Should torture be a punishment for horrendous crimes?
Say someone brutally rapes and kills a young 18 year old girl on the night of her high school prom. In court this criminal shows no remorse, and laughs at the girl's crying family, and says he would do it all over again, and he would make sure she suffers even more the next time, while taking even better measures to ensure he does not get caught. Should torture of the worst kind be a punishment for such a person UNTIL and IF they repent and feel sorry for what they have done? Why or why not?
I argue that yes, torture should be a punishment for such a person. Why? For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering. Would you disagree? One gets a sense of justice being done. A more rational reason is so that other criminals who intend to commit similar crimes see what will happen to them and repent sooner rather than later. And the final reason I have is that such a punishment ensures that justice is adequately done - which is required for people to have faith in the justice system.
I argue that yes, torture should be a punishment for such a person. Why? For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering. Would you disagree? One gets a sense of justice being done. A more rational reason is so that other criminals who intend to commit similar crimes see what will happen to them and repent sooner rather than later. And the final reason I have is that such a punishment ensures that justice is adequately done - which is required for people to have faith in the justice system.
Comments (155)
And raping someone when married does not constitute adultery. Adultery is mutual sex outside of marriage, and rape is rape, whether married or not. Different crimes. Rape is generally much worse than adultery in terms of wrongness.
Absolutely I disagree. And eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
All your reasoning here shows is our insatiable desire for vengeance and a deep belief in blood debts.
Serial Killers, and rapists of the like I mentioned above aren't most people. Most people would also regret killing someone and the like. Serial killers don't. What makes you think they'll act like most people? Scientifically you CANNOT draw this conclusion, there's not enough evidence, nor theory to support such a hypothesis.
Quoting swstephe
If they were normal, rational human beings, not cold-blooded, irrational serial killers, rapists, etc. yes.
Quoting swstephe
Maybe because they didn't punish serial killers, rapists and the like during the Inquisition but rather many innocent people? :s
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes but you don't understand. These people are beasts, they are worse than beasts. They deserve the harshest of punishments. It's not about an eye for an eye - these are not normal people. If they were normal, I would agree with you.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is interesting. Why would many of us, or let me not say many of us and assume, but rather I, why do you reckon I would feel good and joyful seeing such a criminal suffer? Please note that I would not feel joyful to see them suffer if they had felt genuinely sorry for what they had done. But if they felt joyful and happy for having committed such atrocious crimes, I would enjoy to see them suffer, and I would feel very angry to see them get away without suffering. So what is it that motivates this? Schopenhauer (from memory I'm recalling from Book IV of WWR Vol I, someone correct me if I'm not illustrating the thoughts rightly) thought that we seek to do justice (or vengence as you say) because we want to uphold justice itself, and when someone does something like this, and does not show fear of justice or remorse for their crimes, we automatically feel a need, coming from our very being, to set things straight, by ourselves if we have to, and thus uphold justice. If we do not uphold it, then everyone, including ourselves, is placed at risk of being unjustly treated because transcendentally, someone appears to have escaped justice. Thus such a crime is the greatest of crimes because it is transcendental in nature - it is, as per Christian theology, the unforgivable sin, the hardening of the heart that not even God can set straight anymore. And we cannot accept this, so our beings feels the urge to take matters in its own hands and give to such an individual what they deserve, ultimately in an effort of love - I think deep down I think that if they suffer horrendously, they will realise how it feels for others to suffer, and thus they would repent.
I want to make sure I'm understanding your line of thought here. Torture won't make most people feel genuine remorse, just an urgent need to stop the pain. But since serial killers aren't like most people, and don't feel remorse for satisfying their heinous desires and easing their torturous pain, then.....maybe, unlike other people, under torture they'll feel genuine remorse instead of merely wanting to stop the pain?
Unless they are able to identify what they have done as wrong, agreed. But to identify an action as wrong merely requires the association of pain to someone else - or suffering, combined with the idea of them undergoing the respective action. I identify putting fire on a child's lap as wrong because I associate pain and suffering with the idea of putting fire on their lap, and I associate their pain and suffering with my own. It's a mixture of Hume's theory of ideas and Schopenhauer's compassion (fellow-feeling) as the basis of morality.
Quoting csalisbury
I think many of them do not understand and cannot associate the suffering of others with their own suffering - hence no empathy. Also, many of them have remarkably high pain tolerance. So - if they could be hurt so much, they could begin to understand what others feel and how others suffer, and since they don't like their own suffering, especially to such high intensity, they could begin to form the idea that just like they are suffering in those moments, so too have their victims suffered - and just like they don't like it, neither do their victims like it. Hence they would repent.
Do you think it would also be just for the perpetrators to be raped, as they themselves raped?
This is actually not true. Most people who have awful and painful childhoods (in most cases these are intense emotional pains, not physical as well - rejection and the like) do not turn into serial killers or sociopaths. A large percentage of serial killers (close to 50%) have also had normal childhoods by all standards, and seem to be your average Joe. They generally display higher than normal intelligence, high tolerance to pain, lack of empathy, arrogance and pride (even if masked), repeatedly killing or beating animals, and are unwilling to recognise or admit to mistakes or wrong-doing <- this later one is key.
Also, as almost anecdotal evidence - the survivors of Awschwitz don't generally end up as psychopaths, serial killers or the like. Many actually have an acutely developed sense of morality and compassion for their fellow human beings.
Quoting csalisbury
My worst suffering was a very serious intestinal infection which lasted me about 2 weeks and I had fever every night, the pain was continuous, and I couldn't even sleep because of the pain. I remember falling asleep and waking up with the pain - it was so bad at one point that I could barely keep my eyes open, but I still couldn't fall asleep because of the pain. It was a hellish experience while I was experiencing it. Looking back, it's of course not as bad as it felt while I lived it.
Quoting csalisbury
No, because that is just disgusting and inhuman for the one who has to do it - the punishment giver. Tortured, again depending on the gravity of the offence. If he raped someone, but he is very sorry about it, cries, etc. then I would say normal punishment, no torture.
Quoting csalisbury
Also this is a very "Western" view, and recent evidence is actually starting to question this a lot. Also, physical violence generally plays an important role in the growth and development of children. For example, when children fight amongst each other, they learn out of that experience - they learn what it means to suffer, how they can make others suffer, how others can make them suffer, and so forth. Out of this they learn morality. They learn to respect others, not be exceedingly harsh, be courageous, value justice, etc.
Of course this is different than the type of violence coming from an adult towards a child (or for that matter the type of violence coming from a bully to a child) - because in that situation, the child simply is defenceless, and can do nothing but feel his own impotence. Especially if this violence is unjust and the child cannot perceive any reason for it, then he will be profoundly hurt by it, and this would be highly highly immoral. This is again the type of acts that may deserve torture as a punishment.
If we're talking about what the law should be, it's not clear to me that whether or not the killer repents should be a factor. That may be good for his immortal soul, but the courts have no jurisdiction over it.
Sure, and if they repent immediately, set them loose immediately. It's just the stubborn ones we need to beat.
I didn't say set them loose - just regular punishment if they repent. If they repent after the torture, you end the torture, and send them to prison.
No doubt he would say the same about acting towards them. Sound advice from The Man.
Why would you think so? Also what do you think about the argument I have put forth?
For me it's a matter of logical consistency, of hypocrisy. Treating the inhumane as they treat others makes one inhumane also. That much is clear to me. Second, I would feel no satisfaction seeing a broken human being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not sure that constitutes justice. Civilised nations have long given up on barbarism in pursuit of better ideals, and I don't find your arguments convincing enough to regress.
I think it's not past a criminals capacity to lie to save their own skin (perhaps literally in your justice system), or for the kind of psychopaths we are talking about to feign sorrow and regret convincingly.
If they feign it, they will still get the normal punishment not the torture. The torture still fulfills its role, even if they feign remorse to escape it. The thing is the mockery of justice that they make otherwise, and the mockery of the victim's family, and humiliation they subject them to - that is all prevent, and the law is uphold!
Do you suppose people pop out of the womb with identical clean slates, and that somehow some mystical metaphysical soul has the capability of choosing without constraint from causality?
We should be angry that these people made bad choices and caused harm to others. These people after all felt like they had a free choice to do these things.
And yet the capital punishment of death or torture for acting in one's nature is also wrong. If Schopenhauer argues that we want punishment in order to maintain justice, I would argue that by doing so we are simply reassuring ourselves that we live in a rational, just world when we in reality do not. A psychopath laughing about killing people for fun threatens the very foundation of our society. It shakes us to the core, and is therefore a prime target for the media. We feel inexplicably drawn to this menace in order to try to figure out why the psychopath is laughing and how this can fit in our view about a rational, coherent world.
So by saying "I want justice!", it seems like you are really saying "I want order!, I want safety, I want things to go the way I want them to!" By punishing someone you are trying to get them to repent and assimilate back into society, back into the submerged group-think.
More pragmatically, though, I am against torture and death penalties because we might be wrong in our judgement. Every single death penalty carried out was carried out with full reassurance from the law, and yet there are cases in which the prisoner was actually innocent and thus a victim of our over-zealous desire for justice. There's no point in killing them or torturing them. It's irrational, risky, and pointless.
Why? You treat others humanely because they are human. If they give up their humanity by committing such atrocities, why treat them humanly?
I'm unsure what exactly you are asking by this, but I will tentatively answer no.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes but we must do this in order to uphold our social standards and the integrity/legitimacy of our societies. Some values are sacred - like justice - they cannot be mocked.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Exactly! This is exactly why we must step down on it in the harshest way imaginable.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No I don't want to assimilate them back necessarily. I want to ensure that society as a whole survives - and to survive it must either crush them or assimilate them back.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So if the guy mocks the family and laughs about his actions we can be wrong? -_-
And by the way - I doubt that MA was referring to this kind of inhumanity. This is almost beyond inhuman. It's inhuman to slaughter undefended children in war. That's an inhuman action. It's inhuman to slaughter them while making a game out of it in war, yes. But to do so in society and not even admit that it is a wrong?? That is - no words for it...
You don't usually kill someone for mocking your family.
Quoting Agustino
We certainly can't allow this behavior to continue. But we shouldn't stoop to their level and execute or torture them. This doesn't do anything but provide a catharsis. The psychopath isn't going to learn by torture, and she can't repent after she's dead.
Interestingly enough, it is easy to condemn someone to death, but far more difficult to actually do it. You either have to be a psychopath yourself to enjoy torturing or killing the guilty, or you end up with a lot of guilt, remorse, and suicidal thoughts.
Just knowing that a person "got away" pisses us off. It's not fair. It's not how we want things to be. But I wonder if you would be willing to kill someone yourself to restore order. You might walk away from the kill wondering if you just made things worse.
If somebody mocks your family by raping and brutally murdering someone from your family after having subjected them to the worst kinds of suffering imaginable, and then feeling proud of it, then you sure as hell kill them, even if the law were absurdly to refuse to punish them. This question is of a transcendental nature now, regardless of the earthly law. Why do you think that many people, when done grave injustices, resort to taking matters into their own hands, and some of them are even willing to go to the end of the earth and to sacrifice their own lives to ensure that justice is done? There is something in the human spirit which pushes them to do this - it's apparent in much of our literature, where such cases are best exemplified.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I provided a mechanism via which they could learn from the torture. Do you disagree, and if so why? Second of all, in the case that they just refuse to repent, killing them in a brutal way will provide, as you say, the catharsis necessary for our social institutions, for our justice, for our safety, etc. to maintain their value and sacredness in our eyes - a thing which is required for us to have a society at all.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is false. I think many people would enjoy torturing such a person. I for one would. Do you think I'm a psychopath? I think there is ample evidence that human beings have a sense of justice, which they are willing to go to their own death to ensure that it is not violated. I wouldn't enjoy harming or torturing or anything even close to that a normal, regular criminal. In fact, punishment for such criminals should not really be or be called punishment, it should be rehabilitation. But when it is one of those extreme and hideous crimes, that's an entirely different story.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I would do it... I would feel glad and proud for helping maintain the order and stability of my society, and doing justice to the poor victims who have unlawfully suffered such a tragic fate. I could at least ensure them that the person who did this to them has received what they deserved, even though I cannot bring back their loved one, or undo what they've had to go through.
You used the word "repent" which I associated with acknowledgement of sin and commitment to "sin no more." But if you're speaking of feeling sorry for what was done, or remorse, courts will sometimes take that into account in sentencing by my understanding. It's unclear how we go about determining remorse is genuine, though, and I don't know whether the consideration of remorse in sentencing has had any beneficial effect, i.e. whether those claiming they're remorseful haven't engaged in subsequent criminal conduct.
I suspect that those facing the alternative of being tortured in some hideous fashion would declare themselves to be very, very sorry; as sorry as anyone would wish them to be. If they didn't, they would arguably be lunatics. So, I think it's likely the threat of torture would merely compel the convicted to "repent" whether they were remorseful or not, and I doubt that is something you'd find satisfactory.
Of course torture would be considered cruel and unusual punishment, so absent a constitutional amendment I doubt we'd see it in practice. But I think torture debases the torturer as well as cause terrible pain in the tortured. I don't think requiring the convicted to recite mea culpas in order to avoid torture is an outcome worth becoming torturers.
Well I think this is an equivocation of the word mock. Making fun of someone's family is mocking, throwing eggs on their windows is mocking. Killing someone's daughter is not mocking, it's murder.
The murderer wouldn't go unpunished. But they wouldn't be killed or tortured, either. Sooner or later you are going to end up torturing or killing an innocent person. It's happened before and it will happen again if we continue to allow it to.
Quoting Agustino
It's also often seen as a tragic aspect of human nature. Our inability to make peace with others and swallow our desire for justice and vengeance creates even more conflict. We end up fighting conflict with more conflict. And in the end, all we feel is a sense of relief.
Quoting Agustino
How do you determine when someone is able to be rehabilitated vs when they ought to be slaughtered like the dogs they are? Your gut feeling? Your (biased) desire for justice?
I will say plainly that I highly doubt your ability to kill someone else out of a sense of justice. There are ample stories of functionally normal people in guard positions in prison who executed those on death row and later live lives of severe depression and guilt, or guards who just couldn't do it and were replaced by those who apparently could.
I do find that satisfactory, at least they won't mock the family, and humiliate them even more, and mock the entirety of the justice system as well - that alone, in that is preserves the sacredness of justice, and the dignity of the victim's family is enough. Even if they fake their repentance - that's still much better than the abomination of defying the justice, and maintaining in words that there's nothing wrong with what they've done. Also, if they avoid torture, it doesn't mean that they will avoid the prison sentence that happens anyway.
Again - if they admit to the crime, and laugh at the justice, and mock the family... how can we possibly be wrong?
Quoting darthbarracuda
In some cases - in other cases, not fighting for justice is seen as weakly and cowardly, or even worse, immoral.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Simple. If they show remorse during the torture, then they will be put in prison and will undergo the usual punishment. If they don't, then they will be killed.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes - many times because the guards were not aware who they killed, or because they were forced to kill innocent people, and such reasons. But there are also many stories from war, with people who have killed hundreds of other people, who feel little or no remorse, especially when they knew they were fighting for a just cause.
The "original intent" of the eye-for-an-eye rule was to keep vengeance proportionate. If, for instance, somebody stepped on your sore toe, you didn't get to gouge out their eyeball as punishment. If somebody accidentally shot your cow during deer hunting season, you don't get to slaughter their family. "Proportionate vengeance" said Hammurabi.
If somebody was being tortured for information, what you said would make sense. IF, however, they were being tortured as punishment, it shouldn't make any difference what they say.
