What are your views on punishment? Are you in favour of retribution? Rehabilitation?
Personally, I'm not too fussed. Punishment, whatever its form, is necessary in this society. Hierarchy is fundamental to it, and punishment is necessary to keep people down. It's a vicious circle - most crimes are caused by wanting power, and the punishment keeps it from them. I'm not advocating it, merely being pragmatic.
So, what do you think?
For me it comes down to Intent Vs Action.
I am for intent, others are for action.
What do you think?
INTENT
Let's say someone committed a crime to try to become President.
Useful intent:
They intent to use the power to advance out country. They also want to make us more allies. They wish to augment the economy. Therefore their intention is advantageous.
Non useful intent:
They intend to drag our country to the ground. They also want to disown the trust of everyone of our allies. They intent to leave our country completely helpless. They wish to leave our country in poverty. Therefore their intention is disadvantageous.
QUESTION
Which would you prefer?
a) Someone tries to harm you yet accidentally saves you.
Let's say someone was going to shoot you in the arm, they miss and shoot the person right behind you who was about to kill you.
b) Someone tries to save you and yet accidentally harms you.
Let's say a doctor is trying to save your life in surgery then accidentally cuts you leaving you in pain.
Personally, I prefer someone who is trying to save me over someone who is trying to harm me. The person who tried to harm me could try again.
ACTION
Either we punish based on action.
Whether you were harmed or not (Has nothing to do with their intention).
Or we ignore all crimes and don't punish at all.
CONCLUSION
So now does the intention matter or does the action?
This all relates back to punishment.
I believe there should be some sort of punishment for behaviors that would be disadvantageous. (It must be enforced that they aren't allowed to...).
Should we punish based on actions or intents?
So they committed a for power... What was their end goal with that power?
Useful/Advantageous- No punishment
Non useful/Disadvantageous- Punishment
Or Action crime
They committed a crime for power, so we should punish them no matter the intent.
Or Action crime
They committed a crime for power, it should be ignored completely. (Nothing to do with intent whatsoever)
I base what's crimes on intent not the action. Although others do otherwise.
RESUME
If I wasn't clear enough, my view on punishment is that punishment should only be applied when the person committing the crime intends to do something Non-useful with the power they could get.
Otherwise I would let them go free without punishment.
What is wrong to some might be right to another. Either way you must have consequences for your actions. Even if we lived in a utopia ther would still need to be some form of punishment. It is programmed into all of us, for every action there is a reaction. If we do something to hurt ourselfs our body responds to that action with pain. Telling us not to do that again.
Now the death penalty is a different story. Weather or not to kill a person for his or her crimes, that will always be a hot topic.
I am for the death penalty. An eye for an eye. Even if it was me on the chopping block.
That's why writing and applying laws is so complicated especially those dealing with punishment. You have to be broad enough to encompass the intended target of your law yet clear enough in order not to leave any loopholes.
Intent vs Action is taken into consideration in our laws that's why we have Involuntary Manslaughter (action:you killed someone but no intent) and Murder (action:you killed someone) I (intent:premeditation) & II (intent:no premeditation).
Oh and if your hypothetical president succeeds in his bid for power and becomes president he is now in position to change the law to protect himself from the one he broke to get there.
Hitler did exactly that, he hijacked a democracy and once in power changed most of the laws to fit his agenda so from what you said he shouldn't have been punished because he committed a crime to do something useful (for him and other germans from his point of view). He managed to stop the economic downturn Germany was in at the time so at first the german people must have thought he was well-intentioned. But of course we all know what happened after that.
And he ended up being punished by his own actions by losing the war and committing suicide.
It also begs the question how do select a form a punishment when the crime was a crime committed on a scale never seen before.
Yes I'm thinking about Nuremberg here, they were faced with tough choices.
I am for the death penalty. An eye for an eye.
Argh don't say that. An eye for an eye is one pillar of Shariah and we all know what happens when we let religious people have the executive or legislative power.
Death penalty is necessary when we think that people are beyond redemption and basically are too dangerous in our society to be left alive, it's reserved for people having committed particularly egregious crimes.
Just a point to consider.
The death penalty in totalitarian and authoritarian states usually does not stem from the bronze rule, but merely represents a hurt pride from exposing the ineffectiveness and corruption of the powers that be.
Perhaps the rule of law is only as effective as the gremium of people affected by it agree to abide by?
The rules of the minority, dictated to the majority have their own weaknesses.
Just as the opposite is true.
Violence is only instrumental, when all other options have been exhausted.
Now back to drinking beer and being labeled as an antisocial weirdo for me.
Were I to live several centuries ago, I would have burned on the stake for certain.
And for what?
by PathophileWhat are your views on punishment? Are you in favour of retribution? Rehabilitation?
Personally, I'm not too fussed. Punishment, whatever its form, is necessary in this society. Hierarchy is fundamental to it, and punishment is necessary to keep people down. It's a vicious circle - most crimes are caused by wanting power, and the punishment keeps it from them. I'm not advocating it, merely being pragmatic.
So, what do you think?
I'm against the death penalty primarily because I think it's hypocritical of the law to kill people for killing others. If someone wants to be executed for their crimes though, then I don't see a problem with it, but I personally don't want the law to ever make that decision for me.
I've got no respect for the law, so I'm completely against all forms of legal punishment. Though, I understand why the law exists and why society needs it, I just don't want it to apply to me.
The death penalty in totalitarian and authoritarian states usually does not stem from the bronze rule, but merely represents a hurt pride from exposing the ineffectiveness and corruption of the powers that be.
I don't think that's even the case with democracies. The death penalty does not necessarily stem from the bronze rule as you put it or the so-called lex talionis (aka eye for an eye) in the US because for instance treason is an offense punishable by death even though no life was taken during the commission of the offense.
And of course when you say:
Violence is only instrumental, when all other options have been exhausted.
Some people (for instance bleeding-heart liberals) would argue that to deprive a man of his freedom is to commit a form of violence against him, that's why they estimate that it is a fair punishment because the life of the offender is taken in a way hence the uselessness of the death penalty (their opinion not mine).
Of course I think they are sorely mistaken because if you let a particularly violent offender live there will be opportunities for him to re-offend even inside the prison system.
And let's not even touch the subject of cruel & unusual punishments.