I have a hypothetical. Let’s say we know someone has committed a murder at the age of 25. It was brutal and totally unjustified. Now said person is 35, is remorseful of what he’s done, and is an altogether sweet guy. His victims’ family have forgiven him.
Let’s say we are clairvoyant and knowhe will never commit any kind of crime again, and not only that but he will discover a universal cure for cancer if they aren’t imprisoned at the age of 65. Should they be put in jail, or should they be allowed freedom knowing what they will do?
Oh it is hypothetical alright. It can’t be anything but when it absolutely cannot happen. But let’s say the sort of person who would brutally murder someone would or even could develop the sort of devotion to society and concern for others that they have already proven they could go to the polar opposite of. It doesn’t change the fact they owe the life they took. Nothing will ever change that. Any allowing of less than full payment of that is not justice but kindness. In most cases ill placed kindness because allowing them out could well cause more death to innocents but you have stipulated he will not only not hurt as he has proven he is capable but cure cancer if not imprisoned and given a catch 22. Justice would have to be sacrificed for greater good of course.
Let me know when you invent the clairvoyant machine. Until then this hypothetical is a load of manure. It is way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more likely that anyone proven capable of killing brutally and without just cause would continue to harm than help society.
Call it simplistic but my answer to that is generally going to be that if the person you murdered is still dead then you should still be getting punished for the murder.
As for clairvoyance, suppose you had a clairvoyant vision when this guy was only 15. You know that he’s going to brutally murder an innocent person in ten years. You can easily prevent the crime from happening without harming anyone. The guy will never commit a crime - but he also won’t go on to develop a cure for cancer.
Do you stand aside and let the murder occur in order to get an eventual cancer cure?
The Op is a little forceful in what he/she says, but there is a good deal of valid criticism of our current Justice Systems in what is said.
We have developed (especially in the US and UK, less so in more socially advanced countries like Germany, Scandinavia etc.) a fairly vengeful system of justice where satisfaction of the mob is more important than solving the problem of crime. We over-use prison in numbers sent there and length of time mandated with no cognisence given to real effect. The US against the flow of Western Civilization insists on using judicial homicide as an answer when it is merely a method of revenge dlievered clinically and judicially.
The manner in which we parcel up anti-social acts at the boundaries is indicative and the crossover between the categories of responsible and irresponsible persons is educative- look at why children, the mentally disordered and the otherwise non-normal people are excluded from criminal responsibility and their rule breaking treated as educable and trainable or excusable, and the mass of ‘criminals’ requiring essentially punishment. There is a very strange boundary between Mental Disorder Diagnostic categories and criminality- many practitioners would hold that it is a distinction without a difference!
The sociology of crime supports this contention. Almost all serious crime is committed by men under the age of 35. Very little serious crime is committed by the rest of society. Criminal behavior seems to reduce rapidly in men after the age of 25, being virtually extinguished by the time someone is 35.
A vengence based system of justice will not work going forwards (if it ever did).
The notion of free will doesn’t make sense, and as our understanding of neurology increases we will find more reasons for reducing culpability for crimes.
Generally, we don’t punish those that are 0% culpable (e.g. someone that kicks someone while having an epileptic fit), so reduced culpability will be a problem for retribution-based systems.
OTOH systems based on taking corrective action going forwards – how can protect society and how can we turn around the criminal – won’t be affected (except of course our knowledge may allow us to directly correct some neurological pathologies).
This hypothetical is so thoroughly detached from reality that it’s meaningless. When we have clairvoyance, these sorts of questions will have value. Being a good sport, though, I’ll answer anyway:
But only being changed is possible without free will. We’re unable to change ourselves without free will. So by your argument, we should just continue to do things the way we’ve been doing them and wait for some outside force to change us. Lacking free will, a criminal can’t choose to stop committing crimes. And lacking free will, we can’t choose to stop punishing criminals.
Yeah but your brain and your conscious decision-making process are part of the “conditions”.
Or look at it like this: your life is on rails.
However, your mind, and your conscious thoughts, are not merely passengers on the train; they’re actually a fundamental part of the process of laying and directing track.
You must be thinking of fatalism, or something like it.
In determinism a criminal absolutely can choose not to commit crimes.
In the future you will choose what you will choose, just like in the past you chose what you chose. It’s a tautology, but it’s a necessary one to make, because some people wish to believe in incoherent notions like “could have chosen differently”.
My conscious thoughts are subject to conditions of their own that determine them, though. If determinism is correct, there is no point at which I can be said to have a choice.
If I’m sat next to a hot fireplace I might choose to move further away. Now of course my choice was determined by my neurology and nervous system – I’m hard-wired to dislike getting too hot. But what other kind of choice can there be?
A choice is where I exercise a preference, absent any preference would it make any sense to talk about choosing?
So in the future I will look back and see that I couldn’t have chosen differently in regards to “punishing” criminals. Got it.
I still don’t understand why placing criminals with their own kind is punishment for them. If I’m put with my kind it isn’t punishment for me. What we are doing is segregating them from those who are not like them and would be harmed by them. We aren’t beating them. We aren’t doing to them what they would do to us. We are seperating them. To not seperate them would be to punish society with their presence which apparently even they cannot stand. At the end of a measure of time they can choose not to be with or even be their kind any more. They lose a measure of time with good people. That’s all.
Oops. I mean in the future they will look back and discover that they couldn’t have chosen differently in wanting to be with fellow criminals or good people on the outside. At any rate it’s no fault all around for punishers and punished and whether or not you think you have been either is relative as well. Sweet dreams are made of these. No free will and no fault goes both ways. This crap about you can choose now to think differently but in the future look back and see you couldn’t have chosen is insane.
It’s more than being hard-wired to dislike getting too hot. For you to have “chosen” to move means that, given the conditions you were under, nothing else could have happened. This is true of your thoughts, as well: given the conditions, no other thoughts were possible. And of the conditions that gave rise to the conditions that caused your thoughts: nothing else was possible.
This is (one of) my problems with (incompatibilist) determinism. How can you be said to be exercising a preference, when no other choice was possible? If determinism is true, it doesn’t make sense to talk about choosing.
When you make a choice, you weigh up the factors, which include your own preferences, and come to a decision. That decision-making process is real.
There’s no way I could predict your decision without simulating your mind perfectly (which of course is analogous to making a perfect copy of you and asking it what it would do).
All I’m saying is, notions like “could have chosen differently” make no sense. It’s akin to rewinding a video tape and expecting to see something different this time. Why would you?
Give the same mind the same choice in the same circumstances (and “circumstances” here includes memories/knowledge) of course it will make the same decision.
Not in itself, but the lack of freedom is the issue.
Most people like to go places and do things, and may wish to fraternize with members of the opposite gender.