On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 10:30:25AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > I agree that "the purpose of punishment is to prevent that occurrence from > happening again"; at least, this is what the purpose of punishment ought to > be. But note that this *does* imply an assumption about the reasons people > decide to act in a particular way, which is that it is not completely > random or indeterminate. If it were, then punishment or the fear of > punishment would not have any effect on future behaviour, would it?
Sure - a totally indeterminate human being would not be very
functional. Nor would a totally determinate one. Punishment would
probably be inappropriate in either case.
>
> Putting aside the pragmatics of the legal system, one's philosophical
> beliefs about free will can influence attitudes towards criminals. A
> criminal behaves as he does due to (a) his biology, (b) his past life
> experiences, (c) random physical processes in the brain, or some
> combination of the three. It is tempting to add (d) free choice, but how
> can this possibly be anything different to (a), (b) and (c)? It certainly
> feels like one can "overcome" (a), (b) and (c) by force of will, but the
> existence of this subjective experience has no more bearing on reality
> than, for example, the strong feeling that the Earth is flat, and that
> there is an absolute up/down in the universe.
>
> --Stathis Papaioannou
Nothing I disagree with here.
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