that people working for the state are somehow different

They ARE different. The state is society's arbiter and can do things individuals cannot do. It can take lives on behalf of the people. There is no fallacy there.

Retribution is one of the four accepted purposes of punishment in the criminal law (so it is strange that you say only one person has ever tried to justify retrubution). The argument is that the offender deserves his punishment because the offender is a moral agent who has earned punishment by his crime. Of course it restricts punishment to those making moral, willing choices.


This isn't just for DP. Every punishment has retributive effect to some extent. All four purposes of punishment (deterrance, retributism, incapacitation, and rehabilitation). People who go off on retributism don't realize how much of the criminal law is based off of it, and there is nothing wrong with that.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
It is never acceptable to take a life for outrage or vengeance. Only if there is some need of societal defense- if he will continue to pose a danger in some way in prison, or if there is a reasonable expectation of detterent would I be for it.

As I understand the man is insane so I don't see detterance as a likely result here, nor it does seem likely he'll pose a danger in prison. Lock him up and throw away the key, but no death.

You can minimize whatever danger he would pose in prison through solitary confinement for most of his daily schedule.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by jimmytrick

But if that were my kid I would shoot the bastard and hope I got it right.

Everyone says this, but hardly anyone ever does it. Wouldn't it be a disaster if everyone did.

[MrFun]

Agathon -- I think we can excuse people for reacting emotionally to something like this.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MrFun
Agathon -- I think we can excuse people for reacting emotionally to something like this.

Sure, as long as they don't go out and blow a suspect's head off. Letting murderers walk free is infinitely preferable to regressing to the law of the jungle.

That poor kid. I couldn't believe she was only twelve. What on earth were her folks thinking, letting her go out tarted up like that?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Agathon


That poor kid. I couldn't believe she was only twelve. What on earth were her folks thinking, letting her go out tarted up like that?

You are playing the "blame the victims" game??

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Of course the right try to mask this error by saying that people working for the state are somehow different

They ARE different. The state is society's arbiter and can do things individuals cannot do. It can take lives on behalf of the people. There is no fallacy there.

Yes there is. It's called "begging the question". You've offered no reason why the state is magically allowed to do this. Just because the state is an abstract entity to which we attribute legal powers, does not entail anything about those powers themselves. And it's still ordinary people who have to do the killing, or if you want to regard the state as a person, it too may not kill.

Retribution is one of the four accepted purposes of punishment in the criminal law (so it is strange that you say only one person has ever tried to justify retrubution).

Of course it is accepted. But then again, so was burning women for being witches at one time. I couldn't care less what law professors have to say. Their province is the law as it is written, and not metaethics or applied ethics. I still can't make head or tail of what is supposed to justify retribution, other than our primitive sense of revenge.

The argument is that the offender deserves his punishment because the offender is a moral agent who has earned punishment by his crime. Of course it restricts punishment to those making moral, willing choices.

Yes, I know. But it doesn't tell us what that punishment should be unless you make it the same as the crime (which is really dumb). And it's not clear how the offender "earns" it unless we imagine something like the giant ledger in the sky, or an equally imaginary pair of scales, or what is most likely, that it is a projection and justification of our primitive emotion of revenge. Retributivists can say this as much as they like, but it doesn't really mean anything at all.

Every child learns early in life that smacking someone if they smack you is a stupid, dangerous and ineffective way of solving disputes. It's a pity people don't carry that lesson into the justice system.

This isn't just for DP. Every punishment has retributive effect to some extent. All four purposes of punishment (deterrance, retributism, incapacitation, and rehabilitation). People who go off on retributism don't realize how much of the criminal law is based off of it, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I know. Isn't it astonishing how much of the law is based on ignorance and religious savagery?.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MrFun

You are playing the "blame the victims" game??

That's another thing that annoys me. Blame is not a zero sum game. Anyone who leaves their car unlocked at night in a bad area deserves to have it stolen for being so stupid. That doesn't excuse the crook at all - he attracts a different kind of blame.

I don't blame this girl at all. But I wouldn't let a twelve year old of mine go around looking like that - and it's a ****ed up society that thinks it's OK for children to go around dressed as sex objects.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Agathon


Everyone says this, but hardly anyone ever does it. Wouldn't it be a disaster if everyone did.

Sometimes one does. I am an ex-con who got ten years for shooting at the local cops when they hassled me. You want to mess with my kid. Take a chance.

[M. Robespierre]

a ****ed up society that thinks it's OK for children to go around dressed as sex objects.

Parents should teach their children properly. Why are parents not telling their children what they ought to wear?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by M. Robespierre

Parents should teach their children properly. Why are parents not telling their children what they ought to wear?

Because advertisers have co-opted the children to nag the hell out of their parents so that they can dress and act like Britney Spears.