It's not really about how we can possibly be wrong in these kinds of situation. It's that the law is not written in a case-by-case basis. We don't get to say that one person is obviously guilty while someone else is obviously innocent. Executing an innocent person cannot be excused. The desire for vengeance does not excuse an innocent's execution. We may be confident that x is guilty of death, and in fact x is indeed guilty, but executing x leads to the slippery slope of executing y, who is innocent. No executions, period.
Quoting Agustino
We wouldn't let these people go free. But you can release an innocent person from prison. You can't un-do an execution. You can't apologize to an innocent person for being tortured. Prison itself is a necessary evil, but we can accommodate everyone else in prison without killing or torturing them.
Quoting Agustino
What if you're actually innocent? Wouldn't you be coerced to admit to a crime you didn't commit?
Quoting Agustino
By killing someone you extinguish all potential for redemption. By executing someone, you are giving up on them. "It's time to die, because we hate you and can't/don't want to see you redeemed."
But the eye-for-an-eye making the whole world blind analogy is arguing for forgiveness.
I disagree that this is necessarily the case. Torture should be kept for those cases which are crystal clear only.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Impossible given the descriptions I have given because if I am actually innocent I would not be mocking the victim's family, defying justice, etc. I would simply state that I feel very sorry and concerned for the family, but I really am not the criminal.
Quoting darthbarracuda
What makes you think everyone can be redeemed based only on external forces?
I'm assuming you believe that there ever can be a crystal-clear case? Presumably all those who have been executed were thought to be crystal-clear guilty. And yet there were some who were innocent.
Quoting Agustino
Psychopaths can lie.
Quoting Agustino
I don't believe everyone can be redeemed. But I believe they ought to be given a chance.
Yes, I think it can safely be said that [some] of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering... In the blesséd land of America, large crowds gathered to watch persons convicted by mob jury of status offenses hung from trees, castrated, and then maybe burned alive, the audience sometimes collecting bits and pieces of charred flesh as souvenirs. Further back in time, our European ancestors hanged and burnt live victims in public executions which were very well attended. Hard hearted executioners would use damp wood for the burning so that the flames would be smaller and death would take longer to ensue.
More recently, like 1933 to 1945, some of our present German friends and allies enjoyed watching (or joining in) Jews being beaten to death on the street. In the prisons, far more ghastly tortures were conducted. In Stalin's regime, ended in 1953, torture of the prisoner was pretty much an all-out romp of every sadistic practice that could be performed on a prisoner. There was also Pol Pot, Idi Amin, etc. etc. etc.
You have now publicly stated your desire to see such practices resumed.
Bible quoting does no good for the non-believer, but since you have made it clear elsewhere that you do believe in God, and believe most earnestly, Bible-quoting by this apostate Methodist may help you.
Deuteronomy 32:35... Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay.
Romans 12:19... Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Matthew 5:38-39... “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Ezekiel 25:17... I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. (That is, God will -- not you.)
Leviticus19:18... You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Revelations 21:8... But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” [You said this you especially liked this book; do you suppose you will be put in charge of the burning sulfurous pits?]
1 Thessalonians 5:15... See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. And so on.
There are people who are prepared to commit heinous crimes against persons who will feel no guilt. They are called psychopaths -- diseased minds. They were born that way, most likely. Maybe they got that way because of very bad events in their early lives. Whichever it was, they are responsible for their actions (because we hold people responsible). They must be secluded from society whether they feel remorse or not. Maybe someday we will be able to heal psychopathy, but that time is not now.
There is a moral objection to torturing the guilty; there is the repugnant historical precedence of torture; and there is another: Someone must carry out the torture. In a civilized society of healthy individuals, no one would be asked, or would volunteer to do this job, or accept it if it were offered. Conducting torture is a criminal activity: criminal in that it is against society, and criminal in that it makes a conspirator in a morally forbidden act.
For your own psychological good, extirpate from your mind this desire to torture.
Yes, if I lie in this way, no torture for me, just prison.
Why do you think it is bad to want to punish such heinous crimes? Don't you find it outrageous that such things can happen? And don't you think that those who commit them deserve to suffer for it? What would you do if this happened to one of your loved ones? If someone did this to them? Would you not want to see them punished? Will you not be happier if they are punished?
Also I do not have a desire for torture - as I have repeatedly said, I find it highly immoral to torture anyone (for example the State torturing someone for information - i find that immoral), EXCEPT in the case of the most heinous crimes. So I don't see how I have a desire for torture. I just have a desire for justice, because I want torture to be used for the purposes of justice. Do you think justice can be done in such cases without torture? If so, how?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Do you think there will not be joy in Heaven when Satan is destroyed and Justice is done by God at the Final Judgement? I think there will. And no, I didn't say I especially liked that book, I said I read that book first, and found it essential to see the whole character of Jesus. It's not one of my favorite books from the Bible though.
Quoting Bitter Crank
*Facepalm*
I fail to see what the examples you have offered me have to do with me. Does it sound to you like I'm advocating for any of those? Seriously now... this is the biggest strawman I have ever seen. I'd agree with the actions from exactly ZERO of the examples you have provided, and I find all of them morally reprehensible to a high degree.
As for "Vengence is mine saith the Lord!" Let me tell you a joke :D ... There was a priest in a small town, he dedicated his whole life to God, praying, growing the numbers of his Church, saving others from sin, etc. One day, a big flood happens. Just the first level of the Church gets flooded, and the priest climbs to the second level and starts praying. A boat comes "Come with us Father, we're here to rescue you!" "No, no, the Lord will deliver me!". So they leave, and the rain continues, and now the second level of the Church gets flooded as well. The priest climbs to the third, and even more fervently prays for his salvation. Another boat comes "Father, Father! Come with us, we have come to rescue you!" "No, no, I don't need human rescuing, the Lord will deliver me". The rain doesn't stop, the third floor gets flooded, and the priest finally climbs to the top of the bell-tower, where he keeps praying even more fervently. A helicopter comes: "Father, Father, the water will soon reach up to you and you will die! Let us rescue you!" "No... the Lord will deliver me, I have Faith!". So they leave, the water comes, takes the priest away, and he dies. He goes to Heaven, finally meets the Lord, and very puzzled he asks: "Lord Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?" And the Lord answers: "Forsaken you?! I have sent two boats and a helicopter after you!" ;)
Same thing with justice in these cases - God acts through human beings, on Earth at least! :)
And to clarify - I propose torture to apply as a possible punishment to heinous crimes which don't include your average day rape, murder, etc. They include those few cases of murder and rape which are such moral abominations that the mind recoils even at the thought of how much the victim must have suffered. And no, such crimes where torture would apply would be CLEAR cases. The person responsible would simply HAVE TO admit to the crime in some way and make a mockery of the court and of their victim (or their families) for this to happen. It would only be reserved to some serial killers and the like. I can't understand how you can have sympathy for such a criminal and have NO SYMPATHY for the poor victim's family which must suffer such an unjust fate... This to me is a moral atrocity. How can society abandon people who have been hurt so much by such a terrible crime?
Your reactionary views, as ever, are detestable and misguided.
Speaking of big strawmen...
Quoting Agustino
No sympathy for the victim's family?! False. Society abandons them?! False. Life imprisonment for the criminal and support for the victims isn't abandonment.
Let me return the favor; this is a piece of a skit I heard on the radio a long time ago, probably before you were born. The end of times have arrived and God is busy sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Various groups are called forward and sent either to the left (chaff) or the right (wheat). "Moslems -- yes, both kinds. You go the left. Jews. You go to the right; welcome. Zoroastrians, you can go to the right too. Christians, to the left. Sorry, you were mistaken."
In the wake of tragedy we feel all sorts of powerful emotions. It isn't "bad" to have feelings, even feelings of hatred, rage, and such. What is bad is turning those hot feelings into policy (torturing the convicted).
Quoting Agustino
Outrageous? Yes, we live in a world where all sorts of outrages occur -- everything from the young child being afflicted by a refractory cancer which eats it's way through its young body, bombs going off on the subway, to planes crashing into the WTC.
Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Life is not only not fair, sometimes it is downright awful.
Quoting Agustino
The suffering you would like to inflict will not bring your loved one back. Nothing else will, either. The state is prepared to separate the proven-murderer from society. (Some states are prepared to do more than that, of course--I am also opposed to capital punishment). The friends and family of victims have to go on with their lives as best they can. The convicted and imprisoned will live out a very diminished life.
Quoting Agustino
First, I will suffer: grief, anger, loss, rage, regret, guilt, extreme angst. I would want to see them punished, certainly. We have had, for a long time, the necessary apparatus in place to imprison, commit, seclude. I won't be joining you in a crusade to torture the perpetrators of appalling crime.
Quoting Agustino
A need to see justice done will be satisfied when they enter prison. I don't think I will become a lot happier on that basis alone -- not because I would have feelings about the suffering of the prisoner, it's just that... loss is loss, and it can't be undone.
Imprisonment is punishment. Nobody breaks into prison to enjoy the wonderful life there.
What makes you think people give up their humanity by committing atrocities? The thing that makes life tragic is that it always ourselves who commit atrocities. Fully fledged, deeply human people commit very good and very bad acts. Very, very bad, sometimes. Only a human, possessed of humanity, is capable of achieving profound evil. I don't like it, but that's a feature of life.
Psychopathy (which is the likely condition of the prisoner in the dock of your OP) isn't preventable at this point (before birth) and isn't treatable later. Psychopathy is caused by a failure in brain structure which enables the child to connect "fear of punishment" to "wrongness". The psychopathic brain doesn't "feel fear" like a normal person does, and the limbic system where fear is felt just doesn't connect to the pre-frontal cortex the way it is supposed to. Consequently, children don't learn to "feel" rightness and wrongness.
Psychopathy usually occurs somewhere on a continuum, between very mild and severe. Towards the mild end, psychopathy can be an advantage to people who have to make difficult business decisions, for instance, and then move on to other pressing issues. If they have to lay off 1000 people, they'll still sleep well that night.
I don't know whether the laughing murderer in the court room represents paychopathy or just plain madness.
I don't know anything about the high security prisons you are familiar with, but in the US prisons are usually some version of a hell hole. They are either grimly isolating (everybody in solitary confinement, essentially) or they are more open and the other prisoners would just as soon rape you or cut your throat, as look at you. In the average large state prison, the inmates are running the joint to a large extent. Spending the rest of your life there is not a mild sentence.
Keep slamming your hand into your face until it drives some sense into your head.
Those people getting tortured weren't necessarily normal. People who torture innocent people usually don't publish studies, so the studies are from intelligence and military situations. Serial killers have been studied extensively. But even ignoring that, you ought to be able reason out that serial killers must have some level of intelligence and are well practiced at deception. They have to be able play sane well enough not to be put into an institution before they kill, and they have to be smart enough to avoid capture to get the title of "serial". But even ignoring that -- if there is not enough evidence to draw a conclusion, then what justification is there to claim that torture is effective at reforming them over other methods?
Actually, torturing crazy people sounds a lot like the unfortunate abuse of ECT or "shock therapy" in the 1930's. When it was first introduced, it ended up getting abused by many people as a form of punishment, (think "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest").. Although it apparently has some valid uses as voluntary therapy, when forced on patients found the same thing -- patients simply learned to hide their compulsions, fears and delusions rather than overcome them. (Now think "A Clockwork Orange" -- the ending of the movie is ambiguous, what was he "cured" from?).
That is why many of the victims feel scared and afraid of the world, and all that society gives them is counselling, which really doesn't help them practically speaking. They just want to see justice done, or the punishment of the criminal correspond to the gravity of his offence. A life prison sentence, does not do justice to the crimes that such a person has performed. Let me ask you differently: were you opposed to the death sentence that some of the Nazi leaders received during the Nuremberg Trials? Why or why not? And please consider that even the crimes of Nazi Germany pale in comparison to the crimes of these serial killers. At least, despite the immorality of everything the Nazi regime did, they had the legitimacy of a state, of a legal system, of a people. They had reasons for what they did, even if those reasons were wrong, misguided and evil. At least it made sense. What a serial killer does is so terrible that it doesn't even make sense!! There simply is NO REASON for the evil that they bring into the world - not even a wrong reason, nothing!
I don't think any religions are wrong. I think atheism is wrong, I think forms of theism and polytheism, etc. are attempts to relate to the divine, so although some could be perfected, none are completely wrong. It's not black and white, the right answer :) I expect the good Christians, good Muslims, good Hindus, good Buddhists, etc. all of them to be in Heaven, and I certainly hope I will meet all of them in Heaven. Even good agnostics/atheists may possibly be in Heaven. And by the way, this is consistent with Christian doctrine - read Catholic Karl Rahner and his notions of "Anonymous Christianity" :D . As Jesus said, it's softness of heart and sensibility that saves one from the one and only sin which can never be forgiven - hardness of heart. In the same sense, because of the hardness of their hearts, the rapacious criminals described in my post deserve the worst of punishments.
Quoting csalisbury
As the Donald called Ted Cruz, I will call you: lyin' csalisbury - what the fuck is this then, please explain to us and don't run away like a coward:
Quoting Agustino
Here Michael's criticism makes me deny what I previously said, and change my opinion.
Quoting Agustino http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/8087#Post_8087
Quoting Agustino http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/5633#Post_5633
I have always changed my views if there was rational criticism. You have no rational criticism except that you don't think it sensible to punish the worst criminals with torture. Why not? And it's a sensible question to ask, so please don't give me some stupid rhetoric about Hitler torturing Jews, etc. - these were fucking innocent people and they don't compare with the crimes I have described. LIAR
Quoting csalisbury
No my friend, there is no anger - it's just rationality which you have done nothing to combat or disprove. All you are doing, like in this post, is pointing fingers at something you don't like, which really is shameful. If you consider my posts reflect sadistic anger, I think you should book yourself to see a psychologist, show him my posts, and ask him whether it's a case of sadistic anger, or your mind has just lost the plot.
Quoting csalisbury
Yes, because he has quite often changed my views regarding different things. He was, unlike you, rational. Even when we disagreed he was rational. In fact most of the time we disagreed - but he is someone I respect nevertheless, because he was devoted to the pursuit of rationality and most often we disagreed at those points where evidence spoke both ways, and it as only a difference of the heart that produced disagreement - not of reason.
Quoting csalisbury
Yes, just the same way one shouldn't be surprised that they get beaten up if they start swearing at random people on the street. This isn't to say that this SHOULD happen to them. I have never claimed that. So stop lying, and adding connotations which were never there.
Quoting csalisbury
Yes Doctor csalisbury, you are so right; that stereotype by the way is wrong - serial killers do not have a notion of sin or morality generally.
Quoting csalisbury
Yes because there is something highly aggravating about doing a wrong and then not admitting it. But I have proposed torture in this thread for the worst crimes (probably 0.0001% of all crimes) - NOT for adultery for that matter. So again, you are a LIAR.
Quoting csalisbury
You have a diseased mind to recommend torture for a man who simply thinks that the worst crimes should be punished by torture - this must be that totalitarian mechanism of discipline that you want applied to everyone who rationally disagrees with you. Shame on you. Shame on you for the personal attacks as well. You ought to be embarrassed for being such a liar, especially on a philosophy forum, where matters have to be discussed rationally and honestly, without ad hominem attacks. I think Jack Nicholson's quote fits you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMzd40i8TfA
EDIT: And by the way, I have responded to your points. If you think I am wrong please go find my previous post addressed to you and respond rationally. Stop hiding behind these ad homs. Also - before you embarass yourself even more, please, I beg you, do some reading about serial killers. You have no knowledge. All you have is disgusting prejudice. Like serial killers had bad childhoods - quite many of them didn't actually (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201212/the-making-serial-killer). So please...
