On Sat, 21 Jun 2003 06:56:06 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> 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.)
Wasn't that really Kant's argument in *Critique of Practical Reason*. After having disposed of the traditional arguments for God, immortality, and free will in *Critique of Pure Reason*, Kant in his second Critique attempted to show how these beliefs could be justified on the grounds that they are necessary postulates of the moral life.
> 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
Well as J.S. Mill noted in chpater 5 of his *Utilitarianism*:
"In the case of this, as of our other moral sentiments, there is no necessary connection between the question of its origin, and that of its binding force. That a feeling is bestowed on us by Nature, does not necessarily legitimate all its promptings. The feeling of justice might be a peculiar instinct, and might yet require, like our other instincts, to be controlled and enlightened by a higher reason. If we have intellectual instincts, leading us to judge in a particular way, as well as animal instincts that prompt us to act in a particular way, there is no necessity that the former should be more infallible in their sphere than the latter in theirs: it may as well happen that wrong judgments are occasionally suggested by those, as wrong actions by these."
A little later in that chapter he writes concerning our desire to punish malefactors:
"To recapitulate: the idea of justice supposes two things; a rule of conduct, and a sentiment which sanctions the rule. The first must be supposed common to all mankind, and intended for their good. The other (the sentiment) is a desire that punishment may be suffered by those who infringe the rule. There is involved, in addition, the conception of some definite person who suffers by the infringement; whose rights (to use the expression appropriated to the case) are violated by it. And the sentiment of justice appears to me to be, the animal desire to repel or retaliate a hurt or damage to oneself, or to those with whom one sympathises, widened so as to include all persons, by the human capacity of enlarged sympathy, and the human conception of intelligent self-interest. From the latter elements, the feeling derives its morality; from the former, its peculiar
impressiveness, and energy of self-assertion."
As I understand Mill, he is arguing that, first, we cannot equate the origins of a feeling such as our desire to punish those who hurt us or other members of our social group, with a morally compelling rationale for that desire. For Mill, our desire to punish malefactors can only be defended to the extent that it can be shown to enhance social utility, presumably by incapicitating or rehabilitating malefactors, and by deterring others from acting similarly. The animal desire that we feel to hurt malefactors thus gives our sentiments for justice their emotive force therby helping to make them effective, but cannot in itself provide justification for punishment.
Furthermore, it can be argued that an understanding of both criminal behavior and of our desire to punish criminals, in naturalistic, causal terms can lead to a dimunition of retributive rage. A naturalistic understanding of human behavior will lead us to see that many of the causal determinants of behavior lie outside the individual. Our very dispositions to either punish or withold punishment track causality itself. To the extent that we understand the behavior of the offender to be shaped by external factors, retributive rage will tend to diminish in favor of a determination to address these causal factors. Since the natural purpose of morality, including our retributive impulses, it to shape behavior in ways, that are advantageous to society, we can and should condier whether there are more efficacious, less punitive means for achieving the ends that retribution originally served.
So when you Justin writes: " 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" I would disagree since I can cite a number of instances when people's desires to see an offender who did bad things suffer, diminished once they were able to understand that offender's behavior in causal terms. Thus, as my friend Tom Clark pointed out the jury that convicted Susan Smith of drowning her children was able to be convinced not to give her the death penalty because her defense attorneys were able to show the jury how her behavior could be understood in causal terms. http://world.std.com/~twc/freewill2.htm
Jim F.
>
> 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
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
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