Responsibility

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Sat Jan 22 00:13:50 PST 2000


Justin wrote:


> (1) That there is a social dimension to crime, and in general that the
environment influences what >choices people will make.

Isn't the very distinction between what is and is not a crime the result of a social process, struggle, conflict, domination, all of the above? More than simply there being a 'social dimension' to crime I would have thought. Isn't that the more fundamental issue for us, ie., not whether or not someone should be punished for criminal acts (which seems to get us ranging round debates not much beyond 'free will' and 'determinism', punishment and rehabilitation, etc), but what is and is not constituted as a criminal act?


>We should say things that are false but useful,
> at least in public?

(You've only now just noticed this?)

I happen to think that individual responsibility is an important element in how we might even begin to think about justice. In fact, I don't even suppose that craziness rules someone out of responsibility for their actions. But is it plausible to draw such a firm line between individual and society when it comes to responsibility? Isn't this line drawn in such a way because what has to be decided in any trial is whether or not AN INDIVIDUAL bears responsibility sufficient enough to warrant punishment, incarceration, the death penalty? To put it another way, it seems that too many presumptions are built into this discussion, presumptions that lead us into the antinomies of free will or determinism, individual or social, etc.

In any case, the only reason I might think that this connection between individual responsibility and justice has anything to do with the operations of the law is if I presuppose that the law is capable of meting out justice, which I don't think it is. It is capable of meting out punishment (to those with limited social power), capable of the monetisation of justice in the form of compensation (which has never, for all that, been able to calculate the incalculable that is every injustice), but it is not capable of bringing about justice.

Angela



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