I agree in all cases except the cases I have described in this thread. An eye for an eye - the punishment must be adequate for the offence. When someone does such a grave offence, do you think life-prison is adequate as a punishment? :s
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, but in human society we have a duty to prevent the behaviour of our fellow citizens from becoming and being outrageous. That's why there exist all sorts of mechanisms to do this in virtually all societies.
Quoting Bitter Crank
But is this sufficient punishment? Living a diminished life, after they have mocked our justice system, after they have destroyed in the most brutal fashion other lives, and they have caused unimaginable suffering for others? I can't imagine being satisfied about such a punishment if one of my children had been the victim of such a person.
Quoting Bitter Crank
But how is this proportionate punishment compared with the crime they have committed? Or you don't believe punishment should be proportionate with the crime committed? If so, why not?
Quoting Bitter Crank
I have heard of quite a few people willingly go to prison. For some it's an upgrade compared to the life they were living outside. And that's the problem. Criminals should not enjoy their punishment, especially when their crimes are so serious.
Quoting Bitter Crank
That is just not true. Normal human beings cannot commit such atrocities as I have described in these posts. I'm not talking of your average murder or rape. I'm talking of the 0.0001% of crimes which are simply outrageous and inhuman. Regular, average crimes are terribly wrong, and must be punished, but they are neither inhuman nor outrageous.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Do you believe that life prison is sufficient punishment for such a person?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well quite honestly... what does my proposed punishment have to do with Hitler who mass tortured innocent people in the most brutal of fashions, etc.? And if it doesn't have anything - why are you bringing it up? It's quite offending to associate my proposals with the likes of Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin etc. I have not proposed the mass killing and torture of innocent people - but rather of only the most hideous crimes, for which there just isn't another means to make the punishment proportionate to the degree of the crime. Do you disagree that those crimes I have been talking about are the most hideous possible?
A proposed mechanism is the justification. As serial killers have very high pain tolerance, they do not suffer as much as everyone else from the "usual" pains of life. So torture could put in their minds the idea of how much their victims have suffered, and thus make them regret their actions. Do you think such a mechanism doesn't exist or is wrong? Why?
Quoting swstephe
But this isn't just crazy people... it's more than just crazy people. There is a difference between those in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" and serial killers. Do you not think so? I haven't seen "A Clockwork Orange" yet so I can't comment, my apologies.
But thing is, from my perspective at least, someone who has a mental health problem is debilitated - that means they cannot do things that normal people can do. Serial killers on the other hand can function like normal people, except that they perform the most hideous of crimes. To me, they do not suffer of mental illness the way those in "One Flew over a Cuckoo's Nest" do. There is some degree of pure evil in the serial killer that is absent in the mentally ill person. One pities and feels sorry for the mentally ill person, but not for the serial killer.
Your misunderstanding Sapientia is that the harshest punishment you can give is limited. Life in prison. That's it. But the atrocities of the crimes that can be performed is unlimited. How is that fair - how is that just?
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Proportionality is worth considering when the effect of a crime is measurable. For shoplifting, you pay a relatively small fine. With repeated convictions of shoplifting, you pay a fine and get sent to jail. For embezzlement and grand theft you pay a very large fine (if you can) and/or you go to prison and/or receive probationary supervision by the state. And so on.
Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion; he wreaked havoc in thousands of people's lives; he destroyed trust, security, and hope; he undermined confidence in the wealth management systems for his victims. He preyed on his own community, in many cases. He corrupted his own family. He lived a luxurious lifestyle on the savings of other people. His sentence was life w/o parole, but Madoff was fairly old already when he went to prison, so his time there will not be terribly long (probably).
For shoplifting and ordinary grand theft we can calculate proportionality. For Madoff, and like criminals, the crime is beyond the scale of punishments that could possibly be imposed.
For assault and battery we can calculate proportionality. Plain old murder in the first degree isn't the worst felony on the continuum of crimes, but it is beyond calculating proportionality. The lost life, say your child's, can not be brought back. Nothing can adequately compensate you or the dead child. You can be paid a settlement, but that won't really help very much.
Anders Breivik killed almost 100 people, most of them young people, in one afternoon, one by one. He was sentenced to life in prison. Proportionate? Of course not. But nothing that could be done to Breivik could possibly compensate for the scope of his crime.
Torture degrades the culture that plans and carries it out, and does not achieve compensation in exchange for the degradation.
I can not further resolve my rationale for not torturing offenders.
Okay but the destroyed lives, etc. are the result of his irresponsibility, it's not like he wanted to destroy them for the sake of destroying them - the way a serial killer for example kills people for really no reason... That's what is outrageous about it - that something so terrible is done for no reason.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This is a fair point. But if torture was introduced in the way I have outlined, you realise it would be used exceedingly rare (probably less than 0.001% of crimes) and even in those cases many would show remorse, even if faked, before it was used. What it would do is that it would prevent them for showing pride and arrogance in court for hideous crimes - it would simply deter that.
I follow your judgement, and I can understand why you think that way. I think this possibly combines with you not placing much value on the authority of the state, the sacredness of justice, etc. as I do - you place more value on not doing something degrading. I think it's very important for the state to show that to its people that it can keep them safe, and such criminals cannot undermine its efforts to keep the people safe and preserve justice. Fair enough though - although I would argue if someone like ISIS treats us like animals, and brutally kills, murders, and humiliates our people - then we have a right to do the same to them while defending ourselves, and should not try to treat them humanely, if they do not also treat us humanely.
[quote=Agustino]They don't even see it is wrong. This is absolutely terrible, absolutely! At least in the past, because they feared it, they knew it was wrong. Now they don't. Many act as if it's their RIGHT to commit adultery if they don't like it anymore. That's just insane (not to mention uncaring, selfish, and virtually all the other vices). There's very few things more reprehensible than such an answer, and it deserves the same kind of punishment that a psychopath who kills and rapes a young girl, and then mercilessly feels proud and unapologetic of it in front of her family in court deserves.Such people deserve torture, and gnashing of teeth until they beg for mercy (in other words until they repent and feel sorry for what they have done). Same category of sin - the murdering rapist and the self-righteous adulterer[/quote]
I would respond to your other points, but I've been sufficiently shamed and must withdraw to nurse my wounds.
Three connections:
1. To emphasize that the Nazi regime did not depend on psychopaths. Normal, fully human people operated the Nazi state.
The crimes of the Nazi regime were carried out by many thousands of people. For now, let's say 100,000 people were involved in the various apparatuses of terror that the Nazi's deployed in Germany, Poland, France, the USSR, the Baltic states, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Norway, and Denmark, Northern Africa (and anywhere else they occupied). The 100,000 worked in the Gestapo and the SS, not the Wehrmacht.
Let's say another 500,000 people willingly cooperated with, aided, and abetted the Nazis in the regime of terror, genocide, repression, and brutal control. Maybe 5% of these people had quite disordered personalities (psychopathic-sociopathic), most did not. They were morally, politically and socially perverted and disordered, but otherwise disturbingly normal and sane. The same goes for lynch mobs in the US, or Hutu machete mass murderers in Rwanda.
Normal humans are perfectly capable of committing horrendous acts. 99 times out of 100 they don't commit these appalling crimes without supporting political and social conditions, social prompting, social leadership, and judicial allowance.
2. To emphasize that there is no adequate punishment possible for the worse crimes.
The crimes of the 600,000 terror operatives, and many more who tolerated what they knew was happening, is far, far beyond adequate compensation. There is no conceivable way, whether torture, mass incarceration, perpetual expropriation of any accumulated wealth, etc. that could possibly repay the damage the Nazi regime exacted on the world (and if we include the rest of the Axis, the problem just gets proportionately worse).
There is no way for the people of Great Britain to repay the damages of the British empire. The US can't now, and never could compensate African slaves and Aboriginal people for the crimes we committed against them.
3. Appropriate responses to atrocity
What fully human, civilized people do in the face of very atrocious, disordered individual behavior is seclude them from the community (life without parole).
We don't yet have the means to predict, identify, and reform potential severely criminal behavior. If we can identify a psychopath, for instance, we don't have a means to change their brains. If we can predict that some children in some settings are likely to end up in prison, we can (if we are willing) do a great deal to improve their lives. Unfortunately, we aren't all that willing.
Perhaps we could predict which child in which setting is likely to join a gang and participate in drive-by shootings and criminal enterprises. Great. Identify away. But then comes the costly part -- doing something about the child's family life (retroactively?) that conditions them to behave in criminal behavior.
Faced with mass atrocious disordered collective behavior, we go to war and (we hope) crush the nations that perform such behavior.
In both cases, individuals and states, we seek to prevent future outbreaks of behavior. Or at least, we should. Prevention takes time, consistent, focused effort, and commitment of resources. The US, for instance, has brought an (virtually total) end to lynching and mob justice. It took decades and the work of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of activists to change the culture enough. (Eternal vigilance...)
Political/economic/military efforts like the EU have established a less militantly nationalistic and more integrated and peaceful Europe--at least since WWII, more or less. Treaty organizations like NATO have helped limit the potential of aggression in Europe (so I have been led to believe). There are no guarantees, of course, but these are the kinds of things that humans should do--future oriented, positive, non-punitive approaches to restructuring societies.
Once convicted and sentenced, I don't really give a rat's ass whether criminals like Madoff or serial killers feel or exhibit remorse or not. In prison they are and in prison they are going to stay, remorseful or vehemently unrepentant.
The "penitentiary" was first conceived by the Quakers as a way of salvaging the criminal--giving them a place to be penitent. It doesn't seem to have worked all that well.
Okay perhaps I went a bit over the top on the adultery, my apologies (although there is a reason why this is a different thread, and I have not advocated for the same punishment with regards to adultery in this thread, which was opened after I thought about the idea in the other thread firstly - it's a bit strange to bring contents from other threads to here but OK, I will answer them). On reflection, it doesn't deserve the same punishment as the psychopath. Although the thing that is problematic in both is that the wrong-doer does not admit to having done wrong. What is further problematic in the case of the psychopath is that he has no reason for doing the wrong he does. At least the adulterer has a reason, even if it is a twisted and morally wrong reason. So yes, I would still advocate for torture in the case of the unrepentent serial killer as it threatens the sacredness and strength of our justice system in a way adultery doesn't, but no torture in the case of the unrepentent adulterer, although I would advocate as Ciceronianus described civil punishments, probably quite severe, of a financial nature, as well as public support of the victim of the adultery and disrespect for the adulterer.
Quoting Agustino
Having said that, I retract calling you a liar on that point - my apologies once again. On the other points though, my case rests as it is :) . (as you see, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong, end of story - exactly as I have proven with the track record I mentioned in the post before. I'm one of the few people here who has admitted numerous times to being wrong, so it seems very strange to me that you would pretend it's the opposite - hence why you are lyin' csalisbury)
@Bitter Crank - I will respond soon to your posts! :)
You weren't asking me, but... what the hell.
Had it been up to me, I would not have executed the Nazis after Nuremberg. In their case, they might have served as a more potent warning to the future alive than dead. I would never have released them, and they would certainly not have been allowed the pleasure of any sort of celebrity. I wouldn't have tortured them, but I wouldn't exactly have left them alone in a cell either. I would have brought them face to face with the atrocities and crimes they committed again, and again.
I don't think the crimes of Nazi Germany pale in comparison to anything a serial killer can do. (Actually, they are kind of similar).
Yes: Germany had the legitimacy of a state, of a legal system, of a people. Like I said, only genuine, human, and normal people can commit world-class atrocities and crimes against humanity. But really, the Nazi's didn't care that much about legality. Reinhard Heydrich, for instance, made it very clear that he didn't want his terror operations interfered with by lawyers or state and party bureaucrats. He liked to have educated people on staff, but no lawyers or ethicists, thank you.
We can debate military strategy. Maybe Hitler should have invaded England, maybe not. Maybe Hitler should have launched Operation Barbarossa earlier in the year. Maybe Hitler should have planned for the Russian winter better. Maybe Hitler bit off more than the Germans could manage.
But outside of the activities of the Wehrmacht, not much about the Nazi state actually made sense or was rationally managed. The Todt Organization carried out Hitler's wishes and built all sorts of fortifications, barriers, pill-boxes, etc. Hitler apparently liked building these things. Hermann Goering thought many of the structures were a joke. They barely slowed down the D-Day invasion or the invasion of Germany proper. The submarine pens were, actually, pretty good defense against aerial attack -- they were heavily over-built.
Hitler and the Nazi party groped toward the final solution of the "Jewish Problem" over the course of 15 years. Had the Nazis been rational, they would not have had a "Jewish Problem" in the first place and instead could have benefitted from the contributions of loyal Jewish citizens. They wouldn't have had so much confusion over what to do with the Poles once they had conquered Poland, had they really had reasons for doing what they did. Had they been rational they would have kept the Polish population more intact so that they could have served Nazi interests more effectively, especially when Germany needed all the productive power it could get when it invaded the Soviet Union. Had they been rational, they would have played a liberationist role in Ukraine and Belorussia, rather than the vicious blood bath policy they followed.
The Nazi state was not well run from an administrative point of view. The tool of terror didn't prevent government contract waste, fraud, and abuse. Parts of the Nazi regime worked OK, but other parts were sluggish, unresponsive, and inefficient.
It seems like what you object to most about the serial killer is (1) he doesn't feel remorse and (2) his atrocities are senseless. I think (2) is scary because it bars us from doing what we normally do in the wake of trauma - tell a story that explains what happened. Explanation yields understanding which yields the sense of control that the trauma suspended. If you understand what happened you feel more able to prevent similar traumatizing irruptions in the future.
But if an adequate explanation of an outburst is impossible, then we can at least find some solace in the source of that outburst being as horrified as we are. His or her horror would signal an impulse to stave off any repetition of what transpired. Evil wouldn't be an infinite wellspring but an abberration which recoils from itself and self-corrects.
The serial killer offers neither palliative. He's a mute black hole which is unreachable. (The scariest version of Satan I can imagine is an old man (or young child) in an enclosed chamber, totally still, eyes wide open, transmitting evil into the world, but unreachable through language, almost insentient). He's an ineradicable black hole in those meaning/explanation-generating stories which make us feel safe and in control. Torture isn't about reforming such a person. It's a last resort in a control-crisis, a way of turning that black hole into an object over which we have total power.
The response to infidelity without remorse is similar. It's a panic response to the realization that love is never guaranteed and can always withdraw, no matter how perfectly you strive to deserve it. The desire to punish is an impotent wish to scare love so it will never leave us again.
The thing is, you can torture as many serial killers and punish as many adulterers as you want. But that won't stem the problem. The world itself is a ceaseless and remorseless generator of senseless violence. Serial killers, if you like, are 'places' in which being reveals itself utterly denuded. (Tho the sacred does the same, in a different register.)
Correct.
Quoting csalisbury
Yes and for the most part I never claimed otherwise. Hence the purpose of it is to preserve the sacredness of the Justice system and of society - without it, a severe threat exists, which manifests through the behaviour and actions of the serial killer which threaten the security and stability of our society. Hence why I emphasised that it is almost a transcendental problem - nothing else matters for society BUT destroying such a threat.
Quoting csalisbury
Here you are wrong and the analysis is very shallow. It's not a panic response to the realisation that love is never guaranteed. You probably have a different conception of love compared to me - you must certainly think love is a feeling, whereas I think love is a movement of the will. But this notwithstanding - even if you were correct and love were a feeling - it does not require infidelity to end a relationship/love. When love disappears, you would tell the other person that you do not desire to be in a relationship with them anymore because you don't have the same feelings, and you would have a divorce (if you were married) and there would be no infidelity involved. Neither would there be anything wrong (apart from the cruelty) in that - it would be an honorable way to end the relationship, even though cruel. So the vulnerability of love is NOT what causes this response to infidelity, because such a response would not exist if one exited the relationship without infidelity. Rather the problem with infidelity is that it is a DECEPTION - it is cheating someone, it is putting them in disrepute, it is disconsidering them as a human being - and when this is followed by lack of remorse, there is a desire to punish it, so as to prevent/discourage such a wrong from happening in the future. As I have illustrated, there is an honorable and dignified way to exit the relationship - and it's not infidelity - which contributes to making infidelity so wrong. Infidelity harms another human being and degrades them, as well as degrading the person who participates in it. The problem with it is not one of insecurity - it is one of it simply being wrong and unjust towards someone else.
