This is the first in a series of posts, inspired by David Bentley Hart's book That All Shall Be Saved. I'm currently struggling with his potent arguments put forward by him in favor of universalism. This is an argument the book inspired me to write.
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Any defect in a rational creature is intrinsically evil.
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An omnibenevolent being can't will an intrinsically evil state of affairs as an end in itself.
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God is omnibenevolent.
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A retributive theory of justice states that causing a defect in a rational creature can be intrinsically good.
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God cannot will a defect in a rational creature as an end in itself. (1, 2, 3)
(C) Hence, God's justice doesn't fit the definition of retributive justice. (4, 5)
Let me also offer an intuitive reflection on retributive justice. Suppose that a sadist tortures a bunch of people to death, which is indeed gravely evil. Then he dies and God judges him. Would it make sense to say that God actively punishes him for what he did (not to reform him, but as an end in itself), thereby stacking the intrinsic evil of a rational creature (in this case, the sadist) suffering on top of the already horrific pile of evil caused by that rational creature? I simply fail to see how that makes the situation any better, morally. It just seems that God would be adding pointless evil to the already evil situation, which is contrary to God's goodness.
This entails some important properties of Hell. The suffering of Hell, by whomever it is willed, clearly falls under (2), since it is an end in itself, as damned persons cannot be reformed by undergoing their suffering. Therefore, we are logically compelled to say that the suffering of Hell is self-imposed, if we want to avoid the conclusion that God is not omnibenevolent. The alternative would be to call (1) and (2) into question (thereby disarming my reduction ad absurdum argument). Both of these premises seem obviously true to me, however.
As the news came out that the jury found Chauvin guilty on all counts, I found many of my friends feel a sense of relief. I readily admit that of the possible outcomes in the U.S. criminal justice system, this was my most preferred indifferent.
However, several friends felt a need for retribution against Chauvin. The harshest sentence possible for the officer who killed George Floyd. I cannot help but understand their position. Before I found Stoicism, I would have readily agreed with them.
But now, I understand that Stoic Justice is not retributive. True Justice would see meaningful reforms to mitigate against such circumstances from occurring again. It would mean seeking meaningful support for Floyd's family. It would mean accepting the collective social culpability we all share by for so long accepting and supporting injustices committed by those intended to exact justice. These are not comfortable realizations. Some will call me a hypocrite, others an apologist. I respect that, but reject that.
We must all seek greater Justice, not just against those who commit injustice but for those who endure it and against those systems that perpetuate it.
Be well, prokopton.
Also do you have to be a compatiblist to support retributive justice ? Are there good arguments against retributive justice even assuming compatiblism
Iโm having a difficult time wrapping my head around the difference between the two, as every definition Iโve read is fairly complicated.
- The New Yorker, (1996)
Here's something that caught my mind in the last episode. What is more important - some sort of end to the conflict in terms of restorative justice or is it sentencing Serena and Fred to maximum terms to compensate what they did to their victims? Because the latter may preclude the former. Serena could be of great value to the US as a witness against Fred and against Gilead. As evil as it is to allow her freedom, that is how conflicts end - evil people get freedom. But at the same time, Serena and Fred's victims deserve justice. June and every other woman deserve justice for what happened to them. They deserve to see Fred and Serena hang. And that is the great conflict. Is justice important or is the end of the war important?
This is a follow-up to my last post on left-wing position on "tough-on-crime" policies.
>I've grown accustomed to the idea that the left broadly defined was opposed to the death penalty, torture, and tough-on-crime policies while the right indulges in it. However when I browse news articles I also see many left-lealing folks advocating death penalty (or vigilante action) against pedophiles, rapists, mass shooters, or fascists.
My initial post was interepreted as focused on state-led retributive justice policies, and the death penalty in particular. I've been advised to make another thread to ask about non-state retributive justice policies, specifically in two cases:
- Vigilantism
- Community-led retributive policies.
