On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 Brian Tenneson <tenn...@gmail.com> wrote: > how can we hold criminals culpable in that they had no choice but to > commit crime?
It just mystifies me that someone would even ask a question like that. If you're chasing me with a bloody ax I don't care if you had a "choice" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) to do so or not, nor do I care what thoughts, be they beautiful or ugly, are dancing around in your brain while you're doing it; all I want is for you to stop chasing me with that damn ax and I want measures taken to discourage that sort of thing happening in the future by you or anybody else. > Seems unfair to punish anyone under those circumstances. > It seems even more unfair for me to get chopped up by your ax. There are only 2 legitimate reasons to punish anybody for anything: 1) To make sure they don't continue with such crimes. 2) To deter others from committing similar crimes. I admit there is another reason that the oldest reptilian parts of my brain can come up with, the fun of seeing somebody I dislike suffer, but that is not a reason the newer more evolved parts of my brain are proud of so I will not defend it. And the ASCII string "free will" has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, or anything else for that matter except gibberish. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
