On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 at 22:07, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 7:39 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > >> Everybody is always subjected to force, sometimes, as when an >>> electromagnetic force enters your eye and prevents you from walking into a >>> brick wall it's a good thing because you don't want to walk into a brick >>> wall, and sometimes, such as when the gravitational force prevents you >>> from jumping over a mountain, it's a bad thing because you want to jump >>> over that mountain. >>> >> >> >> *>It's different if you say "I was forced by someone holding a gun to my >> head" or "I was forced by the laws of physics".* >> > > If it could be proven that I murdered because somebody put a gun to my > head that would be a legitimate mitigating circumstance because it would be > unlikely that in the future somebody would hold a gun to my head again and > thus I would be unlikely to murder again. But if I did it because of the > law of electromagnetism that would not be a mitigating circumstance because > I am likely to encounter electromagnetism again and thus likely to murder > again. > There would be no point in punishing you if you murdered because someone held a gun to your head, because it wouldn’t change your future behaviour or the behaviour of others on a similar situation. On the other hand, punishing someone who kills in order to steal the victim’s money may deter him and others like him from doing it again, even though his brain was just following the laws of physics. >> *> there is no point in punishing a sleepwalker who kills someone because >> it won't deter other sleepwalkers from doing the same thing.* >> > > But a few amps flowing through his body for just a few seconds would > improve him immeasurably and prevent the sleepwalker from ever murdering > again. And because he is likely to sleep again, he would be an extremely > dangerous man that needs to be dealt with. Imprisonment won't solve the > problem, in 2019 in the USA 143 prisoners were murdered by other prisoners > who had already been convicted of murder, and the man who murdered Martin > Luther King was an escaped prisoner. > The idea of acting of your own free will only applies to punishment as deterrent. You have to have control over your behaviour and to understand what you are doing in order for that to work, and that doesn’t apply to sleepwalkers. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAH%3D2ypUK_kSXzCNdL4G%2BzTRZ5CNoY77CFMOYB%2BXUdx%3D%2Br_cpNw%40mail.gmail.com.