- Punitive policies carried by non-state left-wing groups (eg the CNT-FAI and Mahknovista)
My perception is that the left's has no problem with those 3 as it only opposes state-led retributive policies, but not retributivism in general, as long as it's directed at people who deserve it. I have this perception because I've seen many anarchists on r/debateanarchism and r/anarchy101 as well as libcom.org defending the death penalty as the only way to deal with unreformably dangerous people, as well as reactionaries, within a society where prisons have been abolished (I believe they are correct, I support prison reform but not prison abolition for this reason). Is my perception correct?
Are their any situations the death penalty would be okay? Or more nuanced, if someone breaks into your house and you kill them is that acceptable? What about if you murder your rapist in self defence? I ask these questions in good faith because Iโm trying to become more rehabilitative in my ways of thinking but need to hear what everyone thinks
Foreign "aye" for an eye for an eye.
I guess I'd be addressing Catholicism, but I'm not to familiar with each of the sects.
It seems that in the places I frequent trans-formative and restorative justice are the most widely accepted ideas, with retribution being treated as the Big Bad. Are there any modern philosophers who really try to respond to and take seriously the criticisms that pro restorative/transformative justice level at it? And maybe come up with some criticisms of those two other views of justice?
I had a small conversation on retribution with a classmate earlier. I'm going to share a bit of it here;
Me: "If someone punched you, you would punch them back to take revenge, right?".
Classmate: "If punching is immoral, isn't it always immoral? But also, if punching should be punished with being punched, shouldn't I also be punished with being punched again after punching the one that punched me? Revenge only creates a vicious circle to me"
Me: "Well, I don't think that if you were to punch the one that punched you then that would mean that now it's you who can be punched again. Revenge is supposed to make both parties equal by having the one who gave punishment receive punishment. If someone punches you in the face and you punch them back, they can't say that now they will punch you to even things since your punching them back was itself to even things, in retribution. When you punched them back you both ended up receiving a punch which means you are now equal."
Classmate: "You proceed from the assumptions that punching the one who punched is justice, but that's not necessarily true. If we agree that punching is unjust, by doing "one punch for one punch" you may actually get more injustice, because you had one person who committed something unjust by punching, and now you have two. They may be equal, but equally unjust. Equality and justice are not the same thing"
This conversation peaked my interest, and so I am here now to ask: How do the defenders of retributive justice here argue against what my classmate said to me? And what are the best arguments for retributive justice and revenge?
According to the hard determinists I had conversations with, advancements in neuroscience and related fields have shown that every action results from some combination of biological predispositions, neurological circumstances, and environmental influences, which makes every action unwilled and not immoral/unethical, therefore absolved of all attributions of credit, blame, and responsibility.
When there is an absence of free will, or a limited free will, they say one is not a moral agent, is not blameworthy and can not be held responsible, and their action can not be wrong/immoral/unethical either, therefore they should not be punished.
This view can be seen in other places, where insanity, necessity and duress are considered excuses and/or justifications for immoral/unethical actions.
They say that if someone is insane (mentally ill such as severely schizophrenic for instance), their free will is very limited. They are mentally impaired, are incapable of understanding what they do, and lack moral agency, therefore whatever they do can not be immoral/unethical. Even if their actions are unethical/immoral, they can not be blamed and punished (e.g. sent to prison) for committing immoral/unethical actions.
If someone is in a situation they are faced with the risk to injury, etc, such as under duress, then they say their free will is limited due to coercion, so they are actually a victim as well, and either their actions can not be immoral/unethical or if their actions are unethical/immoral they should not be blamed and sent to prison for said actions.
There are many examples for this view, they say if someone is starving, and has no food, it's not immoral/unethical for them to steal, as food is necessary for them to survive.
Or if someone is faced with a situation where they either have to >!rape!< someone else or be shot, it is not immoral/unethical for them to >!rape!< because it wouldn't be >!rape!< anymore. The one threatening them is the >!rapist!<, not the one >!"raping"!< because they are also a victim of >!rape!< in this situation for being threatened, making the act not rape because we have two victims here.