Quoting csalisbury
I disagree with this. You have a very technological interpretation of the world. My interpretation and worldview is poetic, and for me, sub specie aeternitatis, good triumphs. There can be no "senseless violence" without first there BEING something. So the creative act of existence is prior to the evil "senseless violence" that happens always after this fact. That is why, sub specie aeternitatis, and logically speaking, evil can never be primary - rather good always is. And this further exacerbates the problem of the serial killer. We feel it as a threat not only to society, but to the nature of the whole of existence!
Indeed, but as you yourself state, such people can only commit atrocious acts when blessed with the legitimacy of the mob or state. This at least makes us capable of understanding these actions. They are tragic and immoral, but we can nevertheless understand the situation.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Indeed I agree with you in the case of the Nazi regime, or in those cases where the atrocious acts are blessed with the legitimacy of groups. There is no way to undo the damage.
Quoting Bitter Crank
In the case of those events I will agree with you. But the serial killer incident is very different. Here someone based on their own authority commit such an act. In this case the person can be punished. In the previous cases where the acts of the individual are blessed with the legitimacy of the group, the responsibility is divided and shared. In the case of the serial killer it's not. He has no excuses. An individual from the group has many excuses which reduce his responsibility.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I probably would. A victorious nation must establish legitimacy over the conquered, and slaying the leaders is one of the manners of doing this. I wouldn't have tortured them though. In their case, the responsibility was shared. Furthermore, not killing them gives them the potential chance of escaping and/or promoting their values - the way Napoleon escaped and came back.
Quoting Bitter Crank
How could you have done this?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes only genuine, human, and normal people can do this SO LONG AS THEY HAVE THE AUTHORITY OF A GROUP. These people are understandable though - we can understand their actions in light of them being given legitimacy by the group.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Of course, but this is not to say Nazi Germany was irrational - it was just inefficient, but it's aims were rational, albeit twisted and evil. In the case of the serial killer it's his AIMS that are irrational.
The more I read the bios of the core Nazi group, the more undecided I am about whether the Third Reich was actually rational. On one level it was, on another level it wasn't. The united German state was still relatively young when the Nazi Party was conceived in the early 1920s, but there were various and sundry institutions which had been operating for a long time -- military, civil, industrial, educational, and religious organizations, administrative systems, etc. All of that stuff was typical, run-of-the-mill, rational.
To the extent that the Nazi Party occupied the previously existing institutions, these old institutions remained rational, if corrupted. What seems irrational to me was the way the Nazi Party operated over and above the old institutions, rapidly and severely torquing Germany into a twisted mess.
The Nazis weaseled their way into power by violence, deceit, and terror. A small core group built up a great deal of personal/state power very rapidly (Heydrich, Goering, Himmler, Goebbels, Hitler, etc.) which further twisted Germany. True enough, a lot of Germans tacitly or overtly approved of some of the twisted policy.
Were the top Gestapo Leaders, for instance, sociopaths, "normal criminals", or merely operatives in a state? Some writers have suggested that authoritarian principles were deeply imbedded in child-rearing and educational / training practices. If so, we shouldn't be surprised by the way the Nazis led and the way the German people followed.
Some of them had to be at least half psychopathic / sociopathic. (Some psychologists suggest that a little psychopathy is very helpful in top administrative personnel.) A psychologically normal person can hate a group of people. I don't think a normal person could be in charge of Auschwitz, live there with his family, and be a normal person. Probably his wife couldn't either. The same thing applies down the line.
But then, one has to ask themselves, can ANY highly ambitious, aggressive climber -- be it in the military, business, church, politics -- be entirely normal? It gets kind of iffy. Take Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Scott Walker, any of the Bush clan, et al: Can one trust anyone who really wants to run the United States, Russia, China, Brazil--or Panama, for that matter?
Sometimes it seems doubtful.
Why does it seem irrational to you? I suppose that their aim was to take over Germany, so of course they infiltrated through all its institutions and changed them.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The thing is though, they did win the election. If they hadn't won the election, they probably could not have expanded their power through the German control apparatus, regardless of the violence, deceit and terror.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It's hard to say they are criminals or sociopaths - criminal is largely someone who does something against the state (the law), and sociopath is someone with antisocial behaviour - not exactly the best descriptions. More like immoral operatives in the state.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Indeed, I agree here. I think they could have started normal, but I think taking parts in such activities would have, over time, destroyed their souls.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I wouldn't consider the likes of Ghenghis Khan, Alexander the Great, etc. as abnormal (if by abnormal we mean something negative). They had one quality/virtue, which in my view is highly to be praised - greatness of mind or dignity of character - surmounting great odds, risking their lives for something greater than themselves, courage, disregard for their own lives, enlightened folly to engage in a task of gigantic proportion + be succesful at it, and amazing organisational/leadership capabilities. Would I trust such a person? Obviously not 100%, but I generally don't see why not. I'd be more likely to trust them, than trust a common person for example - probably because I admire Alexander, but I don't admire a common person without getting to know them first.
You could put the serial killer in maximum security, or kill him if you like. He can't hurt anyone then. What your proposed remorse-yielding torture does, on the other hand, is transubstantiate the limitless 'black hole' of senseless evil into a determined, limited object over which we can exert absolute control.
Well, I think part of love is a feeling. I think love is very complex and made up of all sorts of things - memory, respect, dedication, empathy, trust, frustration, fear etc. Will's a big part of, but I would disagree that love simply is a movement of the will.
There are lots of kinds of deception, but infidelity appears to be particularly irksome for you. So I don't think the deception aspect in-and-of-itself is what gets your goat. I'd pose that the reason this particular deception is so painful, especially without remorse, is that the person disgracing and dishonoring you is the same one you've grown to trust with your most powerful feelings.
I'm not sure what you mean by my interpretation of the world being technological? There are many types of poetry and in many of them good does not always triumph. I think I have a gallery of competing poetic worldviews (and a few scientific ones). Sometimes they harmonize and stay a while as hybrids, sometimes they clash and I feel an emotional or philosophical drive to try to work it out.
Creation doesn't strike me as inherently good. I think you'd have to unpack your reasoning a bit. And if, sub specie aeternitas, good always triumphs, then how can there be such a thing as an actual threat to the nature of the whole of existence?
Yes but would you disagree that your limitless 'black hole' is a threat to society that society must eliminate by assuming control over it?
Quoting csalisbury
I think there often is a feeling associated with love, but in and of itself, love is a free decision of the will. To really love someone you have to first want to love them. That is why "I don't have the same feelings for you... I don't love you anymore... sorry" doesn't work - not having the feelings is not a reason not to love anymore. This isn't to say that it is impossible to stop loving someone - only that not loving anymore bears directly one one's character - it is entirely one's responsibility. It has to be "I have decided not to love you anymore" - thus one is NOT the victim of external happenings which are not in one's power when one stops loving.
Quoting csalisbury
Sure. But loyalty is one of the greatest human values, and hence all forms of deception are serious. Deceptions of love are most serious though, because they involve the whole being, not just a part.
Quoting csalisbury
It's more than just this - it's that this deception destroys or assaults your own being in a direct manner that other deceptions generally don't. It's not only that one trusts the other being - it's more sinister. It's as if one whole is broken in half - it's a direct trespass on morality by breaking what is.
Quoting csalisbury
The world being a ceaseless generator of violence - you see the world as a machine, purposelessly doing an activity and being unable to stop. This machinistic interpretation of the world forms what I consider a technological worldview - where you necessarily end up seeing yourself as a victim used by an impersonal and blind process which cannot be related to, and which (in this case) is aimed at nothing. It is like you have taken the serial killer and projected him unto Being itself - Being has assumed the form of the serial killer. Then retrospectively, you find the serial killer, and find him to be closest to Being itself. Of course! You have (unconsciously almost) assigned this vision to Being in the first place! In fact - the serial killer may very well be a form of consciousness that is only possible under such a technological view. I'm not sure, but I think the very notion of serial killer is quite modern in origins, same as this technological view of the world.
Quoting csalisbury
I said we feel (perceive) it as a threat to the nature of the whole of existence, not that it really and actually is. And it is percieved so because it is the closest that one can get to being denuded of Being - to non-Being. Thus crushing the serial killer re-enacts the moment of Creation - the triumph (or primacy) of Being over non-Being, hence the catharsis that is derived from it.
1. Goodness is the standard of itself and of the bad.
: In other words we start from knowing the good, and then, only in comparison, discover the bad.
2. Nothing is bad in itself, but only bad in comparison with the good.
: results from an understanding of (1)
3. Pure Being has no opposite (non-Being doesn't exist)
: results from an understanding of Being and non-Being
4. As nothing is bad in itself, Pure Being cannot be bad in itself.
: from (2) and (3)
: If Pure Being were bad in itself, then there could be no goodness (as everything that exists participates in Being). But if there was no goodness, then there could be no bad, because the bad is known only in comparison with the good. Thus Pure Being cannot be bad. QED.
5. Therefore Pure Being can only be good (that is if it is good and not neither good nor bad at all, I will leave that possibility open for now)
This illustrates that Pure Being (or denuded Being as you say) can only share the structure of goodness.
Love is a progress. At the beginning, it is all feeling and emotional rush. Later (months at most, one hopes) the heat cools, and love becomes more sober, more thoughtful. Complexity of feeling, thought, interaction grows. The couple now has a history. The importance of will grows. The two halves of the pair look deeper; overlook; decide to accept, decide to ignore, Eventually, they decide they will not part. Maybe they get married, or just commit. maybe they take out a mortgage (more binding than a marriage contract), get a house and a dog, some furniture, stuff. Time goes on; years pass; they are still together. There is rough sledding, and they remain a couple. Love grows, there are emotions that go with deepened love, but nothing like the first phase.
Maybe there is a crisis of one kind or another. Job loss; job finding in distant cities; unfaithfulness; sickness; accident; all sorts of problems. Will comes into play here, especially, when the partners respectively decide to stay together, not because they have to, but because they want to. Maybe they need each other as well as want each other.
Will won't get love going, but only will can sustain love over the long run. Love and Will are mutually strengthening.
Agustino is mutilating Spinoza here. Sub specie aeternitas refers to the infinite, that which is eternally true (or rather: that which is true regardless of time). It's "good" is not the ethical good but rather the coherency of the world at any point in time. The "necessary good" is that the world makes sense, not that it is ethical. As such there is no "creative act," no change in the world, which is impossible or makes no sense. The "inherent good" in creation refers to the logical coherency of all existence states.
Even an adultery committing serial killer is "good" sub specie aeternitas, in that it is a logical necessity that state is itself and possible. There isn't a world which can be "protected" from the existence of such a entity. If existence presents an adultery committing serial killer, we are powerless in the demand for the world to be otherwise. No matter how much we might wish existence was otherwise, no matter how much our feelings might insist that such an evil state must be impossible, we are stuck with the adultery committing serial killer. This is a bit similar to "divine authority" in many theistic beliefs, the notion of the inevitable world which "makes sense," just without the delusion it's ethical.
In the context Agustino is talking about, ethics, the world is not necessarily good. Frequently, the "good" sub specie aeternitas is an ethical abhorrence.
Alas, Agustino has not learnt this. He still thinks we can use logic to inoculate the world against evil, that ethical action is necessary for the world to make sense. He cannot accept there is sometimes evil and we can do nothing to stop it. That's why he treats ethics as if it is a question of "paying for" or "resolving" injustice, rather than of acting ethically.
The delusion we can so something which wipes past injustice from the world is the only way he can avoid the glare of the nasty truth: we cannot do anything about injustice; when injustice occurs, the moment is spoiled forever and nothing can fix it.
No, I wouldn't disagree. And we can have control over him or her by putting them in a maximum security prison. I think torture is a turn-of-the-screw (pun intended) that stems from psychological - not social - needs. Even if we have control of the serial killer, just the fact that he's still there, man, how chilling. Even killing him doesn't quite do the trick. But by torturing him, we (delusionally) feel as though we can transmute the senseless and uncontrollable into the eminently controlled. Just like the hero gets a victorious rush cutting a single head of a hydra.
I'm having trouble reconciling these two quotes. How can crushing senseless evil be a re-enactment of the moment of creation if there could be no evil before creation? If the moment of creation was a triumph over something else, which elicited its wrath, then what it triumphed over would have to precede creation. (Idk if you've read Schelling, but if you want some fascinating discussion of the paradoxes of evil and creation, he's your guy.)
Yeah, Agustino's marriage of retributive justice and enlightenment philosophy baffles to me to no end.
Very good - this is a phenomenology of the experience I am critiquing, which is the modern experience of love. Human consciousness has not always experienced love in this way, which is what I'm arguing. The experience that is unavailable to modern consciousness is the experience of the movement of the will, which occurs first, prior to the feeling. Prior to falling in love with someone, one has to decide who to fall in love with - most people are not aware of this happening in the modern age - it doesn't happen on a conscious level. They just find themselves having a feeling, that's the start of their consciousness about it. But notice, that if your will does not take part in this, it is impossible to fall in love or have that feeling. That's why we don't fall in love with teenage girls, etc. except in very rare circumstances. That's why we don't fall in love with relatives, etc. Before first falling in love we must want to fall in love, whether we are conscious of this or not. So yes - will can get love going. I can make myself develop the feeling of love if I want to for example. Not instantly, but over time, for sure. And the frustrations of love is that sometimes this feeling is there, and sometimes it is not - we don't always feel it. Typically in the beginning we feel it, and there are many other moments through out when we feel it, but definitely not all the time.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not only - it refers to the conditions of the world which are prior to, and not affected by, the fall into time.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Your false philosophy makes you agree with all sorts of statements we know a priori to be nonsensical. The serial killer simply cannot be "good" sub specie aeternitatis. In fact, the serial killer cannot exist sub specie aeternitatis. What exists in the world, does not exist, in the same way, sub specie aeternitatis. What exists sub specie aeternitatis is that which is beyond time.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No it's not necessary for the world to be coherent - but it's a demand of our spirit.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Except we can do something about it :)
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Justice does not mean undoing the wrong. It means giving the wrong-doer what they deserve - that we can do.
Quoting csalisbury
No, because he accepts being in prison. For him, it's not something bad.
Quoting csalisbury
Being has primacy over non-Being as I have stated. Myths of creation imply this primacy of Being over non-Being.
Quoting csalisbury
I'm reading Schelling's Historical Critical Introduction to Philosophy of Mythology right now actually ;)
What enlightenment philosophy? Have I associated this with Hegel, Kant, etc? :s
Spinoza, after my reading, is pre-modern. Hume is also pre-modern.
Actually, it does help a large number of victims, both psychologically and practically. So, you're wrong to ignorantly dismiss it or attempt to understate its importance. And what better alternative do you have to offer? Torture the criminal? Are you joking? There are very few professionals who endorse extreme sadistic punishment as a healthy way of dealing with issues resulting from being the victim of a crime. I wonder why. My advice would be to seek guidance from better sources than ancient literature, or at least adopt a more sensible interpretation. No, we shouldn't stone criminals or bash babies heads against rocks or commit genocide or drown almost everyone alive, despite it being in the Bible.
