That inspired my question; how about if they chop off the foot to use as a replacement for your lost foot? Assuming we had the technology to do so safely and reliably, would it be just/desirable to surgically remove the appropriate parts from someone convicted of mutilating someone in an attack to replace the damage they did? Is “eye for an eye” just if the second eye is being used to replace the first? On the one hand the idea is kind of creepy; on the other, the analogy with forcing a thief to pay back what they stole is obvious.
To address the question perhaps a bit more seriously: well — why not? Allow for argument the truth of the following statements.
The perpetrator § is responsible for depriving the victim (V) of something of great value (S), without access to which a person (P or V or anyone in general) faces significant ongoing difficulty of a nature left unspecified. This could be physical, financial, or emotional hardship, for example.
The motives for P’s actions, and the methods she used to carry them out, are such that the majority of persons would find P morally culpable. She did not act for any reason that may plausibly ameliorate her level of culpability — it was not self-defense; it was premeditated; it was not done out of desperation or for “the greater good”.
After its deprivation from V, S is used up: the limb is rotted and cannot be reattached; or the money is spent; or the sentimental belongings have been destroyed; etc.
However, P possesses an analogue to S — call it T — which would largely restore to V what he had lost. Although T could be confiscated from P and given to S, in the process this would effect similar long-term hardship in P.
Would the confiscation in 4 be justified? Given the culpability of P (2), combined with the wholly reparative — not vengeant — nature of the confiscation (4), it would be difficult for me to argue against its justice. Which isn’t to claim this would ever be practical. You can’t take money from a bankrupt criminal; even if we could transplant limbs between any two individuals there is no indication that they would be of the correct size, color, shape. (Would a black, female dwarf want to sport the hand of a 6’7" male albino?)
However … if a criminal can make things right, then why would it be wrong in principle for the law to force the matter?
What makes this seem a bit harrier to me is the notion of what to do when reparations can’t easily be made. If someone steals $100,000 and wastes it all on hookers and blow, he clearly can’t pay it back. Would it be morally permissible to force labor, or at least to garnish wages, for a significant period of time? And if we did so, would it still be right to jail him?
I’d say it’s different because the subject here is the restoration to the victim of something wrongfully taken from him. On the other hand, nobody’s helped by forcing those parents to die in the desert.
We don’t. Organ transplants are complicated and dangerous, and the recipients - the people who are the crime victims in the hypothetical - have a difficult row to hoe, and encouraging them to have elective transplants on top of whatever physical trauma they suffered seems like a bad idea.
unusual definitely but not cruel.
the perp would not have to suffer, we have pain meds.
and the perp could easily get a prosthesis. If its good enough for the vic its good enuf for the perp.
As for the OP, if it were that easy to do, medically, it wouldn’t be necessary. There are plenty of organ donors who could donate a foot. I don’t see what we’d gain by allowing ourselves to brutalize an individual, even if that person committed a heinous crime. Our principles in this area should not be changed due to technology.
By that logic, nobody suffers from pain, including the victim. So why bother? By the way, if doctors have an ethical problem with participating in executions - as many of them do - wouldn’t this be an even bigger problem? There’s no way to square it with “First, do no harm.” It’s hijacking the medical profession for use as an instrument of torture.
Look at Larry Niven’s “organ bank” stories for some interesting extrapolation on this topic. Obviously the attacker’s body parts might not be suitable for the victim, but they’d be suitable for * somebody *. So in cases of capital crimes, instead of the electric chair or needle, you disassemble the perp and hand out the parts to deserving citizens. Originally, this would be for perps that deserve capital punishment. But there’s always going to be more sick and desperate people who need organs and limbs and being convicted of a crime and waking up in pieces is liable to be a big deterrent to crime. So…you start sending people to the organ banks for crimes like rape and drunk driving manslaughter, and eventually, you start disassembling people who got third strikes on traffic tickets. It’s a bit of a slippery slope.
How does the victim not suffer from pain unless the perp used narcotics to lessen his pain during the foot extraction which in this hypothetical case, he did not?
and as far as doctors having a problem, I don’t see it, as many doctors are involved in executions and doctors who have ethical issues with certain procedures are always excused from performing them.
And John, from your snide comment, I assume you assume I approve of this punishment and your assumption would be incorrect. I am simply responding to the comment that it would be cruel.
I don’t think anybody proposed that the criminal actually removed the victim’s foot, just that the foot no longer worked because of the crime. Regardless, by the time of the procedure, the victim would be on pain medication. He’d have to heal before you could do something like this.
The number of executions in the U.S. per year is pretty small, and I think it’s actually become difficult to find a doctor who is willing to participate. Regardless, in the execution, the doctor oversees the execution but doesn’t kill anyone. He does not hurt anyone, although his participation does allow the execution to proceed. In this situation, the doctor is the one who administers the punishment. You would need a doctor willing to remove a patient’s foot or eye against the will of the patient. It sounds like the most straightfoward violation of the Hippocratic Oath that anybody could imagine.
It was a joke. We have a culture here of noting interesting posts/username combos.
But I reject the idea that it isn’t cruel to intentionally amputate someone’s foot, even if no pain is involved. You’ve just rendered the person handicapped for life.
But if we consider the real implications of the OP, that technology is sufficiently advanced to ensure transplant, then surely the offender will also get (or at least try to get) a transplant himself. Which goes to my original point-- skip the double process and get the victim a transplant from a donor. The criminal can pay for the procedure (and other damages).