I have another example here: https://imgur.com/sxXqwqF
The commenter claims >!rape is not always immoral, it can be moral, or at least not immoral, e.g. when under duress, or it's for self-defense, a situation where someone has to rape or get shot, or one has to rape someo
... keep reading on reddit โกA part of my essay is to discuss the different purposes of sentencing. Firstly, I'm writing about retributive justice, where I understand what it means (eye for an eye) and the issues associated with it and proportionality (subjectiveness and ambiguity). Part of my question is to discuss the extent is it relected in the CJS and I'm having a serious writers block - icneed to discuss policies, relevant agencies and specific cases. How is RJ reflected, by minimum sentences? What else? ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
I mean the euroamerican, judeochristian culture. Forgiveness of all sins is one of the core teachings of Christianity which is often the belief of the same people who stress retributive justice, i.e. criminal punishments as a revenge for evil behavior. I bet this paradox is a coincidence, conservative people tend to be more religious and more keen on retributive punishments - in this case, Christianity evolved a rather progressive approach but the dissonance is probably not blatant enough to change anyone's mind.
Hi everyone, so I was wondering what is the rationale for retributive justice. In this context retributive justice entails that when someone has been wronged dealing out a punishment is a goal in itself. So it is distinct from punishing people for the sake of deterring future crime or for the sake of rehabilitation. In a sense it can be understood as punishment for the sake of punishment. Is such form of justice ethical?
Title says it all, because I really canโt seem to articulate my ideas too well on this.
Basically, my point is that when you internalize the ideas that you have done something wrong, and retributive justice is justice, that means you need to suffer to atone and punish yourself accordingly, consciously or not.
Thoughts?
If the community deals with the aftermath of a violent event on a case by case basis, isnโt there a danger of communes taking revenge rather than working to heal and reform? How can this be rectified in an anarchist society?
From Wikipedia:
> Retributive justice is a theory of punishment that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that he or she suffer in return. It also requires that the response to a crime is proportional to the offence. Prevention of future crimes (deterrence) or rehabilitation of the offender are other purposes of punishment. Retribution is different from revenge because retributive justice is directed only at wrongs, has inherent limits, is not personal and involves no pleasure at the suffering of others[1] and employs procedural standards.
And Nietzsche's concept of slave morality:
> According to Nietzsche, masters are creators of morality; slaves respond to master morality with their slave morality. Unlike master morality, which is sentiment, slave morality is based on re-sentimentโdevaluing that which the master values and the slave does not have. As master morality originates in the strong, slave morality originates in the weak. Because slave morality is a reaction to oppression, it vilifies its oppressors. Slave morality is the inverse of master morality. As such, it is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. Slave morality is created in opposition to what master morality values as "good".
Would it be accurate to describe retributive justice (including non-legal forms of justice, like "revenge" in general) as a form of slave morality, as it is concerned with "getting even" with or punishing the perceived wrong-doer, even if there is no real reason to do so, other than because one wants revenge? I disagree with this line in the Wikipedia definition:
> Retribution is different from revenge because retributive justice is directed only at wrongs, has inherent limits, is not personal and involves no pleasure at the suffering of others[1] and employs procedural standards.
...as it seems to not consider the idea that retribution is just revenge, formalized at the social and cultural level.
It seems to me that a master morality system of justice would focus more on deterrence or rehabilitation, or be completely disinterested in the subject, as its adherents are focused on their own potential and goals and not on the wrongdoings of the past. If someone does something "wrong" i.e. undesirable or bad, the main purpose of punishment/justice would be to prevent them from getting in the way of the masters, and not to inflict a punishment for an ethical failing.
Is this a correct reading? If not:
- Is master/slave morality a useful to
I'm not exactly sure how to approach this issue and similar issues to it. For example, let's say an evil demon is born. This demon is evil by its very nature. It murders and steals and rapes, anything it can to cause suffering to others. The demon didn't "choose" to be evil, it just was born that way. Is retributive justice (jail, torture, death; 'eye for eye' levels of retribution for its crimes) in any way justified against this demon?
