On 21 January 2014 06:28, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 3:50 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> I would buy the argument that mass murderer Charles Manson is the way >>> a bunch of particles obey the Schrodinger Wave Equation, but I'll be damned >>> it I can see what that has to do with his guild or innocence; that bunch of >>> particles killed a bunch or people or it did not. If it did and if we then >>> send a current of a few hundred amps through that bunch of particles we can >>> be certain it will never kill again; it might even make it less likely that >>> similar bunches op particles kill in the future, although this is less >>> certain. >>> >>> > The question is about moral responsibility >> > > The question is about the purpose of punishment. >
Well, that's a different question, but as originally phrased it seemed to me that the point being addressed was whether or not someone can be considered guilty. One can only (rationally and consistently) consider someone guilty if free will exists, otherwise we are reduced to merely considering whether punishment is justified. Personally I don't think free will exists, at least not to the extent of responsibility being a meaningful notion (there are some watered down versions of it of course), hence I agree with your conclusions. All I'm saying is that wasn't how I read the original question, which is now lost in the mists of the list anyway. > I can only think of 2 reasons for punishing a criminal: > > 1) To prevent that criminal from committing another crime; if he's dead he > can't and if he's in jail his crimes will be contained to within the jail > walls. > 2) To deter others from committing crimes; they don't want to end up like > him. > Yes, I agree with that. > > To be honest I can think of other reasons to punish a criminal but they > all involve sadism and I will not defend them. > Good. > > >> > In practice we have over time relied more and more on the defence that >> the person concerned couldn't help what they did > > > And because of that the law has in practice become more and more > inconsistent and illogical. Just recently I read about a ex policeman in > Florida who shot a man in a movie theater because he was texting, he was > charged with SECOND degree murder. If he had planned for a year to kill > someone to get his $10,000,000 life insurance he would have been charged > with FIRST degree murder, but I think somebody who will murder for a > trivial reason is more contemptible and far far more dangerous than someone > who will only murder if the reason is substantial. The law is nuts, if > somebody murders me I hope it will be for a reason more important than > texting during a movie. > I agree with you. That is peculiar. Do they consider murdering someone for texting a "crime passionelle" perhaps? (i.e. "in the heat of the moment" rather than "premeditated"). Personally I would consider someone who lets off guns during a movie far more of an interruption than someone who texts. Maybe the movie was "Judge Dredd" ... ! > > > because of various conditions that aren't their fault (e.g. genetic or >> due to illnesses or maltreatment), and we even have the science to back it >> up now. >> > > We have only gibberish like the "free will" noise to back it up. There are > only 4 possibilities: > > 1) The criminal committed the crime because he had bad genes. > 2) The criminal committed the crime because he had a bad environment. > 3) The criminal committed the crime because he had bad genes and a bad > environment. > 4) The criminal committed the crime because of a random quantum > fluctuation which has no cause. > Well you just agreed with me, then. All those are scientific reasons that back up the existence of conditions that the person couldn't help. > > > Eventually we should reach the point where a mass murderer isn't killed, >> or put away for life, but has his or her brain reprogrammed so that s/he is >> no longer a mass murderer. In other words, if the software is faulty, get >> an upgrade. >> > > We can do that already. Passing a current of a few hundred amps through > the brain of a mass murderer for a minute or two would result in a > marvelous upgrade. > > I already mentioned the flaw in this reasoning. The law can make mistakes, in fact it often does (plus there are lots of ethnically and politically motivated imprisonments in most countries that shouldn't even be considered crimes by a rational society). I assume you wouldn't like to be framed for a murder you didn't commit and then executed for it, so I think it's only fair to extend the same courtesy to others, don't you? -- 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 post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
