On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 16:40:31 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> The basis that I advocate for capital punishment of war criminals and
> criminals against humanity is not deterrence, but retribution --
> constrained revenge. No doubt they would not be deterred. They don't
> expect to be caught. The idea is that thedy have done things that
> are so bad that they have forfeited their right to live. jks
I wonder if Justin can provide us with a coherent defense of retribution as a rationale for punishment. Most philosophical defenses for retribution, from Rousseau and Kant onwards, have grounded the defense of retribution in terms of the notion of free will. Is Justin's defense of retribution similarly grounded in the idea of a contra-causal free will? If not, how would it be grounded? How would he answer people like Ted Honderich who would argue that without such a notion of free will, there can be no coherent defense of retribution?
Jim F.
>
> JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:>I wonder if these recurrent
> >discussion themes are a spiral or a circle
>
> We hope an upward rather than a downward spiral.
>
> So we know the death penalty isn't a deterrent for most violent
> crime, but is
> it a deterrent for the likes of Kissinger or Pinochet? (Recognizing
> that the
> sample of those who faced such a deterrent is damnably small.)
> There's the
> theory that the threat of revolution (or actual neighboring
> revolutions)
> sometimes restrains these types from more egregious crimes.
>
> Jenny Brown
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