Quoting Agustino
You are not the sole arbiter of what is and isn't just. Fortunately, it doesn't work that way. If people like you were in charge, the world would be a worse place.
Quoting Agustino
It's not about any particular case, it's about what the law should be; and my position is the same, regardless of any historical or hypothetical case you cite; regardless of whether there's a strong feeling that they deserved death or worse.
Quoting Agustino
It's not just my alleged misunderstanding. Your allegation applies to every single one of the 159 national governments who became party to the UN Convention Against Torture, and every single subsequent government who has not sought to renege on that commitment.
How is it just? The clue is in the full name, which includes the words "cruel", "inhuman" and "degrading". Like it or not, we live in a civilised society. We don't crucify people or burn them at the stake - no matter how great the "sin".
Depends how you define help. If you define help as making them feel as secure as they felt before the crime, then NO, they are not helped by it, full stop. If you define "help" as providing a "crutch" which helps them manage, then yes, some of them are helped. I don't consider such to be help though - only misleading us that we have solved the problems, when in fact we haven't.
Quoting Sapientia
Sadistic punishment isn't a way to deal with being the victim of a crime. It's a way to punish the criminal of an equally offensive crime - it's the demand of justice, ie an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Quoting Sapientia
I tell you why: progressive culture; it's a phenomenon that has existed for limited periods of time before in history as well. Nothing new under the sun. This combines with the delusion that "we" are more moral and morally superior to the people who came before. It happened before in history! Look at the golden age of the Islamic Empire for example. They're decadence also started with progressivism, the same way as ours has. They also thought they were more moral than those before, because they no longer fought, they were educated, civilised.... nonsense!
Quoting Sapientia
If the laws of the state are to stone criminals, then criminals will be stoned. If you think those laws should be changed (as I do, for example), fair enough, then put a reason as to why forward (I would say because the punishment is too severe for the offence), and try to convince the other citizens. A criminal shouldn't commit crimes in a state where the laws state that the punishment is stoning if they don't want to be stoned. It's that simple really.
"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do you disagree with proportionate punishment? If so, why? Also, before you jump up with all sorts of nonsense, you should be aware that this passage is metaphorical. The metaphorical meaning is that the one who does justice will be happy. It also means that the injustice of Babylon has been so great, that an extremely severe punishment (alike throwing their babies on stones) is deserved - just like in the case of the serial killer in this case. Another meaning of the passage, is that this punishment will befall on the guilty sooner or later - a promise from God to Israel in this case. Because unlike your false justice, God promises REAL JUSTICE to be delivered to those who were injured.
There is no instance in the Bible of human beings drowning everyone. There is also no instance of genocide. Do not mistake war for genocide. War is war, and has been fought all through history, regardless of your sensibilities to it.
Ok, agreed.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't think so.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, say this to the government of the US regarding Guantanamo.
Quoting Sapientia
We don't. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss what the law is, or that we should disrespect each other for having divergences on what the law should be. I think that the serial killer is "inhuman", "cruel" and "degrading" and thus fully deserves a punishment which includes "cruelty", "inhumanity", and "degradation". It's the results of the seed that he sowed.
Well, that just goes to show that if you measure something with a skewed tool, then you'll get skewed results - which may well turn out to be unsatisfactory to some, as in this case.
And if you're implying that your proposed "solution" is somehow an exception to these kind of problems, or is superior, then I think you're mistaken.
Quoting Agustino
If you don't think of it as being a way to deal with being the victim of a crime, yet you criticise victim support, then what's your alternative? Or don't you have one? Your criticism doesn't seem constructive. Despite the fact that victim support in the form of counseling is no simple cure, it has been shown to be effective in a number of cases, and it is a good thing that it's there and available to victims of crime.
The whole "eye for an eye" approach to justice is often fairly characterised as overly simple, immature, and vicious. To have progressed so far only to go back to darker days would be to our detriment.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, culture has progressed in many ways, and in many ways which are positive. I'm not going to bemoan the trend to frown upon backwards thinking. Here in the UK, for example, we have civil rights, the NHS, the minimum wage, universal sufferage, and we no longer have conscription, corporal punishment, and the death penalty.
Quoting Agustino
No, that attitude of respecting the law despite its abhorrent nature is far too lax, in my view. Human rights violations should be taken far more seriously and not be subjected to the same standard as other laws.
And yes, one shouldn't commit a crime in a state where the laws state that the punishment is stoning if they don't want to be stoned; but no, it's not that simple, because the law might be unjust, the crime might be trivial, and the punishment might also be unjust. It would be unwise to do that, but if the crime was, say, adultery, and the punishment was stoning, then that law is unjust and abhorrent, as is any apologism on behalf of the state or religious authorities.
Quoting Agustino
I disagree with unconditional proportionality in that regard, and, in the matter at hand, those conditions would of course include those in the UN Convention against Torture. But I also disagree with many other implementations of that form of punishment in other contexts, such as parenting, schooling, and in other social settings on account of it being, as I said, overly simplistic, immature, and viscous, as well as counterproductive.
Quoting Agustino
No shit. You don't say?
Quoting Agustino
I did not claim that it was, according to the Bible, [i]humans[/I] that drowned almost everyone. I was referring just to the act itself. The point was that the moral of the story implies that it was an act of justice.
And you're wrong: there is indeed genocide in the Bible, regardless of [i]your[/I] sensibilities; just as there has been, for that matter, genocide in war. (It's classed as a war crime, for your information).
Quoting Agustino
I have done, if I recall rightly. I've signed Amnesty International petitions.
Quoting Agustino
I haven't said otherwise, and I've remained civil enough throughout this discussion - unlike some. But some views, as well as some of the people who espouse them, deserve little-to-no respect. I feel under no obligation, for example, to treat an ardent racist or homophobe as respectfully as I would any other person. But this is a digression.
Quoting Agustino
And I think otherwise. I think that that's the easy option, and involves a lack of restraint, and a caving in to savage-like emotions and vice. I think that we ought to be better than that and take a more virtuous path.
1 Samuel 15:2,3
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [a] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"
Hosea 13:16
16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
t[u]heir little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open[/u]."
Psalm 137
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!” [referencing the destruction of the Temple)
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
...
9 [b]Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.[/b]
Actually, God has a habit of ordering the killing of children--all for the greater glory of his sublime divine self.
Psalm 136:10
to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
Noted in "Gentiles in the Hands of a Genocidal God" (Christianity Today)
Joshua 6:21-27
21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
Here is a fun-scurrilous passage from a Abrahamic-religion-unfriendly blog:
Psalm 139
God is your Facebook stalker, the one who catalogues your every word and gesture, even, apparently if you go to hell. There are some more scary-stalker verses about how god watches us when we sleep, followed by an imprecation to please, please, please kill the wicked.
Surprisingly, this is also what I want to say to you :)
Quoting Sapientia
No, I'm implying my proposed solution does justice.
Quoting Sapientia
My alternative is to do justice, and to show the victims that those who hurt them will be punished as they deserve to be punished, and thus reassure them that the mechanisms of society exist to protect them.
Quoting Sapientia
Right... you have the NHS LOL! :D Have you ever been seriously sick and had to be taken care of by... the NHS? I think you haven't... then you would certainly not be wearing the NHS with pride. Go book yourself in a public hospital in, for ex., Bulgaria, and you will see it's a hundread times more efficient than NHS.
A family friend recently almost died actually in the UK because of the NHS. And other people I know have also had terrible experiences with it.
Quoting Sapientia
There is nothing abhorrent about the law, if it is against something that the citizen can avoid. If the law is against eating - that is abhorrent, because it's not something a citizen can avoid. If the law is against adultery for example, nothing abhorrent, because it is something the citizen can avoid.
Quoting Sapientia
What determines "human rights"? The UN? Pff. No, the laws determine what your rights and obligations are.
Quoting Sapientia
It's not a question of unjust. The law IS just, it may however be too cruel for the crime in question. But not unjust.
Quoting Sapientia
Why is it unjust and abhorrent? I see absolutely nothing unjust with it. Adultery is something that can be avoided. Adultery is something that harms people. Therefore it deserves to be punished. Stoning may be too harsh of a punishment, agreed. But it does not follow that the law is unjust. It is just, because it punishes what should be punished. It may be cruel, because the punishment is too harsh for the offence, but that's all.
Quoting Sapientia
It WAS an act of Justice. Those people, according to God, who was the supreme authority, and the supreme law, deserved that punishment. Who are you to say otherwise? Have you made thyself in some sort of God capable to judge everything according to standards of your choosing?
Quoting Sapientia
Nope - war is war, and justice is justice as I will show regarding the examples BC has provided later. "War crimes" - there are no such things. It's a post-fact rationalisation for the winner to justify punishing the loser - "war crimes". NONSENSE! No crimes are possible in war, when the law is suspended. Cruelty is possible. So a group of soldiers should not go in a village and rape and murder all the women there. Not because this is a war crime, but because this is cruel and immoral, and it is inflicting unnecessary suffering. If they did so, I see no grounds to punish them by law - I do see grounds to disconsider them, and look down upon their immorality, chastise it, and even punish it - but such would not be justified by law - it would just be an action I take on behalf of a justice that is greater than the justice that can be provided by the law.
Quoting Sapientia
No arguments or values that are rationally supported deserve little to no respect. If someone comes here defending racism, you must show them that this is rationally unsupported. You can't disconsider them, because they may have a rationally valid argument. And if you disconsider them, then don't be surprised that the Saudis disconsider you when you go to their country for holding values that are opposite to theirs :) People need to respect each other, and stop with stupid prejudiced judgements.
Quoting Sapientia
Quoting Agustino
Thanks for admitting you think the serial killer is NOT inhuman, cruel and degrading. This makes sense now that you wouldn't want an inhuman, cruel, and degrading punishment for him. Also, there is no "lack of restraint" or caving in to savage-like emotions. The punishment is done by law, not under the control of an emotional reaction.
As you're appealing to anecdotal evidence I thought I'd butt in to say that several of my friends and family in the UK have been seriously ill, including very serious malignant cancers. They were all treated extremely well by the NHS, with the latest technologies and techniques, and by some of the best doctors in the field, and they got better. My experiences with the NHS have all been good.
Maybe in terms of cancer treatment they may be effective, that I do not know. But what I do know is that their waiting queues are huge, many of their GPs don't know how to do a simple task such as read an ECG (even I can read and measure an ECG - and I'm not a medical professional - people I know now prefer to send me their ECGs online to read them instead of go to the NHS GP who assigns them to see a cardiologist, who they can see in a few months time - that's if they're lucky and they see the cardiologist and NOT a nurse), hospitals are disorganised and the right hand does not know what the left does - a doctor's personal secretary does not know what the department secretaries know for example, doctors treat patients as words on a computer screen, and instead of listening to the patient, they prefer to dwell on the records that exist in their computer, doctors order tests on the patients as they see fit, without discussing whether a test is necessary or not with patients (and most of the time it actually isn't), doctors have little or no intuitive judgement, and blindly follow procedures, etc.
It's single-handedly one of the worst healthcare systems I have ever seen or heard about. It's a total disaster, it may as well be worse than ObamaCare. I pray for all those who must be at the mercy of NHS, and I wish them the best of luck, because they will really need it.
The NHS may have one of the best technologies in the world, but it's of no use when you don't have sufficient doctors, when your doctors do not think - but rather are bureaucrats following procedures, etc.
[/quote]
That's a lie, Agustino.
The point about the "good" (sub specie aeternitatis) of the serial killer is that the state expresses an infinite meaning, in the coherency of substance, of infinite (ethically) evil. I was never talking about the serial killer in terms of an existing state, only in the meaning which is regardless of time - an expression of infinite (ethical) evil, which is always true of the serial killer.
Oh, and nothing exists sub specie aeternitatis, as is it is beyond time (finite states, existing states). There on no conditions of the world prior to the prior to time. The world has no "fall into time." Existing states have always been of time. That's what they are distinct from sub specie aeternitatis.
[quote=Agustino]No it's not necessary for the world to be coherent - but it's a demand of our spirit.[/quote]
No, it's not. It's the demand of those who have not leant to deal with the pain of immorality, who think they are entitled to world in which there is no instance of immorality, who think they can somehow cage freedom such that immorality becomes impossible, who think they can get a perfect world by committing a genocide (I mean this both metaphorically and literally) of anyone who commits immoral behaviour.
It's a false idol. One where someone believes with all there heart in a perfection which is never there and who cannot see perfection when it occurs- they are always "trying for perfection" rather than doing perfection in an imperfect world.
[quote=Agustino]Justice does not mean undoing the wrong. It means giving the wrong-doer what they deserve - that we can do.[/quote]
Indeed. But you don't fully believe that. All the time you treat justice as if it is compensation to the victims, as if it is enacted to allow them to make sense of what's happened, about returning "honour" to the victim or giving a justification ( e.g. "Ah, now the killing of our daughters make sense. It was all for the torture of their killer ") for the presence of evil. You should know better than that. Evil never has a justification.
No, your alternative is to use torture, which you further assert constitutes justice. But as usual, it seems necessary to remind you that merely asserting that something is the case doesn't make it the case, and that your personal thoughts and feelings on the issue are not enough to support the sort of unqualified claims that you're prone to make.
To be continued, because I'm on a brief lunch break.
Instead of torturing psychopaths, we could just send them to the NHS to be treated for tonsillitis or hemorrhoids--that'd fix em right proper.
All doctors (practically speaking) are stuck in a bureaucratic morass. How long you have to see a patient, what can be done for a patient, what can be prescribed to a patient, etc. is determined by insurance companies, state medicaid programs, medicare, the hospital's resources, [or their national equivalents] and (for a few) their great wealth.
I can't say that all patients get excellent care. Some get too much (too much / too many medications, inappropriately prescribed antibiotics, too many investigative procedures, etc.) and some get too little.
Doctors generally chose medicine because it was (sometimes still is) highly remunerative, it's interesting, some even do it because it helps people. Generalists are eventually swamped with too much information to absorb and utilize, and specialties tend to operate in silos. A brain surgeon might not notice that the patients leg was chopped off at the knee (a rhetorical point).
And in the long run, for most people, what determines health and longevity are things like adequate diet, public health operations (inoculations, clean air, clean water, etc), safe work places and highway safety, not smoking, not drinking excessively, and so on. The average longevity of white women in the US has taken a recent dip because of a big surge in opioid drug use among working class women resulting in fatal overdoses. White men are dying earlier too lately, not for lack of medical care but for the collapse of their former raison d'être (regular work, adequate wages, standing in the community, drugs, alcohol, etc etc) Neither decline (about a year in the aggregate) owes anything to inadequate medical care. (It owes a lot to an inadequate society.)
Actually BC, what is known in the medical field as iatrogenesis is one of the leading causes of death in developed countries. We have replaced the priest with the doctor, and the doctor is a much worse healer than the priest in many instances, especially when the patient has as little medical knowledge as people in the Western world have. People can't read their own blood tests - this is unacceptable. Doctors have become some sort of Gods that we have to place our faith in - nobody questions the doctor because they are not capable - they don't have the knowledge to question them. And doctors make a huge number of mistakes, because our systems are flawed - we don't value excellence nowadays, and we reward all sorts of losers. People are not given the skills required to take care of their health - this should be taught, and tested with seriousness in all institutions of learning, just like mathematics is taught. It should be necessary to pass these classes to advance in one's study. Only strong, real leadership can fix the problems of the Western world in healthcare, as everywhere else. We have to be willing to reward real knowledge and skill, and punish laziness, inefficiency and the like. Doctors must be held accountable for their actions - right now, this is impossible. Doctors have formed a thick layer of bureaucracy to protect themselves, and nothing motivates them, no fear, to do a good job. That's why the jobs have become filled by such weak and ineffective people. It's a real shame.
