On 1/20/2014 5:14 PM, LizR wrote:
On 21 January 2014 06:28, John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 3:50 PM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
>> I would buy the argument that mass murderer Charles Manson is
the way a
bunch of particles obey the Schrodinger Wave Equation, but I'll be
damned it
I can see what that has to do with his guild or innocence; that
bunch of
particles killed a bunch or people or it did not. If it did and if
we then
send a current of a few hundred amps through that bunch of
particles we can
be certain it will never kill again; it might even make it less
likely that
similar bunches op particles kill in the future, although this is
less certain.
> The question is about moral responsibility
The question is about the purpose of punishment.
Well, that's a different question, but as originally phrased it seemed to me that the
point being addressed was whether or not someone can be considered guilty. One can only
(rationally and consistently) consider someone guilty if free will exists, otherwise we
are reduced to merely considering whether punishment is justified. Personally I don't
think free will exists, at least not to the extent of responsibility being a meaningful
notion (there are some watered down versions of it of course), hence I agree with your
conclusions. All I'm saying is that wasn't how I read the original question, which is
now lost in the mists of the list anyway.
I think Bruno gave a good definition of 'free will' as unpredictability (even by oneself).
If some one does something harmful, but it was predictable (like Russell's rational man)
then we might say that other's share responsibility for the harm. An extreme case would
be the bank manager who robs his own bank because his wife and children are held hostage.
I can only think of 2 reasons for punishing a criminal:
1) To prevent that criminal from committing another crime; if he's dead he
can't and
if he's in jail his crimes will be contained to within the jail walls.
2) To deter others from committing crimes; they don't want to end up like
him.
Yes, I agree with that.
To be honest I can think of other reasons to punish a criminal but they all
involve
sadism and I will not defend them.
Good.
> In practice we have over time relied more and more on the defence
that the
person concerned couldn't help what they did
And because of that the law has in practice become more and more
inconsistent and
illogical. Just recently I read about a ex policeman in Florida who shot a
man in a
movie theater because he was texting, he was charged with SECOND degree
murder. If
he had planned for a year to kill someone to get his $10,000,000 life
insurance he
would have been charged with FIRST degree murder, but I think somebody who
will
murder for a trivial reason is more contemptible and far far more dangerous
than
someone who will only murder if the reason is substantial. The law is nuts,
if
somebody murders me I hope it will be for a reason more important than
texting
during a movie.
On the other hand the man who murdered for money is obviously more thoughtful about
weighing his options and is more likely to be deterred by the prospect of punishment.
Imprisoning or executing the first man will prevent him from shooting other texters, but
it probably won't deter other such rage driven killers.
I agree with you. That is peculiar. Do they consider murdering someone for texting a
"crime passionelle" perhaps? (i.e. "in the heat of the moment" rather than
"premeditated"). Personally I would consider someone who lets off guns during a movie
far more of an interruption than someone who texts. Maybe the movie was "Judge Dredd" ... !
> because of various conditions that aren't their fault (e.g. genetic
or due to
illnesses or maltreatment), and we even have the science to back it up
now.
We have only gibberish like the "free will" noise to back it up. There are
only 4
possibilities:
1) The criminal committed the crime because he had bad genes.
2) The criminal committed the crime because he had a bad environment.
3) The criminal committed the crime because he had bad genes and a bad
environment.
4) The criminal committed the crime because of a random quantum fluctuation
which
has no cause.
Well you just agreed with me, then. All those are scientific reasons that back up the
existence of conditions that the person couldn't help.
But notice there are degrees of bad environment. And in extreme cases we might say the
criminal was "driven to crime" and rather than punish him we should change the
environment, c.f. example of hostages above.
Brent
> Eventually we should reach the point where a mass murderer isn't
killed, or
put away for life, but has his or her brain reprogrammed so that s/he
is no
longer a mass murderer. In other words, if the software is faulty, get
an upgrade.
We can do that already. Passing a current of a few hundred amps through the
brain of
a mass murderer for a minute or two would result in a marvelous upgrade.
I already mentioned the flaw in this reasoning. The law can make mistakes, in fact it
often does (plus there are lots of ethnically and politically motivated imprisonments in
most countries that shouldn't even be considered crimes by a rational society). I assume
you wouldn't like to be framed for a murder you didn't commit and then executed for it,
so I think it's only fair to extend the same courtesy to others, don't you?
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