You don't want to punish the first actor's family because that is disutility to them as
well as, or instead of, the actor and their happiness counts in the society's utility as
well as that of the murder victim. You could just execute/imprison the two remaining
actors on the assumption that (a) that will deter similar schemes and (b) they are "would
be murders".
Brent
On 4/27/2015 4:42 PM, Dennis Ochei wrote:
Right, but *who* to punish in order to deter is dependent on these questions of
identity. Suppose there are three actors who are willing to do this delayed duplication
murder suicide scheme. Furthermore, they don't care what happens to their duplicate.
(Perhaps they think of him as someone else) However, each have a family member that the
care about deeply. You tell the first that his duplicate will be punished if he commits
his crime. He doesn't care. You then say you will transfer the punishment onto his
family member. This would deter him, but he doesn't believe you are actually so
utilitarian and so he carries out his plans. Now, there are still two would be
murderers. Do you punish the first man's family member in order to prove you mean
business, deterring the remaining actors?
On purely utilitarian grounds, there is just as much disutility generated when you
punish the first actor's duplicate as when you punish the first actor's family member.
Furthermore, unless we reolve this question of identity who this disutility is doled out
to doesn't matter as long as it serves its deterrent purpose.
On Monday, April 27, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
You make a rule about punishing people that will deter them from committing
crimes
in a way that maximizes satisfaction in the community. I'm not sure what
rules that
is, but it doesn't necessarily have to solve some philosophical problem of
personal
identity.
In your example, suppose society said, "No we won't punish him." Then
people might
be tempted to use this as a way of killing someone they hate. So society
would
probably say, "Yes, we'll punish him...and any additional copies of him
too."
Brent
On 4/27/2015 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
What if you step into a delayed duplication machine, and the first one out
goes and
commits murder at a later time, and then commits suicide, later the delayed
duplicate of you emerges. Do we imprison them, or would that be punishing
them for
a "pre-crime"?
Jason
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 7:19 PM, LizR <[email protected]
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote:
You should both go to jail, on the basis that both copies of you had
the same
consciousness as the person who committed the murder, and therefore you
are
both equally responsible (leaving aside considerations of free will etc)
And (this is the clincher) you are both equally a danger to society,
having had
your psychopathic tendencies duplicated means you're twice as much of a
danger
as you were when there was only one of you.
QED, "You're nicked, sunshine."
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