This in fact is one other decadence of the Western world, a manifestation of the same attitude which has caused the moral decline I so often talk about. This progressive attitude has allowed the doctor to become immune to any and all accountability - just like in many places the adulterer has also become immune to accountability - this isn't right. We have to get our societies back in shape, and our people motivated to be excellent.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225187/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340604/
Are you for real? I assert it constitutes justice? No. I argued it constitutes justice. Justice is giving to each what they deserve (read Plato's Republic). The serial killer deserves "inhumanity" and "cruelty". Thus justice is giving the serial killer what he deserves.
I disagree. Sub specie aeternitatis there is no evil - only good. The fall into time (the fall from Paradise) is the beginning of evil.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
What's your argument for these statements?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No it's simply the demand of someone who has identified that immorality is NOT right, and hence must be remedied.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No - as I have stated, if freedom is removed, then moral excellence becomes impossible. Hence freedom must be maintained - it's a supreme value, because it's a condition for the possibility of the other values.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No this is again false. The punishment of the serial killer does justice, it doesn't ensure that no immoral behaviour will ever happen again. That's not it's purpose.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Except the perfection is there. We are always pulled towards perfection, sometimes we reach, sometimes we fall short - but what matters is that one CARES about reaching, and one is INTERESTED about reaching. What is happening in the modern world is that they don't give a shit about it anymore. You have the adultery committing husband, the murderer, etc. who do not CARE that they are falling short - so many young people in the Western world do not care - they just care about "fun" - as if fun ever had anything to do with perfection, morality, nobility or all the sentiments that represent the soul of men. This moral apathy is the problem.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Evil never has a justification - the purpose of justice is not to provide evil with a justification. It's simply to give evil the rewards that it deserves.
Unfortunately, this is true--something like 100,000 deaths per year in the US are the result of medical errors. The current epidemic of opioid abuse, which is resulting in an epidemic of OD deaths is a consequence of incompetence. Doctors shouldn't be writing Rx's for strong drugs (like oxycontin) WITHOUT regular face-to-face follow ups. If the condition is bad enough to need many pain pills, then it is bad enough to see the doctor before you get your next Rx for painkillers. If pain isn't improving, maybe a different approach is needed.
Why so many?
I tend to chalk up both good and not good performance in many fields to the system in which a job is embedded. That isn't to say that individuals don't vary; some are incompetent and some are excellent. But IF the system allows incompetence, then... you'll get a lot more doctor error, regardless of competence.
Sure, I've been in doctors offices a few times and wondered about the guy's qualifications. But even good doctors make mistakes. And the patient isn't necessarily able to evaluate a doctor at first glance.
I do agree very much that people need much more practical medical literacy, and they should start building up this skill early on.
Yep - this would, according to me, need to be part and parcel of the education we offer children in our schools. But it would imply introducing the idea of discipline into people's lives. Children will need to be taught that they need to be disciplined and responsible - and we need to create an environment where doctors can be more easily approached, and be more willing to discuss, rather than decide all by themselves for people.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is, if you're right, and being has primacy over non-being, then the torture of a serial killer doesn't make any sense at all as a 're-enactment of creation'. The serial killer's evil acts are what solicit retribution. To attribute this kind of retributive triumph to 'creation' is to imagine creation as a response to an evil which it overcomes. If this is what creation is like, than evil would necessarily precede (or, at the very least, be coeval with) good, which you have clearly stated is not the case.
It's an allegorical or metaphorical re-enactment - not a literal one. Metaphorical it illustrates the primacy of Being over non-Being. Of course literarily this can't be illustrated, because it would mean to give at least equal primacy to non-Being which is impossible.
Yeah, but then it's a really terrible metaphor which doesn't make sense.
No it doesn't make sense at all, literal or metaphorical. A reaction is a bad metaphor for an absolute creation.
Now I know you will yada yada me and say "Oh yeah, but wait a minute, because Creation implies a moment before creation, and so a moment when Being had not yet triumphed over non-Being, etc. etc." - misses the point of a metaphor. That's a literalist interpretation - technological, not poetic.
No that's almost the opposite of where I'm going with this. Naturally, there couldn't be a moment before creation. That's the point. It's the metaphor of triumph itself which relies on something preceding creation that must be triumphed over.
Serial-Killer-torture-as-metaphor-for-creation-as-metaphor-for-primacy-of-being does violence both to this:
[quote=Agustino] 1. Goodness is the standard of itself and of the bad.
: In other words we start from knowing the good, and then, only in comparison, discover the bad.
[/quote]
& this
[quote=Agustino]Pure Being has no opposite (non-Being doesn't exist)
: results from an understanding of Being and non-Being[/quote]
It may be 'just a metaphor' but, as a metaphor, it suggests a view of being and good antithetical to the one you profess to propose.
The point of all this is that you have this assertion of the primacy of good, but all you seem to talk about is retribution and retributive metaphors. There's a disconnect here.
Yes, I'm "for real". You're merely using one assertion to support another. I dismiss your assertion that it's what they deserve.
Quoting Agustino
You're wrong. I don't know why you'd jump to that conclusion. Not very clever. You know very little about my personal life.
Quoting Agustino
Not according to some research which actually puts the NHS at the top of the list. I'm not aware of any research which puts Bulgaria way above the UK. I find that claim more than a little dubious.
Quoting Agustino
I find that incredibly simplistic, unreasonable and heartless. I also think it frankly foolish to place such authority in the law, regardless of its content or the circumstances in which the crime was committed. Your criteria for judging the morality of a law is severely lacking, and leads to the subservient acceptance of gross injustice.
Quoting Agustino
I'm sorry, but this is just dumb and unfit for modernity. If the law says "Jump of a cliff" would you jump of a cliff? Simon says "think for yourself". Rights and obligations are entirely separate from the law, and may or may not coincide with the law. There is such a thing as an unjust law, and citizens are not obligated to act in accordance with such laws - even Hobbes thought as much in at least some cases.
Yes, the UN sanctions human rights, and member states of the UN must accord with these human rights.
Quoting Agustino
No, don't understate it. It's not just a harsher punishment, it's unjust and abhorrent, like I said, and if you can't see that then you ought to look deeper within yourself and examine your conscience.
Yes, adultery harms people, as do countless other acts which are not against the law, nor should be, so that's a very poor argument. There are certain acts which citizens deserve the right to privacy, and to be free from state oppression, and that is one of them. This is called liberalism, and it contrasts with totalitarianism.
Quoting Agustino
This is just laughable. If you think that drowning almost everyone alive is an act that can be justified, then you've lost all moral credibility and your judgement cannot be relied upon.
I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist.
Quoting Agustino
That's more credibility gone down the drain.
Quoting Agustino
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. But yes, the serial killer is not inhuman. The serial killer is human. And it is debasing and uncivilised to treat the serial killer in the inhuman, cruel and degrading manner that you endorse - regardless of whether or not you are of the opinion that he or she deserves it.
Quoting Agustino
Yes there is: that's your motivation for desiring there to be such a law! Like csalisbury said, torture stems from psychological - not social - needs.
Good, then I also dismiss everything you've ever said, with the same handwave you dismiss what I say. Let's see where we get with that :D
Failure to respond to arguments - you know that you are wrong Sapientia, you just don't want to admit it, and you would hold onto your liberalist fantasies regardless of whether they were shown to be absurd - I know you would, because this is an emotional matter for you. You WANT things to be this way. At least admit it. Admit that even if you were shown to be wrong, you would still believe it.
Quoting Sapientia
I didn't say I know anything about your personal life. All I said was that I think you haven't been sick, because it would mean you haven't been in touch with the NHS, and so you don't know how the NHS actually is (except from published "research"). So NO - I didn't jump to a conclusion. It's not a conclusion, it was a reasonable assumption, which if it is false, then I was wrong but not unreasonable in making it. The assumption was based on my knowledge that the NHS is bad, combined with your statement that it is good.
Quoting Sapientia
Right because this research is not biased :D Imagine if they put Bulgaria above UK - your own citizens would go crazy, revolution time! Research like this quite often does not correspond to the reality as told by people who interact with the system.
Quoting Sapientia
Right, an organisation which CANNOT enforce these on its member states determines what human rights are... what nonsense. A state can determine the laws because it has the means to enforce them. Being able to enforce them is what gives them legitimacy. The UN can't - and thus, when it comes to this subject, the UN really has no legitimacy. That's why things like Guantanamo happened, and will keep on happening until we take charge of our own states and politicians and stop expecting some fake global government body to do it.
If the law orders me to "jump off [two f's] a cliff" that would, under my "severely lacking" moral criteria be immoral, as it orders me to do something that will hurt me with no possibility to avoid it. That classifies as an immoral law in my system. Please at list think of better examples.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, or else what? They do what they did to the US for Guantanamo, ie nothing?
Quoting Sapientia
It's your opinion it is unjust and abhorrent. Fact of the matter is that justice simply is giving to each what they deserve. And so, justice is giving to the serial killer what he deserves. What does he deserve? He deserves to reap what he sowed. I've already laid out the argument before, and you have not responded to it in any thoughtful manner except repeat to me how it is abhorrent and yadda yadda yadda.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, I did do this, and then I saw the suffering that the many families of the victims have felt, and the misery and betrayal they must feel towards society, and I realised that such pain is unacceptable, and as a state I must take the most severe action against it. I can't ignore the suffering of these people, and not give them the assuarance that at least, if something like this happens to them, justice will exist.
Quoting Sapientia
Justify this please. Also justify why the assumption that otherwise it would be state oppression?
Quoting Sapientia
No it doesn't contrast with totalitarianism. It contrasts with conservatism, and with the way people have lived for the vast majority of history since we have been organised in societies. Liberalism is the fool's dream that man can be self-determined - and thus all means that prevent self-determination, such as gender (people are born of a certain gender) are evil and must be eliminated. That's why we allow and facilitate transexualism and the like. It's also the fool's dream that man's happiness requires that he become a self-sufficient island, instead of merely another link in the chain which we call society. That's why our communities are disintegrating - that's why alienation is a modern problem. You don't want to admit it, but we do have a serious problem with adultery for example. Look at your own country - it's disgusting.
http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/130/590x/secondary/graph-378884.jpg
This is absolutely insane! A moral evil is allowed to exist in society, and we do nothing except sit with arms crossed while people are hurt, families are destroyed, etc. You claim you are moral - no, my dear friend, you are not moral. You are just selfish. It's all about "me me me, do as I want [of course in return for this you get to do as you want as well]". That's what you (and by this I mean people like you, not you in particular, so don't take this personally) do - you don't care about morality. All you care is that you are left free to do as you please, without regard for others. If you had any regard for people, you would be worried about the vast increase in adultery in Western societies over the last 50 years. You would be really worried, and you would be working on a solution. Fine, you don't like my proposed solution (legal sanctions for adultery), then what solution do you propose?? If you care about the people who are hurt, you must provide a solution. What is the solution? You offer no solution, to a glaringly obvious problem. Instead, you keep it under the carpet, so that it becomes culturally acceptable, and the people who are oppressed by it are marginalised. Because who knows, maybe one day you will commit adultery too, and you wanna get away from it easily. That, Sapientia, is the truth.
Quoting Sapientia
Ahhh! There we go, finally the immorality shows itself! Fine, if you care for such brutes like the serial killer, I don't see how you can claim to be moral.
Quoting Sapientia
It's a social need based on the psychological needs of people in society - people are human and they have a morality, despite what you may think. People don't have to take all sorts of shit and suffer at the hands of a maniac and not even be granted the justice they deserve.
No more than me saying the sun is a golden ball does violence to it by suggesting you can play soccer with the sun...
Quoting csalisbury
Is justice a good? Does justice give to the serial killer what he deserves? Is what the serial killer deserves exactly what he sowed? If so is retribution in this case Just? If so, then it follows that retribution is good in this case.
Well, 'golden ball' is a good - if boring - metaphor, because the sun is both (roughly) golden and spherical. A black cube, for instance, is not a good metaphor for the sun. While metaphors, quite obviously, are not Identical stand-ins, they need to share something essential with the thing they're a metaphor for (etymologically, they need to transport some sort of meaning.) Your serial-killer-cum-creation metaphor seems to be of the 'black cube' sort. I can't see how a retributive response is a good metaphor for sui-generis creation. Can you explain how your metaphor works and why it's a good metaphor?
Okay I see your misunderstanding. As I showed before, Being can only have the structure of good. Furthermore, I will make the position stronger - Being not only can only have the structure of good, but it actually has it; not a particular being, but Being itself. If you grant this, then the moment of creation shows the primacy of Being and Good. Likewise, the destruction of the serial killer by society in a just manner illustrates the primacy of Good (of which Justice is a part) - and it illustrates it particularly well, because as we have agreed before, the serial killer comes very close to someone denuded of Being (and hence denuded of Good); to non-Being(and likewise to the opposite of Good).
In the case of torturing an serial killer, an evil act elicits a response. The only sort of primacy, here, is a primacy of strength. Once, again, this simply does not work work as a metaphor for creation. This is what you're saying: A destructive response is a renactment of a creative self-caused act
Creation is destructive of non-Being on a metaphorical level. That's what primacy or triumph of Being over non-Being means.
Quoting csalisbury
No, I use that argument to assert the ontological primacy of Being (and Good).
Well, you only have yourself to blame. It's no good blaming me for responding in kind.
Quoting Agustino
1. What arguments? You feel that they deserve it, and you've given reasons as to why. I feel otherwise, and have also given reasons as to why. There is no God or higher authority that we can appeal to here in order to resolve this dispute. You're deluded if you think otherwise.
It's quite remarkable that you appeal to me to just simply admit that you are right and I am wrong - even though you have not demonstrated anything of the sort. There is obviously just a difference of opinion here, and your "argument" has failed to convince me to abandon my position in favour of yours.
2. No, I'll not admit to something that I don't believe, and neither would you, so cut the crap.
Quoting Agustino
Exactly, that's why it is a foolish thing to think. Not only do you know very little about my personal life, it is statistically likely that I would have been sick at some point in my life.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, well, now you know that you were wrong to think that. I have personally experienced the NHS on more than one occasion, and I also know that regardless of whether I have found those personal experiences to be positive or negative, that sort of anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much, and is outweighed by stronger evidence.
Quoting Agustino
Yeah, you did, but don't worry, you don't have to admit it. I might have better luck trying to get blood out of a stone.
Quoting Agustino
If you expect me to take seriously your charge of bias, you'll have to do better than that. Show me some undeclared special interest or something which undermines the credibility of the research group.
Quoting Agustino
Human rights need to be universal, so it can't be down to individual states. There are states which have a terrible record when it comes to human rights. It's funny that you say that we need to take charge of our own states, given that some states are undemocratic, and you have denied these citizens the right to disobey state law. How then do you expect this to happen? Divine intervention? A miracle?
Quoting Agustino
But that isn't an argument against the UN, or any similar body, [i]in principle[/I]; nor does it go in favour of your position. What has the US or any other individual nation state done to that effect? Nothing.
Quoting Agustino
Yawn. That's a lie. I've addressed your so-called argument and have responded in kind. My reply is no less thoughtful than the few simplistic assertions which, when grouped together, you call an argument. But, unlike you, I'll not readily repeat myself at the drop of a hat, because I try to avoid going round in circles and repeating myself ad nauseam.
Quoting Agustino
It's preposterous to equate stoning to death with adultery. They're not even close to being on the same level. That equation is disproved by your own principle of proportionate punishment. It's obvious to everyone but yourself that your views on sexual morality are biased, extreme and out of all proportion.
