On 4/27/2015 5:29 PM, Dennis Ochei wrote:
> You could just execute/imprison the two remaining actors
Well, i thought it was obvious that you can't just walk down the street and stop them...
I didn't realize I had to spell that out.
> 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
Right! We seem to care about punishing the person who committed the crime, not mere
deterrence. Deterrence is a necessary but not sufficient reason to inflict disutility on
a given person. It must also be the case that the punishee committed the act that we
want to deter.
So you cannot punish the delayed duplicate without weighing in on the personal identity
question.
No. It's not that we care about punishing the person who committed the crime. We care
about deterrence as it contributes to the overall well being of the society. So we weigh
the disutility of punishing the family against the utility it would provide in deterrence.
I think it would come out highly negative, but it depends somewhat on how much prospective
murderers are influenced by their families welfare. You usually get the most deterrent
utility by punishing the person who committed the crime, but that's a consequence of how
psychology works - not a basic principle.
Brent
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