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Punishment

HungryJoeHungryJoe
edited April 2011 in Flamewars
If something is "kind and normal" as opposed to "cruel and unusual", is it punishment? What is "cruel and unusual"? Is punishment effective if we lack free will? Would punishment be more effective if it were administered in a Starship Troopers fashion?

Comments

  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    edited April 2011
    The sad fact of the matter is that punishment is "cruel and normal" - it is kindness to criminals that is unusual. In the absence of free will, punishment can still potentially be effective as a deterrent, though.

    In general, a lot of punishment is justified on the basis of so-called "retributive justice", which I'd say is little different from revenge and is plainly immoral. I can see where the idea comes from, as the capacity for revenge is something that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, similarly to how the tit for tat strategy is effective in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. However, simply because we evolved with it does not make it moral - we can do better.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • gomidoggomidog
    edited April 2011
    How I define good punishment is something that is unpleasant, but is implemented to cause a change in the target's behavior for the good. It's kind of like drinking a bitter tonic to cure an illness. Anything that is painful for the sake of being painful, or would damage the target more than help them be better is not good punishment. Torture is not to make someone better, it is for revenge, mostly. Punishment should be uncomfortable, but not horribly damaging.

    Spraying a cat with a bottle of water so it will stop eating the spider plant is punishment. It is uncomfortable, but it works in teaching.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • RymRym
    Punishment is only warranted if it demonstrably reduces recidivism or has a deterrent effect.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    What about Starship Troopers? Both the movie and the book had things to say about punishment.
  • Special ASpecial A
    edited April 2011
    What about Starship Troopers? Both the movie and the book had things to say about punishment.
    Redacted: my brain is a dead husk.
    Post edited by Special A on
  • zehaevazehaeva
    What about Starship Troopers? Both the movie and the book had things to say about punishment.
    IIRC Heinlein gave the example of swatting a dog on the nose to keep it from peeing on the carpet and alluding to that humans are just the same.

    While it may ruffle some feathers I can't say I disagree with Mr. Heinlein too much. It is something that should be well thought out however. Doling out pain just for pain sake isn't the way. Nor is punishment for the sake of revenge. Doing so with the express purpose behaviour modification is in the right direction however, I can't think of a way to implement such a thing at all. Too many times in our history it has gone horribly wrong.
  • Special ASpecial A
    To put something useful here, Rym's statement is too broad. Should punishments be a deterrent? If a deterrent, wouldn't harsher punishments be more effective than milder ones? Are there no limits? How far then down the list do capital or corporal punishments extend, being the obvious choice for maximum deterrence? How much of the right to your life do you forfeit by breaking a given law, if any? Do deterrents do anything at all to affect the conditions that led to breaking the law in the first place? Even saying that they should have a demonstrative effect on lawbreaking doesn't address the range of punishment severity used for measuring that effect. By their nature deterrent punishments need to be in place for a while and actually imposed before their effect can be measured, and at what end of the severity spectrum do you start your punitive measures? Is it right to subject a person to a punishment that you don't know is effective? Is it right to subject them to a more severe punishment than their crime deserves in order to prevent others from committing it?

    I think a part of the issue is the nature of enforcement. All infractions cannot be prosecuted, and that encourages deterrent punishments since you're relying on everyone to police themselves to a certain extent. If 99% of people get away with breaking a law, then the punishment needs to be severe enough to prevent the less moral members of our society from playing the odds.

    Another part of the issue is privacy. I think a majority of people actually prefer lower enforcement of more severe punishments because that leaves them free to make the choice to break laws based on their own individual judgement. I saw a panel on nanotechnology that raised the privacy issue. Given infinite video data storage (thanks to nanotechnology) would the panelists support using 24/7 observation to enforce car-seat laws for children. Its not an issue of personal judgement, because that person is responsible for the safety of a minor and not just themselves. It wasn't an issue of deterrence, because the punishment for infractions was a small fine every time the law was broken as opposed to a large fine when it was caught by spot-checking. No one could make a reasonable argument against the necessity of car-seats, yet all but one of the panelists was uncomfortable with round-the-clock (assumed secure and trustworthy) surveillance for this explicit and sole purpose, and the only one who was in favor was the one who advocated an Orwellian approach to surveillance as a response to 9/11 anyway.

    Obviously I believe a rehabilitative approach to punishment is much better than a deterrent one, and in my opinion the corporal punishments we now forgo in favor of imprisonment and fines are just one side of the deterrent coin. I think we should go the other direction entirely.
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