Quoting Agustino
Adultery is evidently a matter which concerns the parties involved: at the very least, the husband, the wife, and the (other) adulterer. Furthermore, it's evidently a private matter, although it can be brought out into the public, although this is often rightly condemned, as it really has nothing to do with anyone other than the parties concerned, unless it is relevant to one's job role, for example, but even that is quite controversial, and there's an ongoing debate about where to draw the line.
It is you who needs to justify state intervention into the private affairs and sex lives of individuals.
It's obviously state oppression when the state intervenes into the private sex lives of individuals in order to severely punish by extreme, inhumane, arcane, and, in actuality, widely banned methods, for nothing other than consensual sex outside of marriage - which isn't a crime in most developed secular societies.
Individual freedoms and rights would be oppressed by the state. It is, therefore, state oppression. These rights are written into law, and can be found if you care enough to look them up.
Quoting Agustino
Jesus, it's one ignorant and outright false statement after the other with you. Yes, they very clearly do. I'm not even going to waste my time defending that one.
And please do excuse me for skipping past your diatribe against transsexuals and promiscuity and the like. I've seen it all before. Blah de blah self-righteous, narrow-minded, judgemental claptrap.
Quoting Agustino
There you go again, putting words into my mouth, and reading too much into my acknowledgment of the simple fact that serial killers are human too.
Quoting Agustino
So, then, why don't you just move to one of those backwards nations where they do dish out that kind of "justice"? Why have you chosen to remain a part of Western society with our Western values and justice system which you seem to deplore?
I have seen no reason as to why, except that you think it is immoral (cruel, inhuman, etc.). But that to begin with is what you should have justified. I have just shown how justice demands so punishing the serial killer. Are you against justice? You could say that the enactment of justice should not degrade the one who enacts it. That would indeed be a smart thing to say. But you haven't. BC stated it, and I said it's a fair point. In fact, that is THE ONLY fair point that was levelled against me in this thread, and at least BC had the dignity to admit that he could find no other reason. So maybe we should discuss that - even when csalisbury asked me whether I believe a rapist should be raped, I answer "No - because that is disgusting and would degrade the punisher". But obviously I don't think torture is in the same class as rape. Maybe that would be a more useful avenue for you to argue than this "it's immoral, it's cruel" or "serial killers are not inhuman" avenue.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes - that is why I specified "seriously sick", not just "sick".
Quoting Sapientia
Ok, I am curious as to why you think anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much, or is outweighed by stronger evidence. Afterall, this is not physics where statistical evidence trumps everything. This is something that deals with people - where anecdotal evidence may very well be the most accurate way to grasp findings which include data that simply cannot be analysed statistically. So for these reasons I don't think statistical evidence, and professional reports which are written for bureaucratic reasons can identify these problems.
Quoting Sapientia
How is it a conclusion when I specifically said "I THINK". That implies I could be wrong, and my statement isn't final... Don't make things up.
Quoting Sapientia
The bias is that unless UK is shown to be higher in medical care than Bulgaria for example, then British people would be outraged and would push for immediate action to remedy the health care system. There is no money to do this, which is exactly why the NHS is also having trouble recently. You have very few doctors as well, compared to what you would need.
Quoting Sapientia
People can get into power in an undemocratic state as well. Just that the routes to power will be different.
Quoting Sapientia
That's why the concept of God, and a higher moral authority, higher than all humans exists.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes it is. The UN cannot have any legitimacy on its human rights if it can't enforce and guarantee protection of those rights.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, and that is the problem. Only nation states can prevent this.
Quoting Sapientia
This is nonsense.
Quoting Sapientia
This part wasn't about adultery, so why are you bringing this up. I haven't said the punishment for adultery should be stoning, only that a law would not be immoral if it set the punishment of adultery to be stoning. This was about serial killers.
Quoting Sapientia
Right. So what means does the victim in the adultery have of protecting themselves, or of having justice done in their case? What means is there available? None??
Quoting Sapientia
Intervention solely to protect one party from being wronged and harmed. That's why the state always intervenes - to protect and guarantee the rights of one party.
Quoting Sapientia
Many countries condemn adultery by their laws, just so you know. But regardless of that. The state does not intervene in the private sex lives of individuals except when something WRONG and HARMFUL is done. If people are harmed, the state should protect them. Especially by such a universal harm as adultery. Otherwise, these people simply have NO WAY to protect themselves. This just isn't right. You either give them a right to protect themselves in some way - or otherwise the state must intervene. We can't obviously say give people the right to punish their partner. That is just uncontrolled not to mention that one party will not be able to enforce the punishment on the other. So the state must intervene. As for severe punishment - I don't understand what you're talking about. I'm thinking about financial sanctions mainly + public (by the state) condemnation of the wrong-doer.
Quoting Sapientia
You said it, don't be ashamed.
Quoting Sapientia
Because killing serial killers in a just manner isn't the only thing that matters. I don't agree with those backward nations stoning women for adultery, or cutting hands off for theft, etc. I think these punishments, while lawful, are too harsh for the offence. Apart from this, I do not share in their religion, or values, and I care too much about our Western history and ideals, which have existed long before progressivism, and will exist long after. Our lands have produced the greatest geniuses who have ever lived, of the like of Plato, Aristotle, etc. Magnificent people. So I cannot abandon these people.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't deplore Western values. I deplore modern "Western" (should really read progressive) values (and again, not all of them, just some of them). I don't deplore Plato's, Socrates', Aristotle's, Hume's, Aquinas', Spinoza's, Schopenhauer's, etc. values. I love Burke, Locke and the rest of our classical conservative thinkers. I value freedom of speech, and a life that allows personal liberties so long as those do not hurt or harm other people. I value community, and respecting other people, granting them reasonable privacy, and creating a society where people do not harm each other, and those who are wronged have means of protecting themselves through the state. I deplore the loss of those Western values. That I do. So, like Socrates in Ancient Athens, paradoxically, it is I who is the one who is truly loyal to Western values, and who dearly loves those values - and history is there to support me.
I guess also because I have faith that the West can recover to its former glory. I would really like to see Aristotelian morality and Aristotelian values coming back.
Well, all I can do is say, one last time, A destructive response is the probably the worst metaphor I can imagine for a creative self-caused act, because everything about the two is antithetical. I guess that doesn't seem to bother you, but I still have no idea how you think it works as a metaphor. But, hey, I guess there's nowhere to go from here.
Creation is also destructive in-so-far as Being shows its primacy and triumph over non-Being. It appears you do not think that creation is destructive in this sense. So if you do not see it this way, then yes, the metaphor doesn't work for you.
Also, bringing in reaction and self-caused - nothing to do with it at all. In fact, I never talked about self-caused or sui-generis creation...
Creative | Destructive
Self-Caused | Response
Think about this for a second.
Non-being, you say, doesn't exist. There is nothing to destroy.
Good/being, you say, are defined on their own terms. Whence their primacy. Evil and non-being are only defined by reference to good. If we think of creation in terms of triumph or retribution, then we are thinking of good and being as being dependent on evil and non-being, which they require in order to triumph over.
In your metaphor, being does not have primacy, as you've defined it. This metaphor doesn't work man, I'm sorry. The metaphor rewrites everything you claim is important about being/good in terms of its opposite.
No? So you think the cause of being lies outside itself? Interesting, wouldn't have guessed it
And when it uses torture, it accepts and basically promotes torture. Period.
When there isn't a common acceptance to the rule of somebody or of some institution, then harsh punishment and torture is used. One great example are criminal organizations: just look at how they punish those members that do not obey their rules. The torture, the cruel ways to kill people are a way to instill fear and loyalty ...if you are immensely hated. Even if fear of punishment is effective, it isn't in the best way to make a society peaceful and make the society less violent.
And with torture you just succumb to the level of those doing the "horrendous crimes". It easily backfires. And the simple reason is that many people are against torture. But of course there are those who want to have public floggings.
(from earlier in the thread)
[quote=Agustino]Why? You treat others humanely because they are human. If they give up their humanity by committing such atrocities, why treat them humanly?[/quote]From this I can see that your definition or idea of just what is it to be humane, what does it mean, doesn't at all respond to my view about it. Because the above naturally means that you will be as rutheless and use torture to some that has committed atrocities as they have used. Not my idea of being humane.
Disfiguring torture is never appropriate.
The bottom fact is that torture is not a successfull interrogation method.
Now obviously a long interrogation can be torturous, but there the focus isn't on applying violence, with the intention of making the person hurt physically. For many the standard procedures how legal prisoners-of-war are handled even in Western countries when the rulebooks are followed, can feel like torture. Have someone put you handcuffs or tie your hands behind your back with plastic cable ties, then put against the wall blindfolded on your knees on alone in a room for while, and many will feel it's like torture.
It sounds like you are talking and thinking about routine torture.
Torture to obtain information is a totally different matter.
"Enhanced interrogation" helped to find UBL.
On the contrary, when talking about POWs, interrogation, the need to get intel, was what I had in mind here: the ones who have surrendered aren't themselves a big problem anymore and you could just sent them somewhere behind barbed wires and give them cigarettes and food. Things like segregation of the prisoners is important, just as is the speed the evacuation of POWs is done and how fast the interrogation is started.
Quoting YIOSTHEOY
And "enchanced interrogation" helped a lot of bullshit to be taken as intel.
And simply is a bad method. The whole concept of "enhanced interrogation" is just a sign of our times how easily the public discourse can be manipulated and how the general public falls to things that it wants to hear.
And OBL, well, let's remember that the Twin Towers Bombers from years earlier, some who were relatives to the 9/11 conspirators, were investigated by the NYPD, were picked by the FBI from Pakistan, then were put through the US legal system just like any other criminals and were sentenced to a jail inside the US.
Yeah, they just killed fewer people, but had they been successfull (which was quite close), a lot more would have been killed than in 9/11 as nobody would have made it out from the towers (even one tower collapsing straight away would have killed far more people than now). And it's only the number of people killed that made the difference: the US population was totally OK with the matter handled as a police matter, not a war. Yet if they would have been successfull, sure, the US would have gone to war and started it's War on Terror in 1993.
Hence the "enhanced interrogation methods", the GITMO's and basically the whole War on Terror was there basically there to please the American voter, to give him the feeling that the government was doing the most and that the terrorists would be punished.
What all the "take off the limitations", bend the rules to get intel "before the bomb goes off" and use of "enhanced interrogation methods" is just rhetoric given to the public... because the public wants revenge. And it sells well in politics... just as it sells in Hollywood movies.
Just look at your favorite populist, Donald Trump, now with his ideas where to draw the line after everything.
Decisions have to be made about how much suffering to inflict, for how long, and on what part of the body. the process of deciding such matters is in itself dehumanizing. Just as setting up teams of mass murderers is a bad idea, it is a bad idea to set up torture squads. Eventually they come home, and they (and others) have to live with the sequelae of their former work.
:D
In this way the law, and by extension, the entire population is made criminal by such actions.
Exactly.
Quoting Hogrider
Official torture makes criminals of more than just the torturer holding the cattle prod, but criminality doesn't flow backward to the entire population. If it does, everybody is guilty and nobody is responsible. Better to leave it at "some people are guilty, and some people are responsible".
The laws are enacted and formulated by the will of the people, and with their implicit consent. In this sense everyone is responsible for the actions of their government.
Were this fact more widely accepted, rather than complacently ignored, atrocities would probably be more rare.
But that is no fact. The laws are enacted and formulated by the will of [i]some[/I] people - not all people - and, in some cases, not even a majority, or even by a very small number of individuals who may or may not represent the general will of the citizenry.
Furthermore, it isn't merely the case that some people - and sometimes significantly large numbers of people - do [I]not[/I] implicitly consent to such, but rather, they sometimes - oftentimes, even - in fact explicitly reject such laws.
It was the will of [I]some other[/I] people - excluding myself and many, many others - who caused the current UK government, as well as the previous government, to get elected; and they did so on the basis of promises and commitments, some of which were (as they almost always are) broken - meaning that, in those cases, the government acted on their own will, and against the will of those who empowered them on such a basis.
One big example in recent years being the broken election pledge by the Liberal Democrats to scrap tuition fees. This pledge undoubtedly gained them significant support, particularly amongst young people, who voted them into power, only to be later betrayed. I can assure you, there was no "implicit consent" amongst these people when tuition fees not only remained, but in fact significantly increased. On the contrary, there were large-scale riots. It would be ludicrous to hold those people responsible for the governments actions.
That is merely one counterexample, but there are countless others - the most obvious being tyrannical states.
"In principle" governments rule by the consent of the people. "In principle" laws are enacted by the will of the people. In practice governments rule through a combination of consent and coercion. In practice the relationship between law making and election becomes somewhat tenuous.
"The people" are very rarely asked to consent to the rule of a government, and when it appears that the people wish to rid themselves of their ruling government (the whole apparatus, not just the party currently in the executive mansion and legislature), the government almost always steps in to prevent the will of the people from taking effect.
I'm not suggesting that the relationship between the people and the government is all tyranny all the time. It is the case that governments rule by the consent of the most powerful groups within society, or to put it more bluntly, governments are composed of the most powerful groups.
Soviet Union and Russia, People's Republic of China, United States, Sweden, France, Israel, UK, Uganda, Burma, Peru, et al are ruled by and for the most powerful groups within the country. Affairs could be arranged on a different basis, but...
And so despite the distance between the people and those that govern them the responsibility goes to the collective.
No, again, that's the goverment, rather than the people. None of the examples that you've provided are typically directed against the people, with the possible exception of terrorism.
Sanctions are given by a state in response to the actions of another state. Diplomacy happens between diplomats, such as state officials. Warfare typically involves state armies and/or armed rebels. None of these are necessarily representative of the people. None of these typically depend upon the people for a resolution. The people might be adversely effected, but that doesn't mean that they're the real target or the ones being held responsible.
Quoting Hogrider
No, not necessarily, because that assumes that the circumstances are such that the people have the power to govern themselves, which is often not the case; and often any attempt at revolution is crushed, and it can result in a devastating civil war. It's wrong to hold those who are powerless - or who have insufficient power, or who cannot revolt without a devastating struggle and severe repercussions - responsible. At the very least, you should not hold them responsible to anywhere near the same extent as those who are really holding the reins, namely the government.
I'm puzzled why you want to persist in this fantasy. The truth is whether or not you like it the nation is going to be held responsible. Sticking your head in a becket and pretending its just the governments fault is not going to save you from the "terrorist" who nation has had to suffer from the interference of your government over the last 100 years.
Nor should you be surprised when the tanks from neighbouring countries start to roll in and 'liberate' your nation.
So by action or inaction, those that act in your name, make you responsible like it or not.
Example. It was only the Japanese government that bombed Pearl Harbour; consequence Horoshima, Nagasaki. It was only the madman Hitler that annexed the Sudetenland , consequence: Dresden, and partition of Germany. Ask yourself what has the US government done in the last 100 years to justify the consequence of 9/11. South Africa's apartheid, consequence; sanctions leading to majority rule.
Well, Japan and Germany did a good deal more than attack Pearl Harbor and annex the Sudetenland, obviously. Eventually they had much of Asia, the western Pacific, Europe, the North Atlantic, and more by the balls. They killed, and caused to be killed, an awful lot of people. Hitler's Reich planned to dominate the world for a thousand years. Had things gone somewhat differently, they might have had the chance.
That's why they were partitioned and denazified (to the extent that actually happened).
Quoting Hogrider
The United States became the tallest hog at the trough -- that's what we did. We became the most noticeable target of people dissatisfied by the failures of their own governments and who resented all the stuff we had. We succeeded the British as the world manager (they in the role of imperial rule, us in the role of top cop and richest resident).
Then too, political lunacy played a role. Maybe we can blame Saudi Arabia's repressive conservative rule and export of a reactionary version of Islam (Wahhabi). The 9/11 attackers were pursuing reactionary goals--even if their methods were remarkably up to date. The people in the Twin Towers did not deserve to be killed. They were innocent of causing whatever grievance the attackers were pursuing.
