[lbo-talk] Dean: hang 'em high!

[andie nachgeborenen]

Brief sketch of a retributivist argument that doesn't depend on a nondeterminist assuimption. This is undeveloped; mkaybe someday I'll work this up for publicvation, but haven't yet. Main idea is pragmatic: there are (a) lots of beliefs we have that don't need justification unless specific grounds for doubt arise. (Determinism only attacks a rationale for retributivism, not the thesis itself.) (2_ There are lots og beliefs we have that may lack direct justification, or are even very hard to justify, but derive their support from the place they serve in our web of belief, such that they demand that the rest of our believes be organized around them to keep those beliefs true. Free will may be sucha  belief. (It's not obvious that this is incomptaible with determinsim.) So is what Bernard Williams called agent-centeredness -- the idea that moderate self interest, taking in one's friends and family, is inescapable -- it's hard to explain why my kids shouled be more important to me than

 anyone else's, but they are, and I won't seriously entertain any argument to the contrary. Well, after that set-up, the idea that bad things should happen to those who do bad things is arguably such a belief, a fixed point, not really revisable in the face of any argument we could imagine. Btw, rationalizing punishment _at all_ under any circumstances, is very difficult. Almost all punishment is retributive, and deterrence is not a particularly plausible rationale in many cases. maybe even most. jks

Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 16:40:31 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
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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> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 
> 
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