I don't think governments actually hold "the people" of another country responsible for the extremely disapproved actions of their government. IF, after Pearl Harbor, the US government could have executed very focused but severe reprisals only on the leaders of the military and the leaders of the non-military components of government and commerce, we would have. IF after the invasion of Poland, England and France could have performed an excision of the top 1,000 Nazis, from Hitler on down, they would have.
Unfortunately, such focused attacks are never possible. It isn't that the targets can't be named; rather, it's that they can't all be put in the crosshairs of a rifle and shot at once, thus eliminating the responsible parties.
Our first attacks on Japan were against military targets. We attacked large ships, airplanes, and fortified locations. Did this involve killing people who were not directly (or even indirectly) responsible> Yes, it did. Sailors, airplane pilots, and soldiers execute policy, they don't make it. Further, they do what they are told or face severe punishment themselves. Their presence in the military is only sometimes 100% voluntary. Usually one is coaxed rather urgently, or one is coerced into the military.
Only when attacking purely military targets failed to achieve any movement toward surrender did we begin deliberately attacking civilian population (such as the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden.
Hitler's policy was not the same. When his forces attacked Poland and the Soviet Union, they went out of their way to kill civilian populations, and not just Jews. Hitler considered slavic people inferior, and intended to get rid of most of them. One thing German invading forces in Poland and in the USSR did was to immediately kill any identifiable civilian, military, or intellectual elite. (Their focus on officialdom here doesn't redeem one iota of guilt on many other counts.)
"Governments rule by the consent of the people" is REAL in the same way that "the Social Contract" is real. The people are seldom offered the opportunity to give or withhold consent to or from the government very often, and there is no written social contract. Both of these are abstractions. Consent Of The Ruled and The Social Contract are ways of describing massive aggregations of behavior. People usually pay their taxes and register for the draft when so ordered. Most people don't just kill people who accidentally step on their toes on the bus. Most people obey most traffic laws most of the time, and when they don't it is often owing to inattention. Why do we do this? Because we are taught as children to obey rules, cooperate with each other, and allow minor insults (like stepping on my sore toe) to pass without violence.
Society works through the millions of people training children to behave well in very local contexts (like, home, day care, kindergarten, primary school). Parents prefer children who behave well. It just makes life easier. Most of that behaving well carries over into adulthood. Then we call it the consent of the governed and the social contract.
A social contract goes both ways.
It's funny that you chose to focus on terrorism: the one example which has exceptions, as I indicated. Although there are also many examples in which the act of terrorism is clearly not directed at the people or nation, such as presidential assassinations (or attempted assassinations), but apparently you wish to ignore these counterexamples to your untenable claims, and ironically accuse [i]me[/I] of wishful thinking.
It is pointless to waste time attacking what are obviously straw men, rather than my actual position. At no point did I make such ludicrous claims, or in any way suggest, that blaming the government will save me or anyone else from acts of terrorism; nor that doing so will maintain the illusion of security, such that a foreign invasion would come as a surprise.
When you cut the crap, all that is left of the above quote is merely a repetition of your bare assertions ("The truth is whether or not you like it the nation is going to be held responsible", "So by action or inaction, those that act in your name, make you responsible like it or not").
Quoting Hogrider
Your error is a result of failing to distinguish between who an attack is directed at, and who is attacked. Similarly, you fail to distinguish between who sanctions are directed at, and who is negatively effected by sanctions.
Those attacks you mentioned caused civilian casualties, but they were directed at those actively supporting the war, not the people or the entire nation. There were innocent victims. Yet your position forces you to deny that there were any innocent victims, since you hold them in some way responsible. That is not only erroneous, but detestable.
The sanctions you mentioned were also not directed at the people or nation. The sanctions were directed at the state authorities who had established and enforced systematic racial segregation.
No, and I think something is wrong with you if you do.
I can understand the natural desire for vengeance, the repaying of insult to maintain honor, and even having no sympathy for people who are destroyed after committing a heinous act. But classical avenging results in death, not torture.
What do you mean? I know the gender of the torture-victim in the OP is male. I know the occasion for this thread was Agustino's horror, on another thread, at the idea of unrepentant adulterous women. I know I jabbed him a bit about that. Do you mean my lack of surprise at Agustino's harboring anger for licentious women?
To play devil's advocate, just for a sec, is this true?
I think ppl animated by vengeance are often on board with torture, which is exactly why they shouldn't have the reins. I don't think I'd try to have someone who brutalized a family member of mine tortured, bc I agree with yr Cyrenaic quote but, like, an animal part of me reallly would want that.
---
& to some extent in modern war too. But what most people accepted as just rewards for rebellion or insolence, back in the day, is unreal.
Quoting csalisbury
But then, like the brutalizer, you're to be forgiven because it's just your animal passions :)
But like I said, I can understand the desire for vengeance and to kill the person who did it, but not torture. I think there's a sense in which people deeply feel that those who violate certain norms that they themselves expect to be held with regard to themselves, they have forfeited their right to exist, which is contingent on those very norms. And so retribution gives people an intuitive right to end that person, and even to get a righteous satisfaction out of it. But torture is just sick and purposeless.
Put another way, when someone dips beneath humanity by committing some atrocity, we feel that since they've let go of being human, they are no longer entitled to life as a human. But torture doesn't destroy their humanity -- animals hate physical torture in the same way that people do. It teaches no lesson, solve no problem, resolves no dispute, gives no closure.
Well there's some truth to that, but Dante's Inferno is heavily populated by people who wronged Dante.
I agree that torture resolves nothing, solves nothing, gives no closure. But I feel like I 'get' the desire to torture. I sketched it above, over a few posts, early on in the thread.
[quote=me]It seems like what you object to most about the serial killer is (1) he doesn't feel remorse and (2) his atrocities are senseless. I think (2) is scary because it bars us from doing what we normally do in the wake of trauma - tell a story that explains what happened. Explanation yields understanding which yields the sense of control that the trauma suspended. If you understand what happened you feel more able to prevent similar traumatizing irruptions in the future.
But if an adequate explanation of an outburst is impossible, then we can at least find some solace in the source of that outburst being as horrified as we are. His or her horror would signal an impulse to stave off any repetition of what transpired. Evil wouldn't be an infinite wellspring but an abberration which recoils from itself and self-corrects.
The serial killer offers neither palliative. He's a mute black hole which is unreachable. (The scariest version of Satan I can imagine is an old man (or young child) in an enclosed chamber, totally still, eyes wide open, transmitting evil into the world, but unreachable through language, almost insentient). He's an ineradicable black hole in those meaning/explanation-generating stories which make us feel safe and in control. Torture isn't about reforming such a person. It's a last resort in a control-crisis, a way of turning that black hole into an object over which we have total power.
The response to infidelity without remorse is similar. It's a panic response to the realization that love is never guaranteed and can always withdraw, no matter how perfectly you strive to deserve it. The desire to punish is an impotent wish to scare love so it will never leave us again.
The thing is, you can torture as many serial killers and punish as many adulterers as you want. But that won't stem the problem. The world itself is a ceaseless and remorseless generator of senseless violence. Serial killers, if you like, are 'places' in which being reveals itself utterly denuded. (Tho the sacred does the same, in a different register.)[/quote]
But even if we could torture someone until they felt empathy for violently raping and killing another human, why would we? The act was already committed and the perpetrator will be locked away from other people for the rest of his life, so what is the point?
It would be a very sad day for humanity indeed if, as you say, a majority of people would feel good at seeing the suffering of another human being. It reminds one, of days in medieval times on which criminals were disemboweled before a crowd of commoners, all shrieking with delight while drinking in the ghastly spectacle.
You've failed to understand the mental state of people who end up behaving the way you describe in the OP. People of this sort are termed "psychopaths'', are born with no sense of empathy, kindness, etc. and therefore cannot help but act in these ways. Therefore, torturing them would be the equivalent of torturing a three year old kid who just ripped off the pages of your favourite book, without of course, knowing the value of the book.
Quoting Agustino
The last two reasons you cite are, in short, deterrence and increment of public faith in the justice system. To deal with the first,observe that an exactly equal amount, if not greater, amount of deterrence would be the result if the criminal was locked away for life in prison. Remember that prison is by no means a nice place, and many criminals would much rather choose a short interval of sharp torture than an eternity of long, drawn out torture and molestation by the not quite so friendly inmates of modern prisons.
As for the second reason, I don't see how people would end up having faith in a brutal criminal justice system which relishes torturing people. What,in reality, would happen is quite the opposite. The public would see this uncivil justice system itself as the enemy, and thus would no longer feel comfortable handing over their squabbles over to receive what they would,not unreasonably, see as warped judgment. Instead then, they would start "settling'' their disputes on their own, which would lead to mafias, clan wars and later, the disintegration of the entire fabric of society.
I hope this convinces you.
Yes I agree because of the effect torturing someone has on the one doing the torturing AND also because evil should not be played with, nor its influence allowed existence so that it can spread and corrupt others, so I have changed my position. I would still support that the serial killer is publicly executed, so that other criminals are shown that justice is not to be messed with, especially in such severe cases of inhumanity and barbarity - if you think the justice system is barbarous, what about the serial killer? What about the actions he takes and the way these affect the families of the victims? And yes - there's all the reason to rejoice when justice is done. If the news reports tonight come on and say that ISIS was completely obliterated, what do you think I'll do? Cry for the terrorists? Of course not, I will rejoice that we have overcome an evil, and saved an entire region from its threat...
The problem here is that the effect you seek is demonstrably weak at best and non-existent in most cases. There is no historical evidence at all that public execution, which let's not forget was at one time an event on a par with a modern pop concert, in particular, or executions in general have any deterrent effect. In fact, the very opposite was often the case. As the saying 'might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb' attests, criminals were prone to upping the ante committing more serious crimes on the basis that they were risking everything anyway so they might as well make it worth their while.
In any case, I have never understood the logic of death as the ultimate punishment, especially in an increasingly atheistic society where there is no question of hurrying someone on to face divine judgement (always a dubious theological justification in an event). Far from facing the perpetrator with their own guilt and remorse death simply releases them from any responsibility for reparation. It is those who are left behind who are being punished in reality and on the flimsiest of excuses, guilt by association. That is not justice, at least not by any sane, rational definition.
Public execution is reserved for the worst of crimes as I have illustrated, NOT for all criminals or small crimes, and public means it is shown to the public not that it occurs in the middle of the public square. When dictators were executed during the fall of communism, videos of their deaths were released to the public, and people celebrated the end of oppression and the fact that justice had been delivered.
Quoting Barry Etheridge
It depends on the crime. For the most serious crimes, where the doer of the crime is a clear evil - like ISIS terrorists in today's world - there is no playing around. They have to be dealt with adequately and swiftly, and their evil prevented from being spread. The rest is up to God.
It seems a tad convenient that God apparently doesn't mind in the slightest ceding the decision on what is evil (if indeed such a thing even exists) and who should live and die as a consequence to a bunch of hubristic judges and then picking up the pieces after they're done.
It's not a cessation of the decision at all. Extreme violence, barbarity, murdering, raping, pillaging, etc. are evil. And God doesn't decide what is evil whimsically. You still seem to think of God as some man in the sky ordering you around. Rather we humans get to know God as we understand better what is good and evil, and freely choose to associate with and defend that which is good. In fact knowing God and loving goodness are one and the same. What did Jesus say...
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
There is no difference between being virtuous and doing the will of God. The two are identical. And delivering justice to those who are weak, and protecting them, that is virtuous
[quote=Agustino]Why or why not?[/quote]Because I don't want anybody to have to suffer torture. Further, it would be disgusting and abhorrent to me for such a barbarity as deliberate torture to be conducted by a state of which I was a part.
[quote=Agustino]I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. Would you disagree?[/quote]
I agree that that many feel like that. But I don't feel like that, and I regard it as sad, and a source of much of the misery in the world, that many people feel like that.
[quote=Agustino]Would you not feel good to see such a bastard suffer?[/quote]No, I would feel very distressed.
Thus far, it is just about feelings. Your feelings are almost diametrically opposed to mine. One cannot rationally debate feelings.
But then we see an attempt to move from an expression of feeling to a rational argument:
[quote=Agustino]A more rational reason is so that other criminals who intend to commit similar crimes see what will happen to them and repent sooner rather than later.[/quote]That might be rational if there were any empirical evidence to support it. But none has been provided. To me it sounds like wishful thinking.
[quote=Agustino]such a punishment ensures that justice is adequately done - which is required for people to have faith in the justice system.[/quote]These are two assertions - both provided without rationale or evidence. The first is just an assertion of what you feel to be just, and so lies in the undebatable realm of feelings. The second is contrary to my impression of what the available empirical evidence says. The countries that have lower rates of crime tend to be those that have less vengeful justice systems. Finland has lower crime than the US, which has lower crime than Afghanistan.
Answering a very old question to its asker, when the said asker has changed his position, is simply pointless.
Quoting Agustino
A polite way to put that would be:
'Actually I've changed my position since the OP. You probably haven't noticed because this thread is very long'
I still find your position on public execution barbaric, just not as barbaric as the former position regarding torture.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc?
I would be very surprised if milder justice systems cause lower crime rates. Likely there are some other factors that govern the rate of crime. For instance, states that are barely functioning are not in a very good position to effectively limit crime. Or, states that are engaged in civil war probably have very high rates of crime -- not necessarily as part of the civil war, but because society is in chaos. States that have extreme differences in wealth and privilege might have more crime.
Would you not be equally satisfied with the knowledge that the perpetrators of ISIS are detained in maximum security prisons with no hope of escape, since this too is a situation where the said evil is overcome and the region in question delivered from the threat of destruction?
In other words, is it really necessary to execute even terrorists, when life imprisonment would serve the same purposes that would drive you to perform the execution in the first place?
In fact, you could even say that in the case of terrorists it would specifically be ill advised to execute them since this would only entice other extremist organizations to act the same way, in order to appear as heroic martyrs before their people and whatever God they believe in.
Not according to Plato, the Neo-Platonist school (on which our forms of government and systems of justice are, after all, largely based), Augustine and a host of other theologians and philosophers they are not.
We both know this is laughably false, no intellectual would take your assertions seriously. Cite, for example, where Plato encourages barbarity, murder, rape and justifies these as being good in-themselves.
What suggest to you that it is necessary that he does any such thing? It is the Platonic position, given its fullest expression by Neo-Platonist Christians that there exists only good as creation is entirely a superabundance of good (identified with God). Existence is not possible without good. Every entity which has being consists only of good. And every action of that entity must therefore be motivated by good. The problem is only that it is falsely perceived, corrupted by ignorance, desire, and the demands of physicality. As Mary Wollstonecraft famously put it ...
The principal conclusion of interest in this discussion from this position is that there is therefore no such thing as irredeemability. From a secular platonist's point of view punishment by death is by definition pointless (it does not eradicate evil since there is no evil to eradicate) and counter productive (destroying good no matter how tainted). For theists it is also hubris, wresting control of life and death from God, and therefore no less sinful than any of the crimes for which the punishment is being handed out. For both theist and non-theist, those who execute criminals are achieving nothing because they are simply repeating the same mistakes that led to the crimes in the first place leaving the human sphere not one iota improved.
Contrary to your poo-pooing, there are many current philosophers, both theist and non-theist who hold for these and other reasons that evil has no ontological reality. And there is no denying that in most modern justice systems that is the effective philosophical position which underlies the handling of convicted criminals. Retributive 'justice' is, to your chagrin, I'm sure, very much a busted flush, even in the majority of American states, as rehabilitation (redemption) replaces punishment as the goal